When you run into a situation where Windows Media Player won’t cut it, rather than going on a codec hunt, jump over to the free Media Player VLC. The VLC media player is one of my favorite media players (did I mention it’s free?) that’s super light-weight and able to play just about ANY video content. It’s groovy features make it a groovy free alternative when put up against Windows Media Player.
Have I hooked ya yet? Want to hear/see more? Well, since we haven’t talked about VLC yet here on groovyPost, let’s take a brief look at the player and some of it’s features!
The VLC Media Player is an open-source media project developed by the VideoLan team. It’s compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux (Yup, Ubuntu included), and many other small operating systems. It’s designed in a modular framework which allows it to easily feature multiple plug-ins and codec which boosts it’s compatibility without making it a resource hog.
We could spend all day talking about the myriad of features packed into this app but the main point to share is that VLC can play nearly every media format known to man. For a full list check out the VideoLan features list.
How Get VLC Media Player To Play “Anything”
1. Download the latest binary package of VLC Player at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html.
Note: For operating systems other than Windows visit this page.
2. Once you’ve downloaded it Run the Installation file. Setup is pretty simple, just Click Next a few times and your done.
3. At the end of setup when you run VLC Player for the first time you’ll be prompted with privacy options. If you want album art Change the Album art policy to anything except manual. If want VLC Player to automatically check for software updates Keep the box Checked for Activate the updates availability notification.
Now that you have VLC Player installed you can retire Windows Media Player for good if you like, or continue using both. There are many things VLC can do besides “playing every file format known to man,” so keep an eye out for future groovy articles on the subject!
Have you used VLC player? We would love to hear questions and comments regarding this player! Have another free program you love? Join the discussion in the groovypost community forum!
sweet article, I love VLC player and will personally endorse using it over using windows media player.