VLC media player (VLC for short = abbreviation of VideoLAN Client) is a free, open-source and cross-platform multimedia player developed by VideoLAN from France. VideoLAN was originally a project plan of the students at École Centrale Paris (ECP) started in 2001, with members from all over the world. It originally consisted of VideoLAN Client (VLC) and VideoLAN Server (VLS) these two programs. However, because most of the VLS functionalities had been integrated into VLC, they eventually renamed this project VLC media player.

In the media playing field, only very few players can compete with the most classic MPlayer (from Hungary) for the title of “The best media player”, and VLC media player is one of them. It supports Windows, Mac, Linux, BSD, BeOS, Pocket PC, Solaris, QNX, iOS, Syllable… almost all platforms, a wide range of audio and video formats, as well as various streaming protocols, without the need to install any codecs (coders, decoders). In addition, it was also the first media player to achieve hardware acceleration on Windows/Mac/Linux these 3 OS platforms. Although its performance had been quite excellent before that.

Compared with many other multimedia players, VLC media player comes with at least 3 special skills:

• Plays “incomplete” (e.g.: the download is incomplete) video. Of course, the file extension of an “incomplete” video file is not supported by default, so all you need to do is just to change it to the file extension it should be manually
• Plays the downloading multimedia files directly (that is to direct watch while downloading)
• Supports the playback of multiple video files within an RAR archive, without having to decompress them one by one beforehand

VLC media player’s video playback does not have the highest definition, but it is one of the smoothest and runs very fast – at least its startup and running speeds are both several times faster than PotPlayer and KMPlayer from South Korea. And although it’s not the only option for free audio/video playback, it should be one of the best multimedia players, at least for now it is.

// Supported Media Formats //

Video

MPEG-1/2, DivX® (1/2/3/4/5/6), MPEG-4 ASP, XviD, 3ivX D4, H.261, H.263 / H.263i, H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC, Cinepak, Theora, Dirac / VC-2, MJPEG (A/B), WMV 1/2, WMV 3 / WMV-9 / VC-1, Sorenson 1/3, DV, On2 VP3/VP5/VP6, Indeo Video v3 (IV32), Real Video (1/2/3/4).

Audio

MPEG Layer 1/2, MP3 – MPEG Layer 3, AAC – MPEG-4 part3, Vorbis, AC3 – A/52, E-AC-3, MLP / TrueHD>3, DTS, WMA 1/2, WMA 3, FLAC, ALAC, Speex, Musepack / MPC, ATRAC 3, Wavpack, Mod, TrueAudio, APE, Real Audio, Alaw/µlaw, AMR (3GPP), MIDI, LPCM, ADPCM, QCELP, DV Audio, QDM2/QDMC, MACE.

Other

DVD, Text files (MicroDVD, SubRIP, SubViewer, SSA1-5, SAMI, VPlayer), Closed captions, Vobsub, Universal Subtitle Format (USF), SVCD / CVD, DVB, OGM, CMML, Kate. ID3 tags, APEv2, Vorbis comment.

// Supported Advanced Formats //

Input Media

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.

Input Formats

MPEG (ES,PS,TS,PVA,MP3), AVI, ASF / WMV / WMA, MP4 / MOV / 3GP, OGG / OGM / Annodex, Matroska (MKV), Real, WAV (including DTS), Raw Audio: DTS, AAC, AC3/A52, Raw DV, FLAC, FLV (Flash), MXF, Nut, Standard MIDI / SMF, Creative™ Voice.

Miscellaneous

SAP/SDP announces, Bonjour protocol, Mozilla/Firefox plugin, ActiveX plugin, SVCD Menus, Localization, CD-Text, CDDB CD info, IGMPv3, IPv6, MLDv2, CPU acceleration.

// Related Links //

• VLC media player Skins Download
• VLC media player Addons Download
• VLC media player Skin Editor

// Prompts //

• After repeated tests, we found that there were too many Bugs in VLC, such as: the “black screen” bug (only sound, no picture) without official solution. Finally, we have to add a “blacklisted” tag on this tool.

// Download URLs //

License	Version	Download	Size
Freeware	Latest		n/a

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