The VLC Media Player is one of the most popular free media players and, from our point of view, simply belongs to any Windows, Linux, Mac, or any other system. If you need a media player to view your videos and listen to your music, then our recommendation is VLC. First, the player knows almost every media format you can think of. In fact, it knows even those formats you can’t think of because you have never heard of them. And it can play all of these media files without installing additional codecs. Second, the player is ad-free. This is a big plus for me and probably for you, too. Or do you like to see ads in every corner of the application or, worse, ads popping up every few seconds? Probably not.
And there is more
If you want to save a YouTube video (or a video from other sites) on your computer, just have a look under “Media>>Stream…” and you will find a tab called “Network”. After switching to this tab you can enter the Video URL and save the video. If you have the need to convert the video you will be able to do that as well.
You want to play from a device like a CD, DVD, or Blu-ray? VLC got you covered. Or do you want to capture video and/or audio from a connected device (e.g. the Webcam)? You got it. In addition, streaming from the network, playing Podcasts, and more are available. Do you love music? Try the radio stations on the left side under “Icecast Radio Directory”. And if you want to add Subtitles to your videos you can do that, too. By the way, to make sure your hardware delivers the best sound you should always keep your drivers up-to-date.
And if the VLC Player is lacking a feature you might need or want, you might find it among the many VLC-Add-ons (look under the Tools menu and click on Plugins and Extensions). Find more information about the Plugins and Extensions here.
There are too many features to mention everything here (look here for more info about the Features). Just try the VLC Media Player. Maybe it will become your favorite player as well.
Available for: Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, Unix, iOS, Android…
