VLC media player (also known as VLC) is a highly portable free and open-source media player and streaming media server written by the VideoLAN project. It is a cross-platform media player, with versions for Microsoft Windows, OS X, GNU/Linux, Android, BSD, Solaris, iOS, Syllable, BeOS, MorphOS, QNX and eComStation.
VLC media player supports many audio and video compression methods and file formats, including DVD-video, video CD and streaming protocols. It is able to stream over computer network and to transcode multimedia files.
VLC used to stand for VideoLAN Client, but since VLC is no longer simply a client, that initialism no longer applies.
The default distribution of VLC includes a large number of free decoding and encoding libraries, avoiding the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins. Many of VLC's codecs are provided by the libavcodec library from the FFmpeg project, but it uses mainly its own muxer and demuxers and its own protocols. It also gained distinction as the first player to support playback of encrypted DVDs on Linux and OS X by using the libdvdcss DVD decryption library.
Read more about VLC Media Player: History, Features, Android Support, Legality
Famous quotes containing the words media and/or player:
“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western World. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity—much less dissent.”
—Gore Vidal (b. 1925)
“The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just, and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895)