VLC media player

VLC media player is a free and open source media player developed by VideoLAN, a non-profit organisation based in France. The project started in 1996 as a student project at the École Centrale Paris. It became open source in 2001, and since 2009 it has been driven by an autonomous non-profit organisation. VLC is released under the GNU General Public License and is recognisable by its orange traffic cone icon.

Features

• Plays most audio and video formats, discs and network streams without extra codec packs.
• Streaming and conversion of media files, including multicast streaming.
• Versions for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, among other systems.
• Subtitle, equaliser and filter options as well as add-ons and skins.
• No advertising and no user tracking in the app, according to the project.

Model and limits

VLC is free and funded by donations and the work of volunteers. The interface is functional rather than polished, and library management for large music collections is basic compared with dedicated music players.