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28 September 2009
Posted in
News -
Software
For most people, VLC is the favorite media player because it plays everything they throw at it without hiccups. No hunting for codec. But VLC can do a lot of other things as well. Find out how many of these listed below you knew, and how many you did not.
Before to start i advise you after finishing reading this article to read also the part II : Do you know which more things VLC media player can do?
1. Rip DVDs: VLC includes a basic DVD ripper. You probably would never use it when there are better DVD rippers available, but it helps to know that you can in fact, get a decent quality DVD rip with VLC. To rip a movie follow these steps:
Go to the Media menu and choose Convert/Save. Click on the Disc tab.
- Here you can adjust the Starting Position and rip only specific titles or chapters.
- Enter file name making sure to end with .MPG, and start ripping.
- Click Save.
2. Record videos: With the new VLC, you can record videos during playback. The record button is hidden by default. To see it, click on View>Advanced Control. The record button will now appear. Clicking on the button while playing a movie or video will start recording. Clicking again will stop recording.
3. Play RAR files: Do you know VLC can play videos zipped inside RAR files? They play like normal video files and you can even use the seek bar. If the RAR file is split into several files, no problem. Just load the first part (.part001.rar ) and it will automatically take the rest of the parts and play the whole file.
4. Play in ASCII mode: VLC media player has an amusing ability, to playback movies in ASCII art. To enable ASCII mode, open VLC media player and click on Tools>Preferences. Open the section “Video” section and under “Output” select “Color ASCII art video output” from the drop down menu. Save it. Now play any video file to enjoy the ASCII art.
5. Listen to online radio: VLC includes hundreds of Shoutcast radio stations. You just need to enable it through Media>Services Discovery>Shoutcast radio listings. Now, open the Playlist and browse through the stations.
6. Convert Audio and Video formats: In VLC you can convert video and audio files from one format to another. Several different formats are supported like MP4, WMV, AVI, OGG, MP3 etc. To access the converter:
- Go to Media>Convert/Save.
- Load the file you want to convert using the Add button and click Convert.
- Now choose the output format and output file location.
7. Download YouTube and other online videos: First grab the URL of the YouTube video page. Now click on Media>Open Network stream. Paste the URL and click Play.
Once VLC starts streaming the video, click Tools>Codec Information and at the bottom of the window you will see a Location box. Copy the URL and paste it on your browser’s address bar. The browser will now download the file which you can save it to your hard disk. Alternatively, you can record the video. (See #2).
If you have a Tip, tutorial, Idea or anything you want to share with unixmen readers, you can send it to : tips[a]unixmen.com or use our contact form Thanks.
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Comments (28)
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2009-09-29 11:31:05 | Conrad Sole - Brilliant
This type of information is great when you are new to PC's and can learn cool stuff like this to make your life easier/happier.
Thanks a mil for enlightening us!!!
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I knew VLC was packed with features. Just never had time to explore all of it. Now you just laid it all before me like a table spread. Thanks my friend
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2009-10-01 01:52:57 | jim - that's not all it does
I just realized the other day that vlc has a "real mode". When watching a video just go to the tools menu and choose "real". The porn stars you are watching will materialize in your room and have their way with you.
WARNING!
Do not press this button if you are watching a nature documentary about elephants. Wow!
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2009-10-03 16:21:02 | JeanJean - also screencast your desktop
yeah you can easier create a video screencast of your destop, for sharing your knowledge about linux for exemple !!
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2009-10-07 11:18:18 | raven - shoutcast radio?
I did what you said and I could not get a list of shoutcast radio listings.
I have been a devote fan of vlc for years and now I love it even more! Any suggestions on gettting the list would be great! Thanks man!
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2009-10-07 21:32:29 | Bobby V. - I knew about #2
This is how I watch 90% of things I don't plan on burning. You should know however that in fact instead of extracting where u want it extracts to a temp folder thus still taking up space on the HD until you shutdown or delete temp files/folder.
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2009-10-08 05:53:29 | Ben - Recording on Mac version?
There's no view menu in the Mac version... and I'm not seeing any 'advanced' or 'recording' settings. Can you not record a video on the Mac version?
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2009-10-08 07:07:17 | wqer
"zipped inside RAR files"? Why not ACE'd inside LHZ files? or 7z'ed inside bz2 files? Are you sure they're not rared into ZIP files? ;)
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2009-10-18 12:00:33 | Mark - ascii
when i go on ascii mode i have no pic just a load of letters is that right or am i doing something wrong bit new to all this
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2010-04-21 01:58:44 | Shuiichiro - ascii
never tried it but I think you got it right, asciis are characters.
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2009-11-20 12:52:18 | Yechie - one of the beste
well, i knew that VLC is very good but i didn't know how much...
very good list, thanks for sharing.
///Yechie
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Interesting. I never knew it can do all this. I got a copy from a friends pc. I love the ASCII part. I'm going to try that out.
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2010-04-19 04:03:13 | Domo - Youtube.
I do what you say to stream youtube videos and this pops up "VLC can't recognize the input's format:
The format of 'http://www.youtube.com/v/xxxxxxxxx' cannot be detected. Have a look at the log for details."
hello you are no image what is this your mouth this
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2010-05-22 16:30:43 | Nekro - VLC can't recognize the input's format: The form
In the case of this error:
"VLC can't recognize the input's format:
The format of 'http://www.youtube.com/v/xxxxxxxxx' cannot be detected. Have a look at the log for details."All you have to do is to update the youtube LUA script. Youtube made some changes and VLC Player doesn't play youtube videos anymore.
Download a new "youtube.lua" file and save it in C:\Program files\VLC installation folder\lua\playlist\ This will overwrite the old version of this file (Don't worry! It doesn't work anyway. But u can make a backup just to be sure.). On Linux the directory is /usr/share/vlc/lua/playlist/
You can find the url to the new file on the VLC Support IRC channel #videolan. The IRC server is irc.freenode.net.
I hope this helps
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it can also stream your desktop!
http://www.nerdlogger.com/2008/03/stream-your- linuxmacwindows-desktop-as.html