Settings and description of the video player VLC media player. Playing and saving a video stream in VLC Media Player Vlc media player description in Russian

The cross-platform VLC player is known to almost everyone, but most users have no idea that it can be used not only to play media content, but also to perform many other tasks. Which ones exactly - about this in the new issue of our software section

Interest in the VLC player, developed by enthusiasts since 1996 as part of the VideoLAN project, is due to several reasons. Firstly, the mentioned product is extremely popular among free software supporters (the number of downloads exceeds 485 million!) and is available for all kinds of operating systems, including mobile ones. Secondly, not long ago there was a major release of a new build of the program, which has matured to version 2.0.x and received a lot of interesting functions. Finally, thirdly, for many users VLC is still associated exclusively with a tool for watching video and listening to audio, the powerful filling of which allows you to solve much more interesting problems in practical terms. Today’s publication is devoted to a brief summary of them, equipped with an abundance of screenshots for greater clarity.

Converting files

With the widespread proliferation of portable computing devices with different technical characteristics, the problem of converting multimedia data from one format to another has become more relevant than ever, which can be dealt with in a jiffy using VLC. You just need to open the program, press Ctrl+R, on the “File” tab, select one or more objects that require processing and click on the “Convert/Save” button.

Next, you will need to enter the name of the resulting file, select an output format with a suitable profile for data compression and start the processing process by clicking the “Start” button. If you wish, you can go to the profile settings and play with codec parameters, picture resolution, bitrate and other audio/video characteristics, even including subtitles in the converted video. Adjusting codecs may require certain knowledge from the user, which can always be obtained on the pages of the VideoLAN Wiki reference and information site.

Using videos as a background for your work environment

One of the interesting features of the VLC player is the ability to output video directly to the desktop of the operating system. To activate multimedia wallpaper, the role of which can be played by your favorite movie, you should go to the advanced settings of the program and in the “Video” field, check the box next to the “Video on the desktop” item. After this, all that remains is to select a similar menu item in the main application window and make sure that the operations performed were beneficial to the cause.

Watching YouTube videos

It is well known that in order to view the content presented on the YouTube server, you need a browser with the Adobe Flash plugin installed or HTML5 support. If you don’t have an appropriate web browser at hand, the notorious VLC player can resolve the deadlock. The technique is simple: press Ctrl+N, copy the URL of the online video you like into the form for entering and click on the “Play” button. If you have a mediocre Internet channel, it would be a good idea to open a tab with additional parameters and adjust the amount of cache memory used when playing YouTube content. This kind of foresight will help you avoid annoying pauses during video playback.

Transcription of audio recordings

The issue of converting voice recordings into text format often baffles even experienced computer users: the corresponding software tools that simplify the solution of the problem are a big deal, and often they are of no use at all. In such cases, it is much more effective to use VLC with the “Step back”, “Step forward” and “Cycle A → B” keys placed on the toolbar through the interface settings. Using the mentioned controls, you can instantly rewind the recording ten seconds forward and backward and activate cyclic scrolling of selected sections of the audio file, which is useful when transcribing lectures, interviews, dictations of translators and other audio data.

Users with good memory can, instead of customizing the program interface, resort to the practical use of the player’s hot key system, which allows performing various actions, including rewinding the content being played on the computer. It should be noted that almost all VLC controls are duplicated by corresponding keyboard shortcuts, configurable depending on the user’s preferences.

Organization of streaming audio/video broadcasting

And this task can be handled using VLC. In order to use the player as a server for streaming multimedia content, you need to make a number of program settings, guided by this (in English) or this (in Russian) instructions. In particular, you will need to decide on the broadcast source, select the network protocol that will be used for online broadcasting, set the settings for transcoding data into a suitable format, and activate the transmission of the media stream to client machines. Since multimedia broadcasts impose very strict requirements on the bandwidth of communication channels, before deploying a video server, it would be correct to make sure that the Internet connection you are using is capable of withstanding a powerful flow of outgoing traffic.

Saving streaming content to a file

Since we are talking about organizing online broadcasting using VLC, it would be logical to mention the player’s ability to not only distribute content over the network, but also save streaming content broadcast by someone to disk, automatically converting it to the most preferred format. This operation is carried out by analogy with the method described above for viewing YouTube videos, with the only exception that after entering the URL you need to click not “Play”, but “Convert”. A window will open with settings for saving the input stream and parameters of the codecs that will be used to convert the data. After cleaning them up, you can, keeping in mind copyrights and copyrights, begin to “rob” the audio/video stream.

Taking screenshots from a video stream

Unlike a number of alternative media players, VLC includes special tools for creating snapshots of movies being played. There is no need to mess around with the Print Screen key, the operating system clipboard and graphic editors - just press Shift+S and the program will automatically write the selected frame to the computer disk in the specified directory. By default, images are saved in PNG format, which can be changed to JPG if desired.

Remote player control

Another documented but rarely used feature of VLC is the ability to remotely manipulate the program via a web interface. The beauty of it is that any computing device connected to a local network with an Internet browser on board, be it a smartphone or tablet, can act as a remote control. Those interested can personally see the flexibility of this tool by activating the remote control interface in the player settings and connecting to it through a browser. “Over the air” you can control almost all the main functions of the application: adjust the volume, control file playback and playlist, manipulate equalizer settings and other VLC parameters.

Assembling video puzzles

For those who like to while away their free time solving various kinds of puzzles and logic puzzles, VLC can also serve them well. No tricks or shamanic dances with a tambourine - just open a window with graphic effects, check the box next to the “Puzzle” item and get from the playing video a mosaic broken into many fragments, which must be assembled into a single whole. The difficulty of the game can be adjusted by increasing the rows and columns that make up the puzzle. Control is carried out by deftly moving elements with the mouse.

View photos

While designed for working with multimedia data, VLC copes well with other tasks. Thanks to built-in support for JPG, PNG, XCF, GIF, TIFF, LBM, PCX and Targa (TGA) graphic formats, the player can be used as a simple image viewer that perfectly complements the program's capabilities listed above.

It is hoped that the note we published will serve as good food for thought for all VLC users and, perhaps, will force someone to radically reconsider their attitude towards opensource solutions, which are often head and shoulders above commercial products. Both in terms of the quality of implementation, and in terms of the functionality carefully laid out by the developers.

Windows' built-in media player is great for playing basic music and videos, but it's far from a universal option. VLC Media Player can help with this. It can play audio and video from almost any source without the need for additional codecs.

1. VLC Media Player() includes various plugins and extensions that allow you to easily integrate with your operating system and other software. It is not only a powerful, customizable and versatile media player, but also a universal application that works on all platforms!
2. The installer is pretty self-explanatory and you don't need to change any of the default settings. The only section you need to pay special attention to is “Select Features,” where you may want to choose which items and extensions to install. When in doubt, leave everything selected.
3. The main interface of VLC looks simple. The first thing you need to do is upload the video. You can do this by dragging the file into the program window or clicking the Media menu and then Open File. Note that you can also open video streams and CDs.
4. At the bottom of the program's window are controls similar to those you'd find in any other media player: play, stop and pause, volume control, and a progress bar that lets you jump to a specific section of the video. VLC Media Player allows you to take granular control over audio and video playback with customizable options and filters.
5. VLC gives you a lot of control over how your videos look and sound. Click the graphic equalizer button at the bottom of the window, or click Tools > Effects & Filters to bring up audio and video controls. To adjust the sound, you'll need to check the Enable box and then use the sliders to adjust the different audio frequencies to your liking. In addition to the basic settings, you can also use the Compressor and Spatilizer tabs to experiment with more advanced effects.
6. If the sound and image in a video do not match in playback time, VLC Media Player also offers an easy way to synchronize them
7. The Sync tab can be used to troubleshoot the problem of audio and video being out of sync. By introducing a pause in the audio or moving it forward, you can repair damaged videos.
8. Moving to the Video Effects tab in the middle, there are a variety of controls you can use to enhance the look of your footage by adjusting settings like color, tint, sharpness, etc. There's even the ability to rotate video - great for viewing videos you've shot in the wrong mode on the phone.
9. If the video you select already has subtitles, VLC Media Player can display them. It also allows you to download subtitles. Click the View menu and select the Download Subtitles option. You can search for any subtitles that exist for your video. VLC will automatically search for subtitles based on the name of the file you downloaded, but you can change this search to any other file name.
10. The program runs in windowed mode by default, but if you plan to watch a movie, you'll probably want to switch to full-screen mode—just click View > Full Screen Interface or press F11.

Video:How to use VLC Media Player

Sometimes there is a need to record a video stream broadcast over the network. This could be: a football match, an episode of your favorite TV series, or even a video surveillance stream from an IP camera. For this purpose, the free media player VLC Media Player may well be suitable, which has the capabilities of not only playing video, but also recording, converting and even broadcasting it!

Let's say we have an IP CCTV camera video stream URL: "http://192.168.0.104:8080/videofeed" which we want to view and record on the computer.

Method 1 (Easy)

Open VLC player and select the menu option “Media > Open URL…”.

In the dialog that opens, enter the video URL and click on the "Play" button.

Buffering occurs and the video starts playing. Now select the menu option “View > Additional Controls”.

At the bottom, above the playback control buttons, a record button will appear (the button with a red circle). Click on it, and the video will immediately begin recording into a file that will be created in the “Libraries > Video” folder. To stop recording, press the record button again.

Method 2 (More difficult, but more flexible)

This method is suitable if the video stream is quite heavy and needs to be compressed to save space on the computer’s hard drive, or if it is simply needed by people who do not “understand” the original format of the video stream.

Open VLC player and click "File > Convert/Save...".

In the dialog that opens, enter the stream address and click the "Convert/Save" button.

A dialog with the converter settings will open. In the conversion settings, check the "Play result" checkbox to see the conversion result. In the "Profile" field, select the final file format. I chose the native Windows format - ".asf". The video in this format is quite high quality, and the video itself is highly compressed, making the final file lightweight. You can save even more space by reducing the video and audio bitrate in the codec settings (the button with the image of a screwdriver and a key).

Give the file a name and click on the “Start” button. The video will start converting, recording and playing back at the same time. To stop recording, click on the "Stop" button.

This method allows you to save disk space during long-term video recording, but you must understand that with such triple work there is a serious load on the processor.

Here we will talk about the VLC media player. Another player, Media Player Classic, is described in the corresponding article. Both of these programs, by the way, are absolutely free. You can download VLC media player on the official website or on this page using the link below. The program is constantly updated, in order to check if it is time to update your version, you just need to open the program and click on the Help tab --> Check for updates.

VLC runs on operating system platforms: Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, BSD, Solaris, Familiar Linux, Yopy/Linupy and QNX.
VLC plays almost all video formats, with rare exceptions, so there is no point in listing them.

How to display a video on your desktop (video in wallpaper mode)

VLC player provides an interesting feature to display videos in wallpaper mode. To output video to the desktop, you need to go to the Tools --> Settings tab, select the "Video" section, in the "Display" tab in the drop-down menu, select the DirectX video output mode, and in the "DirectX" rollout, check the "Enable wallpaper mode" checkbox .
Or simpler. In the same way, select the "DirectX" mode via Tools --> Settings --> Video, restart the program, then check the tab at the top of the program window Video --> Video on the desktop. If you want to remove the video from your desktop, just uncheck this box. For better viewing, you can hide the VLC tab from the taskbar; to do this, right-click on the program icon in the tray (notification area, the one in the lower right corner) and click on “Hide VLC from the taskbar”.

Interface setup

It must be said that not all players have the ability to accelerate playback, but VLC provides this opportunity. True, the acceleration buttons by default are not very conveniently displayed, at the edges of the playback bar, but this can be corrected, because a distinctive feature of VLC is the ability to customize the visibility and location of the video control buttons. To customize the buttons, you need to go to the View menu --> Interface settings, after which the toolbar editor window will open, consisting of two sections. The first contains the buttons themselves, the second contains types of toolbars for normal and full-screen mode. Buttons are added and removed by simply dragging and dropping from one window to another.

By default, the control panel has a "Repeat Mode" button for cyclic playback of the same video file. If you press it while playing a video in desktop wallpaper mode, we will get the desired monitor video wallpaper.

Selecting an appearance

The player allows you to change your appearance (or, as they say, change your skin) to a more interesting one than the default one. To do this, you need to download the skin you like from the VLC skins page, then place it in the C:\Program Files\VLC\skins folder (the folder can also be located at C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\skins). Then go to the menu Tools --> Settings --> Interface (Tools --> Preferences --> Interface) and switch the checkbox from Use Navite Style to Use Custom Scin, and then restart the program. The interface will change, but it will still not be the one you chose. Now you need to right-click on the bottom bar in the panel, after which in the context menu that opens, hover over the “Interface” item, a new menu will open, where you can select the skin you downloaded.

Saving sound level after exiting the program

In order to ensure that when starting the VLC player sound volume level remains the same as when the program was previously launched, go to the menu Tools --> Settings --> Audio and check the Keep audio level between sessions.

If you want the sound level to always be the same level when you start the program, then in the menu Tools --> Settings --> Audio, check the Always reset audio start level to

Taking screenshots (saving a frame from a video)

To capture the desired frame from a video, go to the Video menu --> Snapshot. By default, VLC will save the frame in the My Documents folder. To change the save folder, you need to go to the Tools --> Settings tab, select the "Video" section and in the "Videos" tab in the Directory line, select the desired folder using the "Browse" button. In the same tab, you can select the saved image format, JPG or PNG. To more accurately select the desired video frame, you need to pause the video, find the frame using the playback bar and, without leaving the pause, click Video --> Snapshot.

Installation and configuration will allow you to watch TV channels online. To do this, you need to download VLC Media Player and save the installation file.
Then run the saved file and follow the installation instructions. For correct operation, it is recommended to select the full installation type. After installing the VLC Media Player software, follow the link to the viewing pages and watch TV online.

How to configure Vlc media player for a playlist

To watch channels using VLC Media Player and without going to websites, you need to download the playlist. Switching and selecting the required channels is done using the playlist buttons.

Setting up audio tracks

If you use VLC Media Player to watch IPTV, the player gives you the opportunity to watch channels that have several audio tracks in different languages ​​(also in English). Sound tracks are switched by clicking “Audio” - then “Audio Track”, after which the preferred audio track is selected.

How to improve the image quality of Vlc media player?

Setting up Vlc media player to improve image quality is done by going from the “Control Panel” to the “Tools” tab, then “Settings” and activating the “Video interlacing filter”

Setting up Vlc media player for IPTV service

Download VLC Player from the official source - website and install it. To watch IPTV via VLC Media Player, without going to the website, you need to register the playlist address via http://tv.ipnet.ua/ipnet.m3u. To watch IPTV in television mode using a mini-router, you must make the following settings:

• Make sure that your mini-router supports igmp-snooping/igmp proxy and multicast forwarding functionality (carefully read the documentation for the device). The IPTV service is not supported by all mini-routers. Activate the “multicast forwarding” and “igmp-snooping/igmp proxy” functions according to the instructions for these devices. Do not enable the TV-port function. To correctly watch the IPTV service on TV, it is recommended to use the following models:
• TP-Link TL-WR741ND;
• Asus WL520GC;
• TP-Link TL-WR340GD;
• Edimax BR-6424N.