In this article of the best developers we will talk about the multimedia player and framework VLC media player. Its features and its constant growth, due to the contribution of the VideoLAN project, make it one of the most widely used media players.
What is VLC?
VLC is a free multimedia player and framework, developed by the VideoLAN project, that plays almost all audio and video formats existing on the market without needing to install external codecs. Thanks to its performance, we can play a video in Ultra HD “4K” (four times HD resolution) as well as low-quality video.
Apart from playing the vast majority of codecs (short for encoder-decoder) and audio and video formats, the tool also has streaming capability (the digital distribution of multimedia over a computer network).
The History of VLC Media Player
The original VideoLAN project was developed in 1996 as a client and server to transmit over the university campus network. Today, VLC media player is far from that application developed by students (framed in an academic project) and is developed by a worldwide community supervised and coordinated by the VideoLAN organization since 2009.
Features and Characteristics of VLC Media Player
Apart from containing a great variety of codecs, its main characteristic is its simplicity and speed, thanks to its minimalist design. VLC media player only focuses on playing multimedia files without consuming operating system resources (mainly RAM).
We could say that VLC is a universal application, because it plays any multimedia file and because we can run it on almost all operating systems (Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X, BeOS, BSD, eComStation, iOS, Android, etc.). We are really talking about a multiplatform utility.
Another point to highlight of the player is the ease of inserting subtitles and playing media located on the network (you do it from “Media”, “Open network stream”) and you drag the subtitles into the player. (It accepts 3D subtitles.)
Other notable functions of VLC include the possibility of using keyboard shortcuts (short jump forward (10 sec): ALT + Right arrow, short jump backward (10 sec): ALT + Left arrow, very short jump forward (3 sec): SHIFT + Right arrow, very short jump backward (3 sec): SHIFT + Left arrow, show/hide playlist: CTRL + L, show/hide controls: CTRL + H, preferences: CTRL + P, raise volume: CTRL + Up arrow, lower volume: CTRL + Down arrow, etc.).
VLC Media Player and Google Chromecast
Soon VLC will have support for the mini multimedia content streaming device Chromecast (it connects to another device via HDMI). Version 3.0 of VLC media player will come with support for Chromecast and for the VP9 format (a royalty-free open video compression format being developed by Google).
Skins and Extensions
If you think the player’s design is not very attractive, from the official VLC site you can download different free skins to install them easily. You also have the tool “VLC media player Skin Editor” to create skins for VLC without needing great knowledge. If you want to increase the player’s features, you can install a large number of extensions. (This way you can configure VLC to your needs.)
VLC Media Player License
VLC media player is free on all its platforms and its code is open (distributed and developed freely) and the application is distributed under the GPL license (use, study, share, copy and modify the application). For all the features we have listed and many more that we have left out of this article, VLC media player is one of the most used and prestigious players on the current market.
