- Softonic Rating:
- Excellent:9/10
- License:
- Free (GPL)
- Added:
- November 28, 2005
- Updated:
- July 14, 2008
- Publisher:
- Website
- File size:
- 24.3 MB
- Downloads:
- 40,091
- DownloadFree (GPL)
“Versatile media player for DVD, VCD, MPEG and DivX”
by Cyril Roger
There was a time when video files all conformed to some basic requirements and could be played without protest using any media software. As technologies change and licensing becomes more restrictive and specific, simply playing a video file has now become a challenge and thanks to the plethora of obscure proprietary formats now available, finding a media player that works for the majority has become more hassle than it’s worth. Thankfully the open source community have come up with a solution in the form of VLC, otherwise know as VideoLAN.
This cross platform player doesn't strike as particularly good-looking when put side by side with Windows Media Player or Winamp, but you'll appreciate its far superior usability within moments. Its power can be demonstrated with any video files you happen to be downloading, which can be played in whatever form they exist, be it an actual video format or an unclassified temporary one. As you preview a video, it will skip the parts that have yet to be downloaded and let you see the rest – Media Player in comparison, can't preview files in this way.
Apart from playing incomplete videos, because lets face it not many people want to do that anyway, VLC has support for a huge range of video formats. If it doesn't recognize the file type it will try playing it anyway often successfully or if it's an encrypted file it will display the scrambled video in its raw form. The interface is stripped down to the bare bones, with the apparent objective of making it as unobtrusive as possible. With superb hotkey support, you can do practically everything you want without touching your mouse.
Put simply, VLC is a video player that doesn't stray in to other areas. You won't find any media catalogs or fancy visualizations thrown in and although there is one alternative skin available, all it will take is one look and you'll quickly be switching back to the default.
This free player should appeal to true cinephiles who want as little distraction as possible from their viewing experience. Being open source it's free to use and thanks to a small file size and a friendly installation process, we would recommend it to absolutely everyone as their "backup" or "catch-all" video player.
Languages:
English
Recent changes in VLC Media Player:
- Mozilla plugin: supports a reasonable amount of MIME types on Windows
- Linux: Fixed S/PDIF passthrough with ALSA
- Automatic recovery on unexpected stream discontinuity (clock gap) occurrences in input
- Use field order (top/bottom) for correct bob/linear deinterlacing
- Fix invalid free in bookmarks loading code
- FLAC Security Update (CVE-2007-4619) to prevent multiple integer overflows
- Security update (VideoLAN-SA-0703)
- Apple Remote support on Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard with enhanced functionality
- Improved Video Output compatibility for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard
- Improved behavior of the Fullscreen Controller and mode changes between Fullscreen and Windowed Video Output
- Softened the white flash artifacts that may appear during the transition of two different movies
- Support for current Ogg file formats
- NOTE: This release requires Mac OS X 10.4 or higher. Mac OS X 10.3.9 is not supported anymore.
- Improved H.264 encoding speed on Mac OS X
- The automatic updating facility was removed
- You now need to append --m3u-extvlcopt to your command line to enable
- EXTVLCOPT options parsing in m3u playlists.
OS requirements for VLC Media Player:
- OS: Mac OS X
Minimum requirements:
- Mac OS X 10.2 or later
- QuickTime 6.5.2 or later
- Free
- Supports a wide range of formats
- Good hotkey support
- Poor choice of skins
Featured program
Softonic gives special recognition to software of exceptionally high quality. More information
More VLC Media Player screenshots
Posts about VLC Media Player in our blog
- KMPlayer vs VLC Media Player by Cyril Roger
Sponsored Links
Programs similar to VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player options
Reviews for VLC Media Player in other languages
- VLC Media Player (Testbericht auf Deutsch)
- VLC Media Player (Análisis en español)
- VLC Media Player (Le test en français)
VLC Media Player in other platforms
- VLC Media Player (Windows)
User Rating
21 ratings- Usability
-
- Currently 9/10.
- Stability
-
- Currently 8/10.
- Installation
-
- Currently 9/10.
- Functionality
-
- Currently 8/10.
- Appearance
-
- Currently 7/10.







