Tips and Tricks To Make VLC Media Player More Productive

Hello Folks,…. VLC Media Player is the most popular and powerful media player yet available for Windows, Linux as well as Mac OS X. While providing basic media player features, this player is also providing very advanced settings and options for power users. It supports tons of video/audio formats, user can control playback and sound settings. The player is provided with very cool theme to make it look more stylish. And, above all, VLC Media Player is available to download and use for free.

The features of VLC makes it unmatchable from all the available media players. You might be using VLC Media Player from years and being a power user, you might have discovered and used every available feature of this player at least once but something is still left.

You may also like Best Ways to Convert Youtube to MP3

Tips and Tricks To Make VLC Media Player More Productive For You

I can bet, there are still make important features and tools available inside VLC that you haven’t used yet. This article is dedicated to those hidden features and tools. Here in this article, I am going to tell you 10 VLC tips and tricks that will make VLC Media Player even more productive for you.

VLC Inception Trick

Wondering what’s inception here? Well, VLC Media Player can take screenshot of your current screen and keep on taking screenshots in relatively smaller size and putting on it’s display panel which will provide your inception effect.

Steps to perform this trick:

Open VLC Media Player
Now, Press Ctrl+N
Type “screen://” (without quotes) in the opened window
Click Play to see this VLC inception trick.

Use VLC as Video Converter

Don’t you have any video converter to convert your video files to a format compatible with your mobile, tablet, other devices or media players? Well, if you have VLC then problem solved. VLC media player lets you to convert media files too. To convert your media files, follow these steps:

Navigate to Media >> Convert/Save
On the next screen, click “Add” and add media files by browsing
Now, click on Convert/Save button provided at the bottom.
On the next screen, choose desirable video format to play video on your device.
Finally, click Start and VLC will start converting your video file to desirable video format.

After conversion, VLC media player will open converted media file in front of you.

Use VLC media player as YouTube Video Downloader

Unlike 2nd trick, VLC media player doesn’t provide direct option for you to download YouTube video but you can play workaround. VLC media player can help you in getting direct downloading link of your desired YouTube video file. Follow these steps:

Navigate to Media >> Open Network Stream
Put your YouTube video’s URL at provided field and click “Play” button

VLC media player will not steam the video. Click on Tools >> Media Information >> Codec. See the Location box at the bottom which has long URL string. Copy it.
The URL you have copied is video downloading URL for your YouTube video. Now paste it on browser and browse it to play the video at your browser, save as to download the video or paste it in your downloader which will download the video for you.

Add Mouse Gesture Support

VLC media player provides so many important features and many of them are usually used while playing a video or audio. Its frustrating to move through options for configuration. To make the task easier, VLC media player have provided mouse gesture support which makes it very easy to adjust settings just by moving mouse.

For example –

left : Short time skip backward (10sec by default)
right : Short time skip forward (10sec by default)
left-up : Faster
right-up : Slower
left-down : Go to previous entry in playlist
right-down : Go to next entry in playlist
left-right : Play/Pause
right-left : Play/Pause
up : Volume up
down : Volume down
up-down : Mute Volume
down-up : Mute Volume

To enable mouse gesture, navigate to View >> Add Interface and click “Mouse Gesture” option. You can see full list of supported mouse gestures here.

Record Video Chat

You can save your long video chat session easily using VLC media player. To do this, follow the below steps:

Navigate to Media >> Open Capture Device
On Capture Device Screen, You can select audio and video device, just like system microphone.
Moreover, you can adjust brightness, hue, contrast, saturation, etc.
Choose destination path for recorded file and you’re good to go.

Listen Internet Radio & Manage Podcasts

VLC media player contains in-built internet radio listings and a podcast aid to boot. Just open playlist and at the top of left sidebar, you’ll find Internet Radio services such as Ice cast Radio directory, Jamendo Selections. Click anyone to load their album and start listening them. It’s free.

If you’d like VLC to keep a track of podcasts then hover Podcasts in the Playlist and click on the plus symbol “+” that appears. Enter the podcast’s URL to add it to your database.

Play Video as ASCII Output

Not any productive but obviously an interesting feature, vlc media player lets you output video in ASCII Art format. So, instead of watching normal video,

Navigate to Tools >> Preferences

Click on Video from left sidebar
At “Output” field, choose Color ASCII Art Video Output

Now, enjoy watching videos in ASCII art format. Useless, but fun!

Record Your Desktop

VLC media player can load your desktop as an input device. This means that you can use the Convert / Save feature to save a video of your desktop, effectively turning vlc media player into screen capture software.

Now, no additional screen-capture software required.

Play Video on Desktop

However, it is highly distracting but if you want, you can make your desktop a playback screen for any video you’re playing on VLC Media Player

To do this, follow these steps:

Navigate to Tools >> Preferences
Choose Video from left sidebar and at output field choose “DirectX video output. Save it.
Now, restart vlc media player, play a video
Right-click on screen and navigate to Video >> DirectX Wallpaper

Enjoy watching video directly at your desktop.

Refer this also,

Hope you enjoy Tips and Tricks To Make VLC Media Player More Productive For You.