Six Cool Features of VLC Media Player You Might not Know

You surely have been amazed that the VLC Media Player can play movies of any file types, even .mkv files which are really hard to play in other media players without the need to download any codecs. You are probably aware too that it can play any music files too. Theres a lot more things that you can do with VLC, and we have rounded them up for you.

Capture Screenshots

You can easily capture screenshots of the movie you are watching with this wonderful media player. While watching, simply go to the Video options in the upper menu bar then select Take Snapshot from the dropdown and it will capture the frame you are into. You can setup the destination of the captured frame by going to Tools then select Preferences from the dropdown menu. Select the video icon and browse the location on where you want it stored.

Theres a hidden trick with the screen capture option, you can also set the image as the wallpaper of your computer by simply selecting Set as Wallpaper in the Video menu dropdown, cool isnt it?

Play Podcasts

If you are a subscriber to some podcasting blogs or websites, the VLC player can help you listen to podcasts in a much better way. All you need to do is to enter the podcast url. You can add as many podcasting stations as you want.

Play Corrupted Files

When downloading a file from the web, lags and connection interruptions will result into corrupted files and you cannot play them with any other media player aside from VLC. It will just skip over the damaged part and will continue playing the parts of the file that are playable. With VLC being lightweight, the RAM usage is pretty small which provides less lag when playing files.

Play Archived Files

Save time unzipping compressed files and take off that Winrar or your 7zip program from your pc as VLC can play compressed files without the need to extract it which also saves you a lot of space on your computer. Many of us get zipped files from various sources in the internet so this feature is really handy.

Desktop Screen Capture

This feature of VLC is useful for people who want to record the activity of their desktop computers. For example, if you are doing tutorials or instructional materials, you can use the VLC media player to capture whatever is shown in your screen and save it on any location on your pc.

To do this, simply choose Media from the top menu then select Open Capture Device from the dropdown. A dialog box will pop up that will provide you options to record the activity as a video. Select Capture Mode to Desktop. Adjust it to your preferred parameters then select Start to begin recording. When you are done, simply tap the S key on your keyboard and it will stop the recording process.

You can also setup the file type you want as the end result before you start the recording process or simply use the convert feature of this wonderful piece of software to have the file type that you require.

Download Youtube Videos

We all love Youtube and we always wanted to download our favorite videos but there are only few tools that can do this and one of it is the VLC media player. To do this, simply go to your desired Youtube video, copy its URL and paste it to the Open Network Stream option of your VLC. It can be found under the Media menu. After you have pasted it, go to Tools menu and click the Codec Information then copy the location address. Then open your browser, paste the location address you have copied in the search bar then hit enter. You can now right click the video that will appear and save it to your computer.

Thats the six cool features you might not know that comes up with the VLC media player. There are a lot of features actually, but these are the ones that many users dont know they exist. Try it for yourself!