The VLC Media Player - your playback center.

In my mind and in my car, We can’t rewind, we’ve gone too far, Pictures came and broke your heart, Put the blame on VCR

The VLC Media Player It's like a Swiss army knife for the media. Imagine you have a drawer full of various CDs, DVDs, music files and videos. Instead of having your own player for each format, you can simply take the VLC Media Player and it plays just about anything, whether it's audio or video, CD, DVD or file.

And the best part: It's free and safe as long as you download it from the official site.

Simply explained:

Play: VLC can open almost all video and audio formats, even from CDs and DVDs.
Versatile: You can also use it to play network streams, record videos, or even convert file formats.
Free of charge: VLC is a free program, so you don't have to pay anything for it.
Sure: If you download VLC from the official website, it is safe and free of viruses.

Examples:

Do you have an old DVD that your regular player can't play? VLC can do this reliably.
You want to stream a video from a website but your browser isn't playing it? VLC could help.
Want to convert a video file to another format? It can also be VLC.

Just playing all sorts of formats isn't enough to get into the cool people's book? Okay, here are some really powerful features:

⁇ Casten (media broadcast)

Did you know that your VLC player can do more than just play videos on PC? You can easily stream your favorite movies and series to the TV without any additional software. This is great if you want to enjoy a movie on the couch rather than in front of your desk. be supported Chromecast compatible terminal equipment.

Here's how it works: Make sure your device and TV are on the same Wi-Fi/LAN network. Then start your video in VLC, click on the top playback and select from the submenu renderer Turn off your TV or Chromecast. The movie is already on the big screen!

⁇ Stream YouTube videos directly

Are you also annoyed by the ads on YouTube or do you want to watch a video without browser tabs and comments? With VLC this is possible -> Even with a little manual work! Once that's done, all you have to do is have the video URL, and the player will take care of the rest.

Here's how it works: Just copy the URL of the YouTube video. Opens the menu in VLC media and choose Open network stream (or pressed Ctrl+N). Paste the URL into the field, click playback And the video starts.

⁇ Convert videos & music

VLC is a real all-rounder and can Convert media files as well. This is super useful, for example, if you have a large video file that doesn't run on your phone, or if you just want to extract the audio track from a music video.

Here's how it works: Go to the menu media and click on Convert/Save. Select the file you want to edit and select the desired format in the next window (e.g. MP4 for mobile phones or MP3 for pure audio tracks). After that, all you have to do is set a location and Start click.

⁇ Addons & Plugins

If you think VLC can do a lot, wait until you The Addons Discovered! These are small extensions developed by the community that will make your VLC player even better. For example, you can search and stream media libraries from ARD and ZDF directly in the player.

Here's how it works: Most of the time you just have to download the addons and copy them to the correct folder of VLC. After a restart you will find the new functions in the menu view. There are so many cool things to discover!

Conclusion:

VLC is a practical program that can play most of the different media formats available today and is also free and secure. Visually a bit dusty, but technically great. In my opinion, no real alternatives can be found, even if there are really many possible candidates (KMPlayer, in the Win/Mac environment or SMPlayer for Win/Linux) which are quite close to the range of functions, but there are a project that with the VLC substructure under Windows a modern surface Magic, there could be something out of it.