The open source media player was publically released in 2001
by non-profit organization VideoLAN Project. VLC Media Player quickly became very popular thanks to its versatile multi-format playback capabilities.
It was
aided by compatibility and codec issues which rendered competitor media players
like QuickTime, Windows and Real Media Player useless to many popular video and
music file formats. The easy, basic UI and huge array of customization options
have enforced VLC Media Player’s position at the top of the free media players.
Flexibility
VLC plays almost any video or music file format you can find. At its launch
this was a revolution compared to the default media players most people were
using that often crashed or displayed “codecs missing” error messages when
trying to play media files. VLC can play MPEG, AVI, RMBV, FLV, QuickTime, WMV,
MP4 and a shed load of other media file formats. For a full list of compatible
file formats please click here. Not only can VLC Media Player handle loads of
different formats, VLC can also playback partial or incomplete media files so
you can preview downloads before they finish.
Easy to Use
VLC’s UI is definitely a case of function over beauty. The basic look does
however make the player extremely easy to use. Simply drag and drop files to
play or open them using files and folders then use the classic media navigation
buttons to play, pause, stop, skip, edit playback speed, change the volume,
brightness, etc. A huge variety of skins and customization options mean the
standard appearance shouldn’t be enough to prevent you choosing VLC as your
default media player.
Advanced Options
Don’t let VLC Media Player’s simple interface fool you, within the playback,
audio, video, tools and view tabs are a huge variety of player options. You can
play with synchronization settings including a graphic equalizer with multiple
pre-sets, overlays, special effects, AtmoLight video effects, audio spatializer
and customizable range compression settings. You can even add subtitles to
videos by adding the SRT file to the video’s folder.
Summary
VLC Media Player is quite simply the most versatile, stable and high quality
free media player available. It has rightly dominated the free media player
market for over 10 years now and looks like it may for another 10 years thanks
to the constant development and improvement by VideoLAN Org.
