subject: The Easiest Way To Cope With Media On Your Computer [print this page] Have you ever tried to open a music or video file only to find out that your media player doesn't know what to do with that file type? It's frustrating, isn't it? The best solution to this problem is a universal media player that doesn't flinch at the many different file types songs and videos are available in.
The VLC Media Player download is a free download, and it is one of the most popular and highly-regarded media players available today. People love it because it not only handles just about any kind of file, but also will attempt to repair and play files that have been damaged.
You can get a "PortableApps" version that only takes up 20MB and does not have to be installed. It's great for taking with you because you can run it off your external drive. Additionally, versions are available for the iPhone and the iPad, and a new version is scheduled to drop for Android devices in early 2011.
While you can use it as a general, all-purpose media player, there are a lot of other things that the VLC player can do.
For example, if you want to take clips from a video or a DVD, you can easily do that with this media player. Just go to the "View" menu and choose "Advanced Controls." Then, it's just a matter of playing back the video and hitting the "Record" button. It will make a recording of the video you're playing back in MP4 format and put it in your Videos directory.
Playing YouTube videos with the VLC player is a snap, too, and you don't have to open a browser to do so. All you do is go to the "Media" menu and select "Open Network Stream." There, you paste in the address of the YouTube video. The media player then automatically plays the highest-quality version available. You can easily use the video player to skip around, go to multiple monitors, make the video full-screen size, and other functions.
VLC is released under the GNU General Public License, so it's absolutely free to download and use. Because it supports so many media formats, you don't have to download additional codec files to handle obscure file types. It has a complete streaming server and awesome features like video on demand, frame-by-frame advance, and transcoding on the fly.
The latest version comes with fully customizable toolbars, so you can have your most-used controls right at your fingertips. You can use it to play DVDs or Blu-Ray discs with any region code, and you can use the preview feature to watch video files inside RAR folders before you've even completed your download. You just load the first RAR file and the media player automatically "knows" to play them all in the proper order, so you can be watching new files quicker than ever before. In short, the VLC Media Player is your "dream" media player that goes on almost any device you have and is 100% free. There's simply no reason not to get it.
