VLC for GNU/Linux supports V4L2 compatible encoding cards as well as two kinds of MPEG-2 encoding cards: Hauppauge WinTV-PVR-250/350 and Visiontech Kfir.

On Mac OS X 10.4 or later, VLC is able to grab audio and video from EyeTV applications and therefore all EyeTV-compatible capture devices. You need to install a plugin to EyeTV.app in order to use this feature. Guidance is provided in the User Interface. This feature requires VLC 0.9.0 or later.

VLC can capture video from internal iSights on Mac OS X 10.5 or later (video only) since version 0.9.0. VLC 1.2 adds capturing from all devices supported by QTKit. It also enables audio capturing support on Mac OS X 10.6 and later.

• Input Media. UDP/RTP Unicast, UDP/RTP Multicast, HTTP / FTP, MMS, TCP/RTP Unicast, DCCP/RTP Unicast, File,DVD Video 1, Video CD / VCD, SVCD 2, Audio CD (no DTS-CD), DVB (Satellite, Digital TV, Cable TV), EyeTV 3, MPEG encoder 4, Video acquisition
• Input Formats. MPEG (ES,PS,TS,PVA,MP3), AVI, ASF / WMV / WMA, MP4 / MOV / 3GP, OGG / OGM / Annodex, Matroska (MKV). Real WAV (including DTS), Raw Audio: DTS, AAC, AC3/A52,Raw DV, FLAC, FLV (Flash), MXF, Nut, Standard MIDI / SMF, Creative™ Voice

Windows DMO codecs can be used by VLC on 32-bit x86 platforms and allow WMV-3/WMA-3 decoding. This feature is untested on Intel-based Macs.

• Video Formats. MPEG-1/2, DIVX (1/2/3), MPEG-4 ASP, DivX 4/5/6, XviD, 3ivX D4,    H.261, H.263 / H.263i, H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC, Cinepak, Theora, Dirac / VC-2, MJPEG (A/B), WMV 1/2,WMV 3 / WMV-9 / VC-1 1, Sorenson 1/3 (Quicktime), DV (Digital Video), On2 VP3/VP5/VP6, Indeo Video v3 (IV32), Indeo Video 4/5 (IV41, IV51), Real Video 1/2, Real Video 3/4

Native playback supported by VLC 1.0.3 and later. Previous versions could use Windows DMO codecs on 32-bit x86 platforms and allow WMV-3/WMA-3 decoding. This feature was never tested on Intel-based Macs. Sipr codec playback is not supported. Requires a .sf2 soundfont

• Audio Formats. MPEG Layer 1/2, MP3 – MPEG Layer 3, AAC – MPEG-4 part3,Vorbis, AC3 – A/52 (Dolby Digital), E-AC-3 (Dolby Digital Plus), MLP / TrueHD”>3, DTS, WMA ½, WMA 3 1, FLAC, ALAC, Speex, Musepack / MPC, ATRAC 3, Wavpack, Mod (.s3m, .it, .mod), TrueAudio (TTA), APE (Monkey Audio), Real Audio 2, Alaw/µlaw, AMR (3GPP), MIDI 3, LPCM, ADPCM, QCELP, DV Audio, QDM2/QDMC (QuickTime), MACE

Full color for YUV-type chromas is not handled, only the gray-scale value. Subtitle transparency is not fully supported for all chromas. Some chromas are not handled at all.

• Subtitles. DVD 1        , Text files (MicroDVD, SubRIP, SubViewer, SSA1-5, SAMI, VPlayer), Closed captions, Vobsub, Universal Subtitle Format (USF), SVCD / CVD, DVB, OGM, CMML, Kate
• Tags.    ID3 tags, APEv2, Vorbis comment

A/V Outputs

• Video Outputs. X11, XVideo, SDL, FrameBuffer, ASCII Art
• Audio Outputs. S/PDIF, WaveOut, Multi-channel    DirectX, WaveOut, ALSA, PulseAudio, PortAudio, JACK

A/V Filters

• Video Filters. Deinterlace, Cropping, Image wall, Rotate/Mirror, Logo overlay, Magnification, Image distortion, Bluescreen, RSS/Atom feeds
• Audio Filters. Visualization effects, Equalizer, Spatializer, Dynamic Range Compressor

Interfaces. Qt4, Skins, Web, Telnet, Command line, ncurses, Infrared, Mouse Gestures

Miscellaneous. SAP/SDP announces, Bonjour protocol, Mozilla/Firefox plugin, ActiveX plugin, SVCD Menus, Localization, CD-Text 1, CDDB CD info, IGMPv3 2, IPv6 2, MLDv2 2, CPU acceleration 3

It started as a student project at the French École Centrale Paris but is now a worldwide project with developers from 20 countries and millions of people using VideoLAN’s software.

What is the differences between VLC, VLC media player, VideoLAN Client, VideoLAN Server and VideoLAN?
VLC is the official name of VideoLAN’s main product, often named VLC. VideoLAN Client is an ancient name of this product.

VideoLAN Server is another product of VideoLAN, but is discontinued since {{VLC}} can do more.

What are the usage restrictions for VideoLAN software?
Short answer: there are none.

You can use the software in the way you want (within the boundary of law), for personal, educational, research, military, governmental and/or professional purpose.

May I redistribute a piece of VideoLAN software?
Yes, you may distribute an original or a modified version of a piece of VideoLAN software as long as you comply with its license terms. It is the GNU General Public License Version 2 (referred herein as GPL), and it is in the file named COPYING in our products.

How can I take screenshots?
To take a snapshot of the video displayed by VLC, you just need to press the pre-defined snapshot hotkey:

• Windows / Linux / Unix: Ctrl+Alt+S
• Mac OS X: Command+Alt+s

To change it, go to Preferences -> Interface -> Hotkeys settings, check Advanced options, and set Take video snapshot.

Also, all these shortcuts can be changed at any time in the preferences menu. Simply go to Tool > Preferences and click on the “Hotkeys” tab on the left. There you will see all the possible hotkeys as well as an option to change them below. To change the hotkey, double click on the action you want to change and then press the keys which you want your new action be be assigned to. Don’t forget to save.