Whilst the various media player developers attempt to convince us to use their codec to encode our home video, this means that we often have to have more than one media player installed to play every video, audio and other media, on our computer. Factor in old videos that were encoded using codecs that have been long discontinued, then it becomes a real pain to just play back your collection of movies.
There must be a better way, a way of handling the various audio and video formats, without having to experiment with different media players. There is, it’s called VLC Media Player. This isn’t a recent application, although it’s been ages in development. This is a cross-platform versatile media player that does one thing well: attempts to play just about every format available.
VLC Media Player 3.0.11 is available to all software users as a free download for Windows 10 PCs but also without a hitch on Windows 7 and Windows 8. Compatibility with this VideoLAN client software may vary, but will generally run fine under Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP on either a 32. VLC supports downloading playable videos from the Internet. For example, you can use the VLC video downloader to download videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Liveleak, Dailymotion, BBC, Twitch, etc.
By installing VLC Media Player across your various computers, you can be assured that a video that plays back on your Mac will also play on your PC. It also supports Internet-based media streaming, so you can use the player to listen to a streamed audio stream and much more.
Version 2 brought radical changes, most found on the Mac platform, with support for Blu-ray playback being overshadowed by a radical overhaul of the user interface. This major step forward has divided the VLC community since it first emerged, with some decrying the loss of version 1’s minimalist approach to video playback.
VLC 2 on the Mac platform replaced the simplistic interface of version 1.x in favour of something more akin to iTunes, while also embracing the look of OS X Lion. It opens in Playlist view, with a two-paned window containing a list of common locations for media files in the left-hand pane, and an invitation to drag and drop files into the window for playback on the right.
Media controls sit at the bottom of the window, and there’s a new audio effects option next to the full-screen button, which takes advantage of Lion’s full-screen support. Options in the left-hand window include a shortcut to the user’s iTunes library and a playlist option, as well as UPNP and various internet streams.
VLC for Mac also includes experimental Blu-ray support, plus adds support for VLC’s lua-based extensions. These support various interactive features, such as pulling movie information and subtitles from the internet, or posting to Twitter.
VLC 3 is a major update and ships with these new features:
- Activates hardware decoding by default, to get 4K and 8K playback!
- Supports 10bits and HDR
- Supports 360 video and 3D audio, up to Ambisoncics 3rd order
- Allows audio passthrough for HD audio codecs
- Can stream to Chromecast devices, even in formats not supported natively
- Can play Blu-Ray Java menus: BD-J
- VLC supports browsing of local network drives and NAS
This is a dedicated 64-bit build for Windows and Mac users.
Verdict:
This is the best cross-platform, multi-format versatile media player that will play just about any format
VLC Media Player is a superb media player that does almost everything a media player could do. Not only is it fast and compact, but it brilliantly displays video files without the need to download additional codecs. Users can interact with VLC Media Player by normal mouse buttons or with the mouse wheel to control volume.
The suite of VLC Media Player features are vast, thanks to its reliance on active open source projects making video and other multimedia playback possible and to the community of users and programmers that work on it. Some worth mentioning are its ability to use GPU and hardware decoding, audio and video filters, online media streaming and robust support for both old and new technologies and standards.
While playing videos, you have the option of speed controls and live recording of video streams. It also comes packed with skinning support. Skins can be downloaded from a variety of sites on the web.
New features are released constantly and with newer versions of VLC Media Player, the program will, by default, attempt to download the newest version with your permission. Among the supported video formats like DivX, XviD, AES3, MKV, it also supports playing back of compressed ZIP files!
The media player is fully customizable and provides a number of themes from the web, along with numerous different settings which can be applied to audio or video playback.
VLC is certainly among the very best of media players, be it open-source, commercial or shareware.
VLC Media Player can play DVD video and play bluray video.
Features and highlights
- Simple, fast and powerful media player
- Plays everything: Files, Discs, Webcams, Devices and Streams
- Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed: MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3 and MANY more
- Runs on all platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix
- Completely Free, 0 spyware, 0 ads and no user tracking
- Media Conversion and Streaming
Vlc Download 8
VLC Media Player on 32-bit and 64-bit PCs
This download is licensed as freeware for the Windows (32-bit and 64-bit) operating system on a laptop or desktop PC from media players without restrictions. VLC Media Player 3.0.11 is available to all software users as a free download for Windows 10 PCs but also without a hitch on Windows 7 and Windows 8.
Compatibility with this VideoLAN client software may vary, but will generally run fine under Microsoft Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP on either a 32-bit or 64-bit setup. A separate x64 version of VLC Media Player may be available from VideoLAN Organization.
The program was created by the developer as a freeware product, but donations for the continued development are highly appreciated. You may generally make a donation via the developer's main web site.
Filed under:Vlc Download Mp4
- VLC Media Player Download
- Freeware Media Players
- Open source and GPL software
- Major release: VLC Media Player 3.0
- VideoLAN Client Software