VLC media player is an
open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
,
free softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also...
media player and
multimedia frameworkA multimedia framework is a software framework that handles media on a computer and through a network. A good multimedia framework offers an intuitive API and a modular architecture to easily add support for new codecs, container formats and transmission protocols...
written by the
VideoLANVideoLAN is a project that develops software for playing video and other media formats. It originally developed two programs for media streaming—VideoLAN Client and VideoLAN Server —but most of the features of VLS have been incorporated into VLC, with the result renamed VLC media player.The...
project.
VLC is a
portableIn computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video
codecA codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, coder-decoder'.Historically a modem was a contraction of modulator/demodulator and converted...
s and
file formatA file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...
s as well as
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
s,
VCDsVideo CD is a standard digital format for storing video on a Compact Disc...
, and various
streamingStreaming media are multimedia that are constantly received by, and normally presented to, an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider . The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself...
protocolsIn the field of telecommunications, a communications protocol is the set of standard rules for data representation, signaling, authentication and error detection required to send information over a communications channel. An example of a simple communications protocol adapted to voice...
. It is able to stream over
networksA computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
and to transcode multimedia files and save them into various formats.
VLC used to stand for
VideoLAN Client, but that meaning is now
deprecatedIn computer software standards and documentation, the term deprecation is applied to software features that are superseded and should be avoided. Although deprecated features remain in the current version, their use may raise warning messages recommending alternate practices, and deprecation may...
.
It is one of the most platform-independent players available, with versions for
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
,
Mac OS XMac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
,
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
,
BeOSBeOS was an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...
,
SyllableSyllable is a free and open source operating system for Pentium and compatible processors. Its purpose is to create an easy-to-use desktop operating system for the home and small office user...
,
BSDBerkeley Software Distribution is the UNIX operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995....
,
MorphOSMorphOS is a computer operating system . It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC -processor-based computer, most models of PPC-accelerator-equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi Firmware, including the EFIKA...
, Solaris and
Sharp ZaurusThe Sharp Zaurus is the name of a series of Personal Digital Assistant made by Sharp Corporation. The Zaurus was the most popular PDA during the 1990s in Japan and was based on a proprietary operating system. The first Sharp PDA to use the Linux operating system was the SL-5000D, running the...
, and is widely used with over 308,449,662 downloads for all versions as at 13th October 2009.
The default distribution of VLC includes a large number of
freeFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also...
decoding and encoding libraries; on the Windows platform, this greatly reduces the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins.
VLC media player is an
open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
,
free softwareFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also...
media player and
multimedia frameworkA multimedia framework is a software framework that handles media on a computer and through a network. A good multimedia framework offers an intuitive API and a modular architecture to easily add support for new codecs, container formats and transmission protocols...
written by the
VideoLANVideoLAN is a project that develops software for playing video and other media formats. It originally developed two programs for media streaming—VideoLAN Client and VideoLAN Server —but most of the features of VLS have been incorporated into VLC, with the result renamed VLC media player.The...
project.
VLC is a
portableIn computer science, porting is the process of adapting software so that an executable program can be created for a computing environment that is different from the one for which it was originally designed...
multimedia player, encoder, and streamer supporting many audio and video
codecA codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, coder-decoder'.Historically a modem was a contraction of modulator/demodulator and converted...
s and
file formatA file format is a particular way that information is encoded for storage in a computer file.Since a disk drive, or indeed any computer storage, can store only bits, the computer must have some way of converting information to 0s and 1s and vice-versa. There are different kinds of formats for...
s as well as
DVDDVD, also known as Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc,is an optical disc storage media format, and was founded in 1995. Its main uses are video and data storage...
s,
VCDsVideo CD is a standard digital format for storing video on a Compact Disc...
, and various
streamingStreaming media are multimedia that are constantly received by, and normally presented to, an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider . The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather than to the medium itself...
protocolsIn the field of telecommunications, a communications protocol is the set of standard rules for data representation, signaling, authentication and error detection required to send information over a communications channel. An example of a simple communications protocol adapted to voice...
. It is able to stream over
networksA computer network is a group of interconnected computers. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics. This article provides a general overview of some types and categories and also presents the basic components of a network....
and to transcode multimedia files and save them into various formats.
VLC used to stand for
VideoLAN Client, but that meaning is now
deprecatedIn computer software standards and documentation, the term deprecation is applied to software features that are superseded and should be avoided. Although deprecated features remain in the current version, their use may raise warning messages recommending alternate practices, and deprecation may...
.
It is one of the most platform-independent players available, with versions for
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of software operating systems and graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Microsoft first introduced an operating environment named Windows in November 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces...
,
Mac OS XMac OS X is a line of computer operating systems developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., and since 2002 has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
,
LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
,
BeOSBeOS was an operating system for personal computers which began development by Be Inc. in 1991. It was first written to run on BeBox hardware. BeOS was optimized for digital media work and was written to take advantage of modern hardware facilities such as symmetric multiprocessing by utilizing...
,
SyllableSyllable is a free and open source operating system for Pentium and compatible processors. Its purpose is to create an easy-to-use desktop operating system for the home and small office user...
,
BSDBerkeley Software Distribution is the UNIX operating system derivative developed and distributed by the Computer Systems Research Group of the University of California, Berkeley, from 1977 to 1995....
,
MorphOSMorphOS is a computer operating system . It is a mixed proprietary and open source OS produced for the Pegasos PowerPC -processor-based computer, most models of PPC-accelerator-equipped Amiga computers, and a series of Freescale development boards that use the Genesi Firmware, including the EFIKA...
, Solaris and
Sharp ZaurusThe Sharp Zaurus is the name of a series of Personal Digital Assistant made by Sharp Corporation. The Zaurus was the most popular PDA during the 1990s in Japan and was based on a proprietary operating system. The first Sharp PDA to use the Linux operating system was the SL-5000D, running the...
, and is widely used with over 308,449,662 downloads for all versions as at 13th October 2009.
The default distribution of VLC includes a large number of
freeFree software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also...
decoding and encoding libraries; on the Windows platform, this greatly reduces the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins. Many of VLC's
codecA codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of compressor-decompressor' or, more accurately, coder-decoder'.Historically a modem was a contraction of modulator/demodulator and converted...
s are provided by the
libavcodeclibavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. It is part of the FFmpeg project.libavcodec is an integral part of many open-source multimedia applications and frameworks...
library from the
FFmpegFFmpeg is a computer program that can record, convert and stream digital audio and video in numerous formats. FFmpeg is a command line tool that is composed of a collection of free software / open source libraries. It includes libavcodec, an audio/video codec library used by several other...
project, but it uses mainly its own muxer and demuxers. It also gained distinction as the first player to support playback of encrypted DVDs on Linux by using the
libdvdcsslibdvdcss is a free software library for accessing and unscrambling DVDs encrypted with the Content Scramble System...
DVD decryption library.
History
Originally the VideoLAN project started as an academic project in 1996. It was intended to consist of a client and server to stream videos across a campus network. VLC was the client for the VideoLAN project, with VLC standing for
VideoLan Client. Originally developed by students at the
École Centrale ParisÉcole Centrale Paris is a renowned French university-level institution in the field of engineering. It is also known by its original name École centrale des arts et manufactures, or ECP. Founded in 1829, it is one of the oldest and most prestigious engineering schools in France and has the special...
, it is now developed by contributors worldwide.
Rewritten from scratch in 1998, it was released under the GPL on February 1, 2001. The functionality of the server program,
VideoLan Server (VLS), has mostly been subsumed into VLC and has been deprecated. The project name was changed to
VLC since there is no longer a client/server infrastructure.
The cone icon used in VLC is a reference to the
traffic coneTraffic cones, also called road cones, highway cones, safety cones or construction cones, are usually cone-shaped markers that are placed on roads or footpaths to temporarily redirect traffic in a safe manner...
s collected by Ecole Centrale's Networking Students' Association. The cone icon design was changed from a hand drawn low resolution icon to a higher resolution
CGIComputer-generated imagery is the application of the field of computer graphics or, more specifically, 3D computer graphics to special effects in films, television programs, commercials, simulators and simulation generally, and printed media...
rendered version in 2006, illustrated by Richard Øiestad.
Version 1.0.0 of VLC media player was released on July 7, 2009, culminating 13 years of development.
Design principles
VLC, like most
multimedia frameworkA multimedia framework is a software framework that handles media on a computer and through a network. A good multimedia framework offers an intuitive API and a modular architecture to easily add support for new codecs, container formats and transmission protocols...
s, has a very modular design which makes it easier to include modules/plugins for new file formats, codecs or streaming methods. VLC core creates its own graph of modules to fit into different situations. In VLC, almost everything is a module, like interfaces, video and audio outputs, controls, scalers, codecs, and audio and video filter modules.
VLC 1.0.0 has more than 380 modules.
Interfaces
In VLC, interfaces are modules, which means that VLC's core can launch one, many or no interfaces.
The default
GUIGui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
is based on
QtQt is a cross-platform application development framework, widely used for the development of GUI programs , and also used for developing non-GUI programs such as console tools and servers. Qt is most notably used in KDE, Google Earth, Skype, Qt Extended, Adobe Photoshop Album, VirtualBox and OPIE...
4 for Windows and Linux,
CocoaCocoa is one of Apple Inc.'s native object-oriented application program environments for the Mac OS X operating system. It is one of five major APIs available for Mac OS X; the others are Carbon , POSIX , X11 and Java....
for Mac OS X, and Be API on BeOS; but all give a similar standard interface. The old default
GUIGui or guee is a generic term to refer to grilled dishes in Korean cuisine. These most commonly have meat or fish as their primary ingredient, but may in some cases also comprise grilled vegetables or other vegetarian ingredients. The term derives from the verb, "gupda" in Korean, which literally...
was based on
wxwxWidgets is a widget toolkit for creating graphical user interfaces for cross-platform applications. wxWidgets enables a program's GUI code to compile and run on several computer platforms with minimal or no code changes. It covers systems such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux/Unix ,...
on Windows and Linux.
VLC supports highly customizable
skinsIn computing, skins may be associated with themes as custom graphical appearances that can be applied to specific software and websites to suit its the purpose or topic, or the tastes of different users....
through the skins2 interface, also supporting
WinampWinamp is a proprietary media player written by Nullsoft, now a subsidiary of AOL. It is skinnable, multi-format freeware/shareware.Winamp was first released by Justin Frankel in 1997. Current Winamp development is credited to Ben Allison and Maksim Tyrtyshny...
2 and
XMMSThe X Multimedia System is a free software audio player very similar to Winamp, that runs on many Unix-like operating systems.- History :...
skins. The customizable skins feature can malfunction depending on which version is being used.
For console users, VLC has an
ncursesncurses is a programming library providing an API, allowing the programmer to write text user interfaces in a terminal-independent manner. It's a toolkit for developing "GUI-like" apps which run under a terminal emulator...
interface. As VLC can act as a streaming server, rather than a media player, it can be useful to control it from a remote location and there are interfaces allowing this. The Remote Control Interface is a text-based interface for doing this.
There are also interfaces using
telnetTelnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive communications facility. Typically, telnet provides access to a command-line interface on a remote host via a virtual terminal connection which consists of an 8-bit byte oriented data...
and HTTP (
AJAXAJAX is a group of interrelated web development techniques used on the client-side to create interactive web applications. With AJAX, web applications can retrieve data from the server asynchronously in the background without interfering with the display and behavior of the existing page...
).
Control
In addition to these interfaces, it is possible to control VLC in different ways:
- Configurable hotkeys
- Mouse gesture
In computing, a mouse gesture is a way of combining computer mouse movements and clicks which the software recognizes as a specific command. Mouse gestures can provide quick access to common functions of a program. They can also be useful for people who have difficulties typing on a keyboard...
s
- LIRC
LIRC is an open source package that allows users to receive and send infrared signals with a Linux-based computer system.There is a Microsoft Windows equivalent of LIRC called WinLIRC....
and infrared controllers
- D-Bus
- Laptop motion
Features
- VLC is popular for its ability to play the video content of incomplete, unfinished, or damaged video downloads before the files have been fully downloaded. (For example, files still downloading via BitTorrent, eMule
eMule is a free peer-to-peer file sharing application for Microsoft Windows. Started in May 2002 as an alternative to eDonkey2000, eMule now connects to both the eDonkey network and the Kad network...
, or GnutellaGnutella is a file sharing network. In late 2007, it was the most popular file sharing network on the Internet with an estimated market share of more than 40%...
). It also plays m2t MPEG Transport Streams (.TS) files while they are still being digitized from an HDVHDV is a format for recording and playback of high-definition video on a DV cassette tape. The format was originally developed by JVC and was supported by Sony, Canon and Sharp. The four companies formed the in September 2003...
camera via a FireWireThe IEEE 1394 interface is a serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer, frequently used by personal computers, as well as in digital audio, digital video, automotive, and aeronautics applications. The interface is also known by the brand...
cable, making it possible to monitor the video as it is being played. This is because it is a packet-based player.
- The player also has the ability to use libcdio to access .iso files so that the user can play files on a disk image
A disk image is a single file or storage device containing the complete contents and structure representing a data storage medium or device, such as a hard drive, floppy disk, CD, or DVD, although an image of an optical disc may be referred to as an optical disc image...
, even if the user's operating system does not have the capability of working directly with .iso images.
- VLC supports all audio/video formats and all file formats supported by libavcodec
libavcodec is a free software/open source LGPL-licensed library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data. It is part of the FFmpeg project.libavcodec is an integral part of many open-source multimedia applications and frameworks...
and libavformat. This means that VLC can playback H.264H.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a standard for video compression. The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.H.264/AVC is the latest block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group together with the ISO/IEC...
or MPEG-4MPEG-4 is a patented collection of methods defining compression of audio and visual digital data. It was introduced in late 1998 and designated a standard for a group of audio and video coding formats and related technology agreed upon by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group under the formal...
video as well as support FLV or MXF file formats "out of the box" using FFmpeg's libraries. Alternatively, VLC has modules for codecs that are not not based on FFmpeg's libraries. This feature is not unique to VLC, as any player using the FFmpeg libraries, including MPlayerMPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
and xine-lib-based players, should be able to play those formats without the need for external codecs.
- VLC is one of the free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions only to ensure that further recipients can also...
and open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
DVD players that ignores DVD region coding on RPC-1 firmware drives, making it a region free player. However, it does not do the same on RPC-2 firmware drives.
- VLC media player has some filters that can distort, rotate, split, deinterlace, mirror videos, create display walls, or add a logo overlay. It can also produce video output as ASCII art
ASCII art is a graphic design technique that utilizes computers for presentation and consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by the ASCII Standard from 1963 and ASCII compliant character sets with proprietary extended characters...
.
- VLC media player can play high definition
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1280×720 pixels or 1920×1080 pixels...
recordings of D-VHSD-VHS is a digital video format developed by JVC, in collaboration with Hitachi, Matsushita, and Philips. The "D" in D-VHS originally stood for Data VHS, but with the expansion of the format from standard definition to high definition capability, JVC renamed it Digital VHS and uses that designation...
tapes duplicated to a computer using CapDVHS.exe. This offers another way to archive all D-VHS tapes with the DRM copy freely tag.
- Using a FireWire
The IEEE 1394 interface is a serial bus interface standard for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer, frequently used by personal computers, as well as in digital audio, digital video, automotive, and aeronautics applications. The interface is also known by the brand...
connection from cable boxes to computers, VLC can stream live, unencrypted content to a monitor or HDTV.
- VLC media player can display the playing video as the desktop wallpaper
Wallpaper is an image used as a background on a computer screen, usually for the desktop of a graphical user interface...
, like Windows DreamSceneWindows DreamScene is a utility that allows videos and other optimized animations to be used as desktop wallpapers. It is one of the Windows Ultimate Extras. Prior to its official announcement, DreamScene was rumored to be in creation under the names Motion Desktop and Borealis...
, but this feature is not currently available on LinuxLinux is a generic term referring to Unix-like computer operating systems based on the Linux kernel. Their development is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software collaboration; typically all the underlying source code can be used, freely modified, and redistributed,...
.
- VLC media player can do screencasts and record the desktop.
- On Microsoft Windows, VLC also supports the Direct Media Object (DMO) framework and can therefore make use of some third-party DLLs
Dynamic-link library , or DLL, is Microsoft's implementation of the shared library concept in the Microsoft Windows and OS/2 operating systems...
.
- On Mac OS X, VLC can tune into and view DVB-T channels when the separate EyeTV plugin is installed
- VLC can be installed and run directly from a flash or other external drive.
- VLC can be extended through scripting. It uses the Lua scripting language.
- VLC can play videos in the AVCHD
AVCHD is a format for the recording and playback of high definition video.The format has been jointly developed by Sony and Panasonic. In 2005, the two companies combined their efforts in creating a high definition format for tapeless consumer camcorders...
format, a highly compressed format used in recent HDHigh-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1280×720 pixels or 1920×1080 pixels...
camcorders.
API
There are several APIs that can connect to VLC and use its functionality:
- libVLC API, which is the VLC Core, for C, C++ and C#
- JavaScript
JavaScript is an object-oriented scripting language used to enable programmatic access to objects within both the client application and other applications. It is primarily used in the form of client-side JavaScript, implemented as an integrated component of the web browser, allowing the...
API, which is the evolution of ActiveX API and Firefox integration
- D-Bus
D-Bus is a simple inter-process communication system for software applications to communicate with one another. D-Bus was heavily influenced by KDE2–3's DCOP system and has replaced it in the KDE 4 release; it is supported on Linux, Microsoft Windows and Apple Mac OS X operating systems and...
Controls
- C# interface
- Python
Python is a general-purpose high-level programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability. Python claims to "[combine] remarkable power with very clear syntax", and its standard library is large and comprehensive...
controls
- Java
Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
API
- DirectShow
DirectShow , codename Quartz, is a multimedia framework and API produced by Microsoft for software developers to perform various operations with media files or streams. It is the replacement for Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows technology...
filters
Browser plugins
- On Windows, Linux, and some other platforms, VLC provides a NPAPI
Netscape Plugin Application Programming Interface is a cross-platform plugin architecture used by many web browsers.It was first developed for the Netscape family of browsers starting with Netscape Navigator 2.0 but has subsequently been implemented in other browsers including Mozilla Application...
plugin, which lets people view QuickTime, Windows Media, MP3 and Ogg files embedded in websites without using additional products. It supports FirefoxMozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. Firefox has 23.75% of the recorded usage share of web browsers , making it the second most popular browser in terms of current use worldwide after Microsoft's...
, Mozilla Application SuiteThe Mozilla Application Suite is a cross-platform integrated Internet suite. Its development was initiated by Netscape Communications Corporation, before their acquisition by AOL. It is based on the source code of Netscape Communicator...
, SafariSafari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. First released as a public beta on 7 January 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Apple has also made Safari the native browser for the iPhone OS...
, OperaOpera is a web browser and internet suite developed by the Opera Software company. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying websites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, IRC online chatting, downloading files via BitTorrent, and reading web feeds...
, ChromeGoogle Chrome is a web browser released by Google which uses the WebKit layout engine and application framework. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user...
and other NetscapeNetscape Communications was a US computer services company, best known for its web browser. The browser was once dominant in terms of usage share, but lost most of that share to Internet Explorer during the first browser war...
plug-in based. Before switching to Adobe FlashAdobe Flash is a multimedia platform originally acquired by Macromedia and currently developed and distributed by Adobe Systems. Since its introduction in 1996, Flash has become a popular method for adding animation and interactivity to web pages...
, this plugin was initially used by GoogleGoogle Inc. is an American public corporation, earning revenue from advertising related to its Internet search, e-mail, online mapping, office productivity, social networking, and video sharing services as well as selling advertising-free versions of the same technologies. Google has also...
to build the Google VideoGoogle Video is a free video sharing website and also a video search engine from Google. Google Video allows select videos to be remotely embedded on other websites and provides the necessary HTML code alongside the media, similar to YouTube. This allows for websites to host large amounts of video...
web browser plugin.
- Starting with version 0.8.2, VLC also provides an ActiveX
Component Object Model is a binary-interface standard for software componentry introduced by Microsoft in 1993. It is used to enable interprocess communication and dynamic object creation in a large range of programming languages...
plugin, which lets people view QuickTimeQuickTime is a multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music, and interactive panoramic images. It is available for Mac OS classic , Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows operating systems...
(MOV), Windows MediaWindows Media is a multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit with several application programming interfaces and a number of prebuilt technologies, and is the replacement of NetShow technologies.The Windows Media SDK is...
, MP3MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on...
and OggOgg is a free, open standard container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format claim that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The name ‘Ogg’ refers to the...
files embedded in websites when using Internet ExplorerWindows Internet Explorer , is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems starting in 1995...
.
Applications which use the VLC plugin
- VLC can handle incomplete files and can be used to preview files being downloaded. Several programs make use of this, including eMule and KCeasy
KCeasy is a Windows peer-to-peer filesharing application which uses giFT as its 'back-end' foundation. KCeasy is free and open source software, released under the GNU General Public License. It currently supports the filesharing networks OpenFT, Gnutella, and Ares Galaxy.Originally, KCeasy included...
.
- The free/open-source Miro also uses VLC code.
- Handbrake, an open-source video encoder, loads libdvdcss
libdvdcss is a free software library for accessing and unscrambling DVDs encrypted with the Content Scramble System...
from VLC Media Player.
Readable formats
VLC can read several formats, depending on the
operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
VLC is running on.
Input :
UDPThe User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...
/
RTPThe Real-time Transport Protocol defines a standardized packet format for delivering audio and video over the Internet. It was developed by the Audio-Video Transport Working Group of the IETF and first published in 1996 as RFC 1889, and superseded by RFC 3550 in 2003.RTP is used extensively in...
unicastright|250pxIn computer networking, unicast transmission is the sending of messages to a single network destination host on a packet switching network....
or
multicastMulticast addressing is a network technology for the delivery of information to a group of destinations simultaneously using the most efficient strategy to deliver the messages over each link of the network only once, creating copies only when the links to the multiple destinations split.The word...
, HTTP, FTP,
MMSMicrosoft Media Server is the name of Microsoft's proprietary network streaming protocol used to transfer unicast data in Windows Media Services . MMS can be transported via UDP or TCP...
,
RTSPThe Real Time Streaming Protocol is a network control protocol for use in entertainment and communications systems to control streaming media servers. The protocol is used to establish and control media sessions between end points...
,
RTMPReal Time Messaging Protocol is a proprietary protocol developed by Adobe Systems for streaming audio, video and data over the Internet, between a Flash player and a server.The RTMP protocol has three variations:...
, DVDs, VCD, SVCD, CD Audio, DVB, Video acquisition (via V4l and DirectShow),
RSSRSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format...
/
AtomThe name Atom applies to a pair of related standards. The Atom Syndication Format is an XML language used for web feeds, while the Atom Publishing Protocol is a simple HTTP-based protocol for creating and updating web resources.Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a...
Feeds, and from files stored on the user's computer.
Container formats:
3GP3GP is a multimedia container format defined by the Third Generation Partnership Project for 3G UMTS multimedia services. It is used on 3G mobile phones but can also be played on some 2G and 4G phones....
,
ASFAdvanced Systems Format is Microsoft's proprietary digital audio/digital video container format, especially meant for streaming media...
,
AVIAvi may refer to:* Avi , the pen name of children's author Edward Irving WortisAVI may refer to:* Audio Video Interleave, a multimedia container format* Judged By Your Work Party* AVI Foodsystems, Inc., a foodservice company...
,
FLVFlash Video is a container file format used to deliver video over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player versions 6–10. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There are two different video file formats defined by Adobe Systems and supported in Adobe Flash Player: FLV and F4V...
,
MKVThe Matroska Multimedia Container is an open standard free container format, a file format that can hold an unlimited number of video, audio, picture or subtitle tracks inside a single file. It is intended to serve as a universal format for storing common multimedia content, like movies or TV shows...
,
Musical Instrument Digital InterfaceMIDI , ) is an industry-standard protocol defined in 1982 that enables electronic musical instruments such as keyboard controllers, computers, and other electronic equipment to communicate, control, and synchronize with each other...
(.mid/.midi), QuickTime, MP4,
OggOgg is a free, open standard container format maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. The creators of the Ogg format claim that it is unrestricted by software patents and is designed to provide for efficient streaming and manipulation of high quality digital multimedia.The name ‘Ogg’ refers to the...
, OGM,
WAVWAV , short for Waveform audio format, also known as Audio for Windows, is a Microsoft and IBM audio file format standard for storing an audio bitstream on PCs. It is an application of the RIFF bitstream format method for storing data in “chunks”, and thus is also close to the 8SVX and the AIFF...
,
MPEG-2MPEG-2 is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods which permit storage and transmission of movies using currently available storage media and transmission...
(
ESAn elementary stream as defined by MPEG communication protocol is usually the output of an audio or video encoder. ES contains only one kind of data, e.g. audio, video or closed caption. An elementary stream is often referred to as "elementary", "data", "audio", or "video" bitstreams or streams...
,
PSProgram stream is a container format for multiplexing digital audio, video and more. The PS format is specified in MPEG-1 Part 1 and MPEG-2 Part 1, Systems . The MPEG-2 Program Stream is analogous and similar to ISO/IEC 11172 Systems layer and it is forward compatible...
,
TSTransport stream is a communications protocol for audio, video, and data. It is a type of digital container format that encapsulates packetized elementary streams and other data....
, PVA,
MP3MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on...
),
AIFFAudio Interchange File Format is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices...
, Raw audio, Raw DV,
MXFMaterial eXchange Format is a container format for professional digital video and audio media defined by a set of SMPTE standards.- A brief summary of MXF :...
,
VOBA VOB file is a container format in DVD-Video media. VOB can contain video, audio, subtitle and menu contents multiplexed together into a stream form. VOB is based on MPEG-2 Program stream format, but with additional limitations and specifications in the private streams...
.
Video formats:
CinepakCinepak is a video codec developed by Peter Barrett at SuperMac Technologies, and released in 1991 with the Video Spigot, and then in 1992 as part of Apple Computer's QuickTime video suite. It was designed to encode 320x240 resolution video at 1x CD-ROM transfer rates. The codec was ported to the...
,
DiracDirac is an open and royalty-free video compression format, specification and system developed by BBC Research at the BBC. Schrödinger and dirac-research are an open and royalty-free software implementations of Dirac...
,
DVDigital Video is a digital video format created by Sony, JVC, Panasonic and other video camera producers, and launched in 1995. Its smaller tape form factor MiniDV has since become a standard for home and semi-professional video production; it is sometimes used for professional purposes as well,...
,
H.263H.263 is a video codec standard originally designed as a low-bitrate compressed format for videoconferencing. It was developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group in a project ending in 1995/1996 as one member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T.H.263 has...
,
H.264/MPEG-4 AVCH.264/MPEG-4 AVC is a standard for video compression. The final drafting work on the first version of the standard was completed in May 2003.H.264/AVC is the latest block-oriented motion-compensation-based codec standard developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group together with the ISO/IEC...
,
HuffYUVHuffyuv is a lossless video codec created by Ben Rudiak-Gould which is meant to replace uncompressed YCbCr as a video capture format. Despite the "YUV" in the name, it does not compress the YUV color space, but YCbCr...
,
IndeoIndeo Video is a video codec developed by Intel in 1992. It was sold to Ligos Corporation in 2000. While its original version was related to Intel's DVI video stream format, a hardware-only codec for the compression of television-quality video onto compact disks, Indeo was distinguished by...
3,
MJPEGIn multimedia, Motion JPEG is an informal name for a class of video formats where each video frame or interlaced field of a digital video sequence is separately compressed as a JPEG image...
,
MPEG-1MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to 1.5 Mbit/s without excessive quality loss, making Video CDs, digital cable/satellite TV and digital audio broadcasting possible.Today, MPEG-1 has become...
, MPEG-2,
MPEG-4 Part 2MPEG-4 Part 2 is a video compression technology developed by MPEG. It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standard . It is a discrete cosine transform compression standard, similar to previous standards such as MPEG-1 and MPEG-2...
,
RealVideoRealVideo is a proprietary video format developed by RealNetworks. It was first released in 1997 and is at version 10. RealVideo is supported on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris, and several mobile phones....
3&4,
SorensonThe Sorenson codec is a proprietary digital video codec devised by the company Sorenson Media Inc. It is used in Apple's QuickTime and in Adobe Flash...
(thus enabling direct playback of the modified Sorenson
H.263H.263 is a video codec standard originally designed as a low-bitrate compressed format for videoconferencing. It was developed by the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group in a project ending in 1995/1996 as one member of the H.26x family of video coding standards in the domain of the ITU-T.H.263 has...
encoded videos downloaded from
YouTubeYouTube is a video sharing website on which users can upload and share videos. Three former PayPal employees created YouTube in February 2005. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for $1.65 billion, and is now operated as a subsidiary of Google...
),
TheoraTheora is a royalty-free, open standard, lossy video compression technology being developed by the Xiph.Org Foundation alongside their other open media efforts, most notably the Vorbis audio codec and the Ogg container....
,
VC-1VC-1 is the informal name of the SMPTE 421M video codec standard initially developed by Microsoft. It was released on April 3, 2006 by SMPTE. It is now a supported standard for HD DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and Windows Media Video 9.-Format:...
,
VP5VP5 is a proprietary video codec which was announced by On2 Technologies in February 2002. The production version of VP5 codec was released in May 2002....
,
VP6TrueMotion VP6 is a proprietary video codec developed by On2 Technologies as a successor to earlier efforts such as VP3 and VP5. The VP6 codec has been used in products for broadcasting in the field, such as with BBC reporters and QuickLink software. This codec is used by Adobe Flash, Flash Video,...
, WMV.
Subtitles: DVD, SVCD, DVB, OGM,
SubStation AlphaSubStation Alpha , abbreviated SSA, is a subtitle file format created by CS Low that allows for more advanced subtitles than the conventional SRT and similar formats. This format can be rendered with VSFilter in conjunction with a DirectShow-aware video player , or MPlayer with the SSA/ASS library...
,
SubRipSubRip is a software program for Windows which "rips" subtitles and their timings from video. SubRip can extract from live video, video files and DVDs, then record the extracted subtitles and timings as a text file, and can save the recognized subtitles as bitmaps for later subtraction from the...
, Advanced SubStation Alpha, MPEG-4 Timed Text,
Text fileA text file is a kind of computer file that is structured as a sequence of lines. A text file exists within a computer file system...
, Vobsub, MPL2,
TeletextTeletext is a television information retrieval service developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s. It offers a range of text-based information, typically including national, international and sporting news, weather and TV schedules...
.
Audio formats:
AACAdvanced Audio Coding is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at similar bit rates....
, AC3,
ALACALAC may refer to:*Apple Lossless, a digital audio format*The At-Large Advisory Committee, a committee of ICANN*Artificial Limb & Appliance Centre - Centre hosting the Artificial Limb & Appliance Service of Wales*Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand...
,
AMRAdaptive Multi-Rate is a patented audio data compression scheme optimized for speech coding. AMR was adopted as the standard speech codec by 3GPP in October 1998 and is now widely used in GSM and UMTS. It uses link adaptation to select from one of eight different bit rates based on link...
,
DTSDTS, Inc. , is a company specialising in multichannel digital surround sound format used for both commercial/theatrical and consumer grade applications. It is used for in-movie sound on film, DVD, CD, HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc...
, DV Audio,
XMXM, standing for "extended module", is an audio file type introduced by Triton's Fast Tracker 2. XM introduced multisampling-capable instruments with volume and panning envelopes, and basic pattern compression...
, FLAC,
MACEMACE is an obsolete audio encoding system. It makes a considerably smaller file than straight PCM, but results in a huge reduction of audio quality and considerable amount of noise at any bit rate. It has been used in, among others, AIFF file formats....
,
ModMOD is a computer file format used primarily to represent music, and was the first module file format. MOD files use the “.MOD” file extension, except on the Amiga where the original trackers instead use a “mod.” prefix scheme, e.g. “mod.echoing”...
,
MP3MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression. It is a common audio format for consumer audio storage, as well as a de facto standard of digital audio compression for the transfer and playback of music on...
,
PLSPLS is a computer file format that stores multimedia playlists. It is a more expressive format than basic M3U, as it can store information on the song title and length . With PLS version 2, playlists also include a PLS version declaration.Microsoft Windows and its software does not automatically...
, QDM2/QDMC,
RealAudioRealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is played at the same time as it is...
,
SpeexSpeex is a patent-free audio compression format designed for speech and also a free software speech codec that may be used on VoIP applications and podcasts. It is based on the CELP speech coding algorithm. Speex claims to be free of any patent restrictions and is licensed under the revised BSD...
, Screamtracker 3/S3M,
TTATrue Audio is a free, real-time lossless audio codec, based on adaptive prognostic filters.Also, .tta is the generic extension to filenames of audio files created by True Audio codec.-Codec overview:...
,
VorbisVorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...
,
WavPackWavPack is a free, open source lossless audio compression format developed by David Bryant.-Features:WavPack compression can compress 8-, 16-, 24-, and 32-bit floating point audio files in the .WAV file format. It also supports surround sound streams and high frequency sampling rates...
,
WMAWindows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
.
Output formats for streaming/encoding
VLC can
transcodeTranscoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another. This is usually done to incompatible or obsolete data in order to convert it into a more suitable format...
into several formats depending on the operating system.
Container formats: ASF, AVI, FLV, Fraps, MP4, Ogg, Wav, MPEG-2 (ES, PS, TS, PVA, MP3), MPJPEG, FLAC, MOV
Video formats: H.263, H.264/MPEG-4 AVC, MJPEG, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, VP5, VP6, Theora, DV
Audio formats: AAC, AC3, DV Audio, FLAC, MP3, Speex, Vorbis
Streaming protocols:
UDPThe User Datagram Protocol is one of the core members of the Internet Protocol Suite, the set of network protocols used for the Internet. With UDP, computer applications can send messages, in this case referred to as datagrams, to other hosts on an Internet Protocol network without requiring...
,
HTTPHypertext Transfer Protocol is an application-level protocol for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. Its use for retrieving inter-linked resources, called hypertext documents, led to the establishment of the World Wide Web in 1990 by English physicist Tim Berners-Lee...
,
RTPThe Real-time Transport Protocol defines a standardized packet format for delivering audio and video over the Internet. It was developed by the Audio-Video Transport Working Group of the IETF and first published in 1996 as RFC 1889, and superseded by RFC 3550 in 2003.RTP is used extensively in...
,
RTSPThe Real Time Streaming Protocol is a network control protocol for use in entertainment and communications systems to control streaming media servers. The protocol is used to establish and control media sessions between end points...
,
MMSMicrosoft Media Server is the name of Microsoft's proprietary network streaming protocol used to transfer unicast data in Windows Media Services . MMS can be transported via UDP or TCP...
, File
See also
- List of media players
- Comparison of media players
The following comparison of media players compares general and technical information for a number of software media player programs.For the purpose of this comparison, "video players" are defined as any media player which can play video, even if it can also play audio files...
- List of multimedia (audio/video) codecs
- xine
xine is a multimedia playback engine for Unix-like operating systems released under the GNU General Public License. xine is built around a shared library that supports different frontend player applications. Another important feature of xine is the ability to manually correct the synchronization...
, MPlayerMPlayer is a free and open source media player. The program is available for all major operating systems, including Linux and other Unix-like systems, Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS and MorphOS are also available. The Windows version works, with some minor...
- MEncoder
MEncoder is a free command line video decoding, encoding and filtering tool released under the GNU General Public License. It is a close sibling to MPlayer and can convert all the formats that MPlayer understands into a variety of compressed and uncompressed formats using different codecs.Mencoder...
External links