VLC Media Player

Download VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player a free and open-source multimedia Player created to play all popular multimedia files, as well as DVD, VCD, SVCD, Audio CD, VCD, various streaming protocols and devices including DVB or webcams, and more.

This popular media player works with MPEG-2, DivX, MPEG-4, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3, RealMedia formats without the need to install extra codecs or filters.

What does it mean?

Using VLC, you can play all popular video and audio formats including MPEG (ES, PS, TS, PVA, MP3), AVI, ASF, WMV, WMA, MP4, MOV, 3GP, OGG, OGM, Annodex, Matroska (MKV), Real, WAV (including DTS), and you don’t need to install additional filters or codec. Just download VLC Player.

VLC Player offers much more features than just the option to play video files. Load subtitles files in popular formats including MicroDVD, SubRip, SubViewer, SSA1-5, SAMI, and VPlayer, edit ID3 tag using the built-in editor, use a range of filters allowing you to magnify video, display your logo in videos, improve video quality by changing the color saturation and sharpness parameters, etc.

VLC Media Player download is available for Windows 10 32-bit and 64-bit, Linux, and Mac. The software is 100% safe to use, and it’s free of charges.

Among other interesting features available in VLC video player you will find video cropping, automatic deinterlacing, ability to create screenshots and save your favourite parts of the film to bookmarks, support for UDP/RTP Unicast, UDP/RTP Multicast, HTTP / FTP, MMS, TCP/RTP Unicast, DCCP/RTP Unicast, File, DVD Video, Video CD / VCD, SVCD, Audio CD (no DTS-CD), DVB (Satellite, Digital TV, Cable TV), MPEG encoder, Video acquisition.

VLC Media Player for Windows offers the same set of options as the VLC for Mac version.

VLC Player is also packed with a built-in audio equalizer that allows you to improve the sound quality, supports the accelerated CPU to decode soundtracks encoded in 5.1 and 7.1 systems, varying the speed of video playback. Moreover, VLC video player has the most complete feature-set over the video, subtitle synchronization, video, and audio filters.

VLC Media Player is my favorite video player on Desktop. I used VLC on all Desktop system and it’s my number one choice to play multimedia files. VLC download is available for Windows, Linux, and Mac. You can also find VLC for iOS and Android devices.

When you install VLC you don’t need to download an additional codec to watch movies or play audio files. As you already know VLC offers a lot of tools, and it can be used also as basic video editor, desktop capturing software, free video converter, or DVD Rip software. VLC Player for Windows is packed with the most features, next to Linux. VLC for Mac is not so powerful but still, it’s a great video player.

VLC Media Player Skins

If you don’t like the default look of the VLC Player you can easily download additional skins from VideoLAN website. VLC Media Player skins work only on Windows and Linux. Mac users have to satisfy with the default look of VLC video player skin.

How to install skin for VLC Player? Download a Skin from VLC page and copy it to C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\skins on Windows. If you are a Linux/Unix user copy the skin to ~/.local/share/vlc/skins2.

To change VLC Media Player Skins, navigate to VLC settings and change your interface from native to skins. To activate the selected skin VLC must be restarted.

VLC Media Player features

VLC Media Player is packed with a lot of advanced hidden features. Convert video files, record desktop, save screenshots, cut video, add logo and text, edit videos and more. Let’s learn what kind of advanced features VLC offers, and how can we use them.

Convert Audio and Video files in VLC Player

VLC video player has much more to offer. How to convert video in VLC? You can use VLC co convert audio and video files to any supported formats (DIV3, H.264, VP80, Dirac, Theora, MPEG-2, WMV, OGG, MP3, MP4, FLAC). The option is available under VLC Player Media menu, Convert / Stream.

Record Video and Audio

This useful function available in VLC Media Player allows you to capture video and audio from file that you playing. In VLC Player for Mac the option to record is available from Playback Menu. On VLC for Windows you can activate Record button by selecting Advanced Controls from View menu.

Record Desktop and Webcam in VLC

Yes, using VLC Player it’s easy to record everything what are you doing on desktop. Create screencast, presentation using just VLC. To start recording your desktop or webcam navigate to Media (File on VLC Media Player for Mac) menu and select Open Capture Device. Change capture mode to Desktop or Screen, and click Convert instead Play. To save the record to file you need to use Record function.

Capture Screenshot of Video

To create a screenshot of the played video you don’t need to go to 3rd part software. VLC Player offers a built-in feature to take snapshots. Click right mouse button in player window, and select Snapshot on Mac or Video, and Take Snapshot. You can access this option using a quick keyboard shortcut SHIFT + S on Windows and Linux, and in VLC Media Player for Mac use CMD + ALT + S.

Add watermarks to Video

If you need to add quickly a watermark to any video, there is no need to install additional video editing software. VLC Media Player can add the watermark to any video. On Mac navigate to Windows menu and select Video Effects.

Under Miscellaneous you will find Add logo option. VLC for Windows offers much more options. To add watermark, go to Tools menu, Effects and filters. In the Adjustments and Effect window, click Video Effects and Overlay. Add logo option will be available there.

Rip DVD’s with VLC Player

That’s right, using free VLC Player you can rip DVD, Blu-ray, Audio CD, and SVCD/VCS and save them to disk. Select starting position, chapter, Audio and Subtitle trucks and save the media to file.

To access Rip feature in VLC, navigate to Media (File on VLC Media Player for Mac) and select Convert / Stream. Select Disk and configure available options. You can also disable DVD menus if needed.

Cut / Trim video using VLC

When you need to copy only a fragment of movie you can use VLC video player to do it. You need to use the Record function. Record is available from Playback Menu in VLC Media Player for Mac.

On Windows activate Record button by selecting Advanced Controls from View menu. When you click Record you will set the in point, and when you click Record 2nd time and this will indicate out point. You can watch the movie or move the endpoint using the mouse. The file will be saved to Video folder available in your system.

Split video into multiple monitors

One of the more interesting features packed in VLC is the possibility to create a Wall (Rows and Columns) of Video. Using this function, you can display a crop of one movie simultaneously on a few monitors. If you have 4 monitors you can display the video on 4 of them as one.

To access this function in VLC Player for Windows navigate to Tools menu, Effects, and filters. In the Adjustments and Effect window, click Vout / Overlay. Activate the Wall box and enter how many rows and columns you need.

When you will play the next video will be split into separate VLC windows. This option is also available for Linux and Mac users.

Audio / Video and Subtitle / Video synchronization

If you will encounter a problem regarding desynchronization of audio or subtitles in a movie VLC Media Player can fix in a few simple steps. There is no automatic function available but you can manually change the position of audio or subtitles.

In VLC Player for Mac Track Synchronization feature is available under Window menu. On Windows, you can find its Tools menu, Effects, and filters. In the Adjustments and Effect window, click Synchronization.

Command line examples

Create DVD from video files using advanced VLC. To create a DVD, we need to convert video into DVD MPEG-2 format. VLC command must point to VLC.exe file location. On Windows, you can find VLC.exe in the default installation location available in Program Files.

vlc "C:\Movies\VLCMediaPlayerVideo.asf" :sout=#transcode{vcodec=mp2v,vb=4096,acodec=mp2a,ab=192,scale=1,channels=2}:std{access=file,mux=ps,dst="C:\Movies\VLCMovieDVD.ps.mpg"} --aspect-ratio="4:3" --sout-transcode-width=720 --sout-transcode-height=480 --sout-transcode-fps=29.97 --sout-ffmpeg-keyint=16 --sout-ffmpeg-strict-rc --stop-time=20

Generate thumbnail from video using VLC Player.

vlc C:\Movies\YorVideoFile.mp4 --rate=1 --video-filter=scene --vout=dummy --start-time=10 --stop-time=11 --scene-format=png --scene-ratio=24 --scene-prefix=snap --scene-path=C:\ \Snapshots\ vlc://quit

Extract audio from MP4 file and save it to WAV in VLC

vlc -I dummy --sout "#transcode{acodec=s16l,channels=2}:std{access=file,mux=wav,dst=OUTFILE.wav}" INFILE.mp4 vlc://quit

Merge multiple files in VLC Player

vlc file1.mp3 file2.mp3 file3.mp3 --sout-keep --sout=#gather:transcode{acodec=mp3,ab=128}:standard{access=file,mux=dummy,dst=combinedout.mp3} --sout-all

Add logo to your video using VLC Player

vlc --sub-filter logo --logo-file logo.png video.avi

Convert AVI video to MP4 format compatible with iPhone or iPad

vlc -vvv "video.avi" :sout="#transcode{width=320,canvas-height=240,vcodec=mp4v, vb=768, acodec=mp4a, ab=96, channels=2}:std{access=file, mux=mp4, url=video.mp4}" vlc:quit