VLC Player is the most famous open source media player, available for Windows, Linux and Mac, classified as the absolute best among the thousands of media players available or paid on the internet. If until recently, before it came to version 1.0, it was used essentially, "only" to play videos of any kind, in recent months it has received strong updates that have led it to be a complete program of multimedia functions of each guy.
Many of these functions are also a bit hidden and you have to activate them or pay attention to them to discover and appreciate them.
What makes VLC the best then, in addition to the ability to be able to read any video format without the need to add codecs, offers always smooth and jerky playback, the ability to capture streaming video sources from the internet, to record anything that passes on its interface and it includes many other functions that, I believe, not everyone knows but that are really worth noting.
In the meantime, if you do not know or have not yet installed it on your computer, I will force anyone to download and install the VLC Player program to watch movies and videos on your computer .
Then, let's start with the 20 prettiest and most innovative functions, collateral to the player.
1) Video effects worthy of the best video editing programs
VLC includes numerous video effects to change the vision of a movie: image adjustment, video cropping, geometric perspective and magnification or zoom, rotation of the video at 90 degrees, 180 or at the angle you want, play with colors and editing images with wave effect, water effect, blur.
Overlapping graphic effects, texts and even logos or watermarks can also be added.
To access the video effect options, just press the extended settings button which is the one with the symbol of an equalizer.
2) Among the basic adjustments of the image it is possible to carry out various corrections of color, hue, contrast, brightness, gamma.
The changes are visible in real time on a video that is playing.
3) Still in the basic settings tab of the video effects, there is a voice called " Accentuation " or the sharpness of the images .
If a video is blurred or in any case if the image is not too clear, you can adjust the sharpness to focus and bring out the images shot in the video.
4) There are things that one looks for who knows where, then one discovers that one had them at home.
The transformation box allows you to rotate a video by 90 degrees or put it upside down at 180 degrees.
This is really useful for straightening a video recorded through the camcorder at a different angle.
5) Video zooming is another great function for zooming in on the whole movie or just a scene.
In the Geometry tab, you can enable the Zoom option and notice how well it is done.
In fact, on the video a rectangle appears which marks the area to be enlarged and which can be moved as desired with the mouse.
From the triangle you decide how much to enlarge while, from the menu of the Geometry tab, you can also decide at what angle to zoom so the video can also be rotated by half a degree.
6) Also in the Geometry tab there is a really curious VLC function.
Basically it is a matter of discovering the video image in various pieces, all the same and then you can play to recompose the puzzle by moving the various pieces, always with the video being played.
The puzzle can be simple, with the image broken down into 16 pieces, 4 columns and 4 rows or more complex by increasing the number.
7) In the Colors tab, you can play with colors but there is no list of colors to choose from.
You can write a color code (see here how to find the color codes) to introduce it in the video.
Through the color extraction option, you can enter the code of a specific color to extract it from the video.
Basically in this way you can apply a filter of the color you want on the video.
8) The Panoramic View, ideal if you want to watch a video or film in a dual monitor, is activated in the Vout / Overlay tab.
In this tab you can duplicate the video window and also divide the image into several pieces, so that each of them is reproduced from a different VLC window.
This allows you to individually manage and change the position of separate video parts in windows.
The ideal to try these effects is to attach the computer to a large TV or a projector.
On the left side there is the option Add text, to add the text, also in every single window.
9) The function that allows you to add a logo to the video will be highly appreciated by those who use uploading videos to YouTube to identify them and put an indelible signature on them.
The Watermark of the logo can be inserted on the video, in transparency, from the menu tab "Repeat".
The image can be a PNG or JPG format.
To use this function, under the Logo tab, you must specify the complete path where the image is located on the computer, adjust the transparency and set its position.
10) The Synchronization tab, next to the video effects tab, is used to manually manage audio, video and also the subtitles of a film, so that they are correctly synchronized and without delay.
This requirement generally arises when converting a DVD movie to Avi or Divx.
11) Convert DVD
VLC can be used to bring a DVD to your computer.
Always from the media> Convert / Save menu click on the disk tab and select it.
Finally click on Convert / Save, choose the codec with which you want to save the video and save it on your computer.
READ ALSO: Convert video with VLC
12) Among the most appreciated functions of the new VLC there is the possibility to record from any source or video source .
Recording in general is in fact one of the best features of VLC because, both a video modified with the effects seen above, both a video streaming from the internet, and anything else that appears on the computer screen and, therefore, also the shooting from a webcam, they can be recorded.
In the meantime, in general, the record key appears in the interface if you enable advanced controls in the display menu.
However, if you have to choose from which source to record, press, from the Media menu, convert and save .
To choose what to record, just press " Open acquisition device " to see, in a drop-down menu, all possible sources connected to the PC.
Among them there will be a webcam to see yourself in VLC and record the footage.
Likewise, you can also record everything you see on the Desktop .
In this way it also becomes very simple to save the recordings from a videoconference or video chat on webcam, even from Skype.
13) Convert videos
With VLC you can convert multimedia video and music files.
From the Media> Convert / Save menu, add a file, click the Convert / Save button and then choose the desired codec to convert.
READ GUIDE: Extract audio from video quickly and easily
14) On the new VLC a very useful function is the ability to create and organize bookmarks .
Basically, if you want to sign up for quick access, a video or even a streaming stream from the internet, you can go to the " Playback " menu and click on Bookmarks .
The files saved in the bookmarks can be started whenever you want, very quickly.
15) Very useful when you want to see a DVD or BlueRay film on your computer or if you want to see, all together, a film divided into two parts or more consecutive episodes of a show or TV series or even separate pieces of recordings, using VLC, advanced video aperture can be used.
In the Media Menu there are the advanced opening options that allow you to add subtitles to the video, to add a separate audio track and to start consecutive playback of two or more different videos, so as to see them all together as if they were one.
16) VLC is strong because it allows you to take an instant pause, that is, when you press the Pause button, the video stops immediately, without going even one frame forward.
But in case you want to capture even more images from the video, you can use the frame-by-frame mode, whose button is visible if you activate the display of the advanced controls.
17) In VLC you can also capture an image from a video or film .
However, VLC also allows you to save screenshots with the relative button next to Record, making a snapshot of a scene from a movie.
VLC allows you to take photos either by pausing, either frame by frame, or during normal playback.
For faster image capture, you can set a key on the keyboard between the hotkeys of the preferences menu.
18) VLC, from the Tools menu, allows you to put the video as a desktop background by activating the Wallpaper DirectX function.
19) VLC not only allows you to watch streaming videos from mms or rtsp sources but also to play streaming videos on your computer, did you know "> download Skins to customize the VLC graphics.
22) VLC, in the Media menu, also allows the detection of Podcast services.
23) VLC can play videos in Zip, 7Z or RAR archives .
24) Extensions and Plugins
Extensions can be installed on VLC to add new functions.
IN another article, the guide to install the best extensions and plugins on VLC
25) Cast videos from VLC to Chromecast
READ ALSO: What can you do with VLC; 10 hidden tricks of the media player
