VLC media player for versatile listening and watchingPosted by Matt Thommes on November 15, 2008 | Post type: Gain In the early days of iTunes, you could quickly rip a CD or open up some MP3's for quick listening. Since then it's become a bloated, multi-dimensional piece of software that does so many things, it's lost the simplicity in doing what it did best: rip music and quickly let you listen to just about any music file format. These days I'll opt for something more light-weight, such as VLC media player. VLC media player is a free utility for any platform that quickly opens just about any digital file for listening or viewing. It basically plays just about anything I throw at it.
As you can see, the application is extremely simple - just a small floating window with basic playback controls. That's really all I need in most cases. One drawback to the Windows version is that it's very hard to adjust the volume. The slider is very precise, and difficult to increment slightly by just dragging it with the mouse. The Mac volume slider is more intuitive - the circular icon is easier to "grab," and the whole volume scale is wider, providing more precise control over the exact volume you want. VLC media player also lets you view DVD's and VCD's. Advanced features and preferencesAlthough VLC is light-weight and simple, it still allows for more advanced features and preferences, for those who need it. Manage PlaylistsRather than listening to just one song at a time, you can pre-load a bunch of songs as a playlist. You can then save playlists to load at a later time.
Playlists aren't just for files local to your machine. You can add by URL as well.
PreferencesExtensive preferences are available for fine-tuning the application.
Video playbackI don't see many reasons to use the DVD playback feature since my Mac comes equipped with a DVD player, and VLC's version is almost identical. There's really not much involved with playing a DVD. But it is nice to know this feature is available and can handle different video formats.
One thing that immediately helped me on my Mac was the ability to view AVI files exported from my Flip camcorder. Quicktime does not natively open AVI files, so it was always a pain to preview my videos.
With VLC, the AVI opens immediately. About the author(s) Matt Thommes is an independent publishing enthusiast, mobile blogger, content creator, informative writer, web developer from a suburb of Chicago. Never one to conform, Matt intends to promote the effect the web has on our lives, in an effort to intensify, instruct, and clarify all that is happening around us. Comments
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One advantage of the VLC DVD player is that it ignores DVD regions, so you can play any DVD with it.
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