How to Watch Video Online or Download it in VLC

VLC Media Player is a convenient program for playing audio and video files. The main advantage of the player is the support of more than 100 formats and their modifications. In the app, there are no ads and pop-ups with a proposal to purchase a paid version.

The player is distributed free of charge. Cross-platform allows you to use the program in several operating systems – Windows, Linux, MacOS. To install the player, download the EXE file on the site.

 

One of the basic functions of VLC allows you to watch movies online. Users can download content from web pages directly to the player window and play it on their PC before the download of the file is complete. Also, the program allows you to significantly speed up the boot procedure by caching data.

Let’s look in more detail how to watch movies online through the VLC player. Follow the instructions:

Step: 1 First, determine the resource on which you will select the video to watch. It can be any offline cinema or resource for cloud storage. Copy the link to the page from the video to the clipboard.

Step: 2 Open the VLC Media Player and select “Open Network Stream”  or “Open URL” in the “Media” tab.

Step: 3 In the window that opens, locate the “Network Address” field and copy the link to the web page into it.

Step: 4 Click on “Play” to start watching the video. Loading media data into the player will start automatically.

In addition to watching the movie, users can perform the following actions:

• rewind frames;
• adjust the frame rate;
• volume control;
• audio track setup;
• start subtitles (if they are “sewn” into the file).

At the moment VLC Media Player is one of the most popular players. It is light, bright, free, functional and plays all known and still unknown video formats. Moreover, with this player, you can enjoy YouTube videos, but without the disadvantages of a web player.

So, to view the YouTube video in VLC, just select the item “Open URL” from the “Media” menu, or simply press Ctrl + N. In the window that appears, there is a field for entering the address. Just paste here the link to the video and rejoice.

In this way, there are several important advantages over standard browsing.

1. No advertising. It is very important.

2. In the link to the video below, there is a play button. If you click on the arrow on the right part of the button, you can simultaneously save this clip to your computer in the desired format.

3. You can control the playback speed.

4. Automatic repeat playback (in the browser for this you need an add-on).

5.  The ability to take a screenshot of the frame without having to cut it later in the editor.

6. And VLC can be put on Android, and also use this player to combat the jumps in volume in movies.

How to download YouTube Videos with VLC

If you want to download the video into the program, so that they are always at hand, then you need to perform a number of actions.

Open the video you want. In a web browser, go to the YouTube page and find the video you want. Play the video to make sure you’ve found the right video. If you cannot find the video, use the search bar at the top of the screen.

Copy the address of the video. Drag the mouse pointer over the video’s address (in the browser’s address bar at the top of the window) to select it, and then press Ctrl + C on Windows or Command + C on Mac OS. The address of the video will be copied to the clipboard.

Start the VLC. Click on the orange cone icon.

Open the video in VLC. In Windows, click Media – Open URL. In Mac OS X, click File – Open Address.

Paste the address of the video into the field. Make sure you copied the full address. Click Play (Windows) or Open (Mac). The YouTube video will open in VLC.

Look at the codec information.

In Windows, click Tools > Codec Information.

In Mac OS, click Window > Media Info.

Copy the address from the “Location” line (at the bottom of the window). This is a long address, so make sure to allocate the entire address. In Windows, right-click the “Location” field and click Select All, and then right-click the highlighted address and click Copy.

In Mac OS X, right-click the “Location” field and select Open Address.

In the browser, open a new tab and paste the copied address in the address bar, then press Enter. The video will be uploaded directly to the browser.

Skip this step on the Mac (if you selected “Open Address” in the previous step).

The video will be downloaded automatically.

Right-click on the video in the browser and select Save video as. The “Save As” window appears.

Enter the name of the video file and specify the folder to save it. By default, the video will be called “videoplayback“. If you want, change this name.

Click Save. The video will be downloaded to the computer at the highest quality and stored in the specified folder.