VLC is a cross-platform and multifunctional media player distributed under the Freeware model by VideoLAN studio. The trial launch of the service took place back in 1996, and even then the authors formed a general concept.
And, in short, the developers dreamed of building a special multimedia platform that could handle any formats and files. Since then, VLC Media Player has acquired those features that are familiar to the audience today: omnivorousness, support for a huge number of extensions and codecs.
Distribution platforms and methods
Cross-platform media player VLC is officially supported by computer platforms – Windows, Linux, MacOS, and mobile – Android, iOS, Tizen, Windows 10 Mobile.
And, despite such a wide “technical coverage”, the functional content is the same everywhere – no advertising, difficulties with playing content of non-standard formats, optimization problems or problems associated with setting up the working environment (the developers from VideoLAN offer to freely change the design style, add subtitles, load separate plug-ins that increase the stability of the system, for example, when playing 4K content).
The VLC program is distributed according to the Freeware model – that is, there are no one-time payments or subscriptions that would open premium content or offer features that cannot be found in the basic version. Quite the opposite – the authors strive to present the same opportunities regardless of the region of use of the media player, platform and language.
Do not find in VLC and advertising – no banners, no notifications. However, if the desire to thank the developers nevertheless appeared, no one bothers to look at the official website and transfer at least 1-2 dollars. Authors will rejoice!
VLC Features
Fantastic omnivorousness
The VLC player is capable of playing content from external drives and hard drives, optical media and streaming services. Things are even better with formats – without downloading additional codecs, VLC will deal with MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, h.264, MKV, WEBM and even MP3. Well, if some format remains unknown, the media player will offer a solution – either download a number of updates or look at the digital store, where extensions and plug-ins have already been prepared.
By the way, if the files are damaged, poorly recorded, or downloaded through third-party services with errors, there will be no playback problems either – VLC will try to pull out at least some of the information and present it in its original form.
Flexible configuration
While genre competitors impress loyal fans with subtitles or annotations, VLC has long been helping to fine-tune audio with an intuitive equalizer and videos with a dedicated set of filters. The picture will become brighter and clearer, and the viewing experience will be more pleasant.
A separate innovation of the media player is automatically prompts related to improving the quality of playback – just a few actions, and you can forget about desynchronization, the subtitles will “fall” into place (if you wish, you can change the method of “feeding” subtitles – increase the display time, change the color and font, position on the screen and other details), the sound will receive volume, and the image will receive additional colors. It is not necessary to use automatic algorithms, but it is definitely worth experimenting.
Interaction details
VLC should be perceived as something between a family leisure planner and a tool that can cope with any, even an unusually complex task. This is where you can bring back to life those files that have lost “kilobytes” due to overwriting or low-quality media.
There is also a place for a special “organizer” of the home library, which can be broadcast from a PC – to a TV or to a smartphone or tablet. And, finally, only VLC knows how to deal with those codecs that competitors could not find, and most importantly – for free.
By the way, interacting with the media player is easy – immediately after installation on a PC, the corresponding item related to playback will appear in the context menu. On smartphones with iOS and Android, the situation is even easier – all you have to do is open the applications, and the appropriate files will automatically be found on the internal or external memory. And then it remains only to watch and enjoy.
