VLC media player is a portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, OGG, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
It supports an extensive range of formats without the need for additional codecs.
It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
Key Features
- Support for input media: UDP/RTP Unicast and Multicast, HTTP / FTP, MMS, File, DVD, VCD, SVCD, DVB, MPEG encoder, Video acquisition (V4L).
- Input formats: MPEG, ID3 tags, AVI, ASF / WMV / WMA, MP4 / MOV / 3GP, OGG / OGM / Annodex, Matroska, WAV (including DTS), Raw Audio: DTS, AAC, AC3/A52, Raw DV, FLAC, FLV (Flash).
- Support for Blu-ray discs.
- Fast decoding on multi-core, GPU and mobile hardware.
- Opens professiona, HD, and 10bits codecs.
Video
- Decoders: MPEG-1/2, DIVX, MPEG-4, XviD, 3ivX, H.264, Sorenson 1/3 (Quicktime), DV, Cinepak, Theora, H.263 / H.263i, MJPEG, WMV 1/2, WMV 3 WMV-9 / VC-1, Indeo Video v 3-5, Rado Video.
- Subtitles: DVD, SVCD / CVD, DVB, OGM, Matroska, Text files, Vobsub.
- Filters: Deinterlace, cropping, image wall, image adjust, rotate/mirror, logo overlay, magnification, image distortion, bluescreen, RSS/Aton feeds.
- Outputs: Native, X11, XVideo, SDL, Framebuffer, ASCII Art.Audio
- Decoders: MPEG Layer 1/2, MP3, AC3 – A/52, DTS, LPCM, AAC, Vorbis, WMA 1/2, WMA 3, ADPCM, DV Audio, FLAC, QDM2/QDMC (Quicktime), MACE, Real Audio, Speex.
- Filters: Visualization effects, equalizer.
- Outputs: Native (OSS, ALSA), S/PDIF (OSS, ALSA), Multi-channel (OSS, ALSA), SDL, ESD, aRts, JACK.
Streaming
- UDP Unicast / Multicast, RTP Unicast / Multicast, File, HTTP, MMSH.
- Transcoding.
- Send DVD subtitles..
- Send SAP announcesInterfaces and control
- Qt4, Skins, Web, Telnet, Command line, Infrared.
Website: www.videolan.org/vlc
Support: Forums, Mailing lists
Developer: VideoLAN team
License: GNU General Public License v2.0
VLC is primarily written in C. Learn C with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Media Players | |
|---|---|
| VLC | Cross-platform multimedia player and framework |
| mpv | Media player for the command line. libmpv is used by many front-ends |
| QMPlay2 | Qt based video and audio player |
| MPlayer | Movie player which runs on many systems |
| SMPlayer | Qt based MPlayer front-end |
| GridPlayer | Play multiple videos simultaneously |
| Parole | Modern simple media player based on the GStreamer framework |
| MPC-QT | Clone of Media Player Classic |
| clapper | GNOME media player built using GJS with GTK4 toolkit |
| Totem | Movie player for the GNOME desktop based on GStreamer |
| Dragon Player | Multimedia player with a focus on simplicity rather than features |
| xine | Video player for playing CDs, DVDs, BluRays and VCDs. |
| Showtime | GNOME media player |
| Glide | Simple and minimalistic media player |
| Phantom Player | Simple video player |
| Daikhan | Media player for the modern desktop |
| QtAV | Cross-platform multimedia framework based on Qt and FFmpeg |
| Rage | Simple video and audio player |
| Kaffeine | Simple, easy to use, full featured media player |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
| Video Converters | |
|---|---|
| HandBrake | Multithreaded cross-platform media transcoding application |
| FFmpeg | Multimedia player, server and encoder |
| Shutter Encoder | Graphical frontend to FFmpeg with editing features |
| FastFlix | GUI for H.264, HEVC and AV1 hardware and software encoding |
| Videomass | Cross-platform GUI for FFmpeg and youtube-dl |
| avconv | Part of libav-tools; fork of FFmpeg |
| VLC | Vdeo player which also converts multimedia to different formats |
| mpv | Cross-platform media player with video encoding support |
| MEncoder | MEncoder is included in MPlayer |
| FFQueue | Graphical frontend to FFmpeg written in C++ |
| transcode | Utility to encode raw video/audio streams |
| MystiQ | GUI for FFmpeg, a powerful media converter |
| Ciano | Easy way to convert your multimedia files to the most popular formats |
| Constrict | Compress videos to target sizes |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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