VLC media player for Windows. I wanted to show my home videos on my laptop to some friends -- all on DVD. But after upgrading my laptop (Sotec brand 3120X) to Windows XP Pro, I lost the ability of playing DVDs for a while and had no way to re-install Intervideo's software for DVD playing since the system's CDs were just ghost CDs for a clean re-install. I was in the dark for quite sometime, until I found this awesome player. VLC is actually a very awesome media player -- plays all the other compressed formats such as DiVX, etc. And it has the ability to stream over the network. How is this important? Well, I can stream video to my family over the internet! I had problems with playing video at first. Only the audio was working and I just had a blank black screen. That was easily remedied by going into the Preferences menu item, Modules->Video Output->vout_directx, then check "Advanced Options" and for the output device, choose "Refresh List" and then choose "display." For whatever reason, if you chose just "Default" it doesn't work. I also checked every other item in that menu listing under vout_directx.
Now that I have this working, all I have to do is find an active audience willing to watch my home videos.
Posted by johnvu at August 16, 2004 11:36 PM