Free VLC Player: Why do We Choose VLC?

Viewing movies on computers for enjoyment sometimes can be annoying when your video player software doesn’t go well with the video files. The ideal video player we’re dreaming of is like this: compatible with all OS and formats, user-friendly interface, safe and free will be even better.

The free and open-source VLC media player which can also be a streaming server becomes many people’s best choice for watching videos online over the past years. Why do we choose VLC player?

Multi-platforms supported
As a cross-platform media player, VLC runs well in many operation systems: Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, BSD, Solaris, iOS, Syllable, BeOS, MorphOS, QNX and eComStation

Any media file formats supported
Comparing with other video player, VLC stands out in this point when it supports almost every commonly-used media formats. Meanwhile, playback for some obscure or rarely-used formats can also be done.

Optional interfaces
VLC has a remote control interface and an ncurses interface. It allows custom selection of skins as it supports Winamp 2 and XMMS skins.

Transcoding
With a built-in transcoding tool, the media you throw into it can be output in form of another format.

Interesting video effects
It will be full of fun to add effects to the videos you are watching according to your own preference, just like an editing tool. Additionally, watermark such as text or image can be inserted into the video. Another interesting feature should be the puzzle game mode you can get with VLC.

Open-source and free, as such a powerful media player would be; VLC undoubtedly will be favored by many. In fact, VLC is not just for PC use, but also for portable devices playback as the Android VLC version is released on July 2nd this year for your Android Smartphone. VLC was available for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch from the Apple AppStore, but was pulled due to a licensing conflict between the GPL and the iTunes Store agreement.

DVD Playback is not Supported in Windows 8 Without Built-in WMC

Without the built-in Windows Media Center, playback of DVDs encoded using the most widely-used MPEG-2 video format and Dolby audio format would not be supported in Windows 8. Nor can users burn DVDs directly, unless you pay for Windows Media Center, which is only available on the updated Windows 8 Pro version. Or maybe you can get it solved by some 3rd party software.

And from Windows 8 to the Pro version, Windows 8 Pro Pack is indispensable. In the Building Windows 8 blog, Steven Sinofsky wrote" Based on the above discussion, it should be clear that we cannot enable DVD playback all the time in Windows Media Player. Given the ongoing feedback to avoid feature overlap and to avoid the complexity of behavior changing for a previously installed component, we only enable DVD playback in Media Center once it is installed. "

One of the reasons for such remove of DVD playback function from its previous versions with pre-installed Windows Media Center is mainly because of the vastly decreasing usage in PC TV and DVD playback these years. Slim and portable tablets (with no DVD drive) even could be viewed as the substitution of PC, and streaming media online (Netflix, YouTube, etc.), the changing consuming direction and pattern, leads to the declining of DVDs.

For another reason, as pre-installed software for DVD playback costs, while many PCs would not ever contain an optical DVD drive as is commonly-seen in recent PCs. However, such PC Windows still carries the cost. This is somehow for consumer’s sake.

The future video supporting mainly goes to streaming online (Netflix, YouTube, etc.) playback.

However, Cyberlink would provide consumers with software for DVDs which may probably pre-installed on Windows 8. In fact, there are many other choices of DVD tool. Does this bother you if upgrading to the Windows 8?

Related Articles:

Windows 7 to Windows 8:No DVD Playback and More 
Best Free Options for DVD Playback in Windows 8: VLC Media Player

DVD Movies: why are DVDs still Favored by Many?

Were you a DVD collector or addicter yourself, would you understand why DVD means so much to these people. Especially in such a downloadable world, within the online streaming risen period, physical disc for movies shrinks year by year, which makes DVD’s existence needless as it seems to be. DVDs still makes sense to many people.

 For every individual, there must be a certain movie that worth viewing times after times, digesting and enjoying. With the DVD disc copy of the movies, you can watch it in your living room in a nostalgic afternoon whenever you want, I suppose, with better quality that probably won’t be fulfilled online (when network does not support, or when rental service of certain movies is not available), at least for the moment before image and sound fidelity of streaming surpass physical discs especially to DVD’s brother Blu-ray, which may probably happen years later. Well, the fact is: big online retailers as iTunes and Amazon are already providing with high-definition movies, but chances are that there’s always a time when they do not provide some kinds of movies you want.

Besides, to those who really love movies, they would also dig into the background information of the movies, the valued behind-the-stage details such as: some deleted scenes, alternative endings, director commentary and even interviews of the cast. All these mentioned above mostly could only be found in DVD extras while streaming rentals provide none generally. The information would not only help you understand the story better but also blow it to the peak of enjoyment-sometimes, the extras enhanced the movie itself.

In addition, DVD movies enjoyment would be enlarged when you share with your beloved friends; you can either lending them the DVDs or sending them as a gift. It would be funny when your friends surprisingly explained that “I didn’t even think of such a totally-different ending”.

After all, you can just buy from DVD shops insert the DVD The Dark Knight Rises for enjoyment, instead of other annoying doing. This recalls me of e-book somehow. I wonder when e-book would take the place of books we use today. Or would it? As they’ve stay harmony for so quite some time till now.