The most popular audio/video player for Mac is VLC Media Player. The VLC player for Macbook has stayed on top of the list for a long time. However, we also have many alternatives for it as more and more software has developed with more abundant functions than VLC. VLC Media Player VLC, developed by the VideoLAN project, is an open-source FLV player for Mac, Windows, Android, and iOS. It supports play lots of video/audio formats without additional codecs.
QuickTime is great, but it won’t play an AVI file out of the box or the lesser-known MKV for example. And with the introduction of MacOS Catalina we have had to say goodbye to our beloved QuickTime 7.
QuickTime 7 offered the Pro version for a one time payment whichbasically upgraded the standard QuickTime player adding many usefulvideo editing features and import / export options, I’m still using itto this day! Just not on a Mac running Catalina.
Get Macgo Blu-ray Player Pro from the Mac App Store - $64.99; Free, fast, and functional: VLC + MakeMKV. Combining two easily available programs - the totally free, open-source video player VLC, and the free-while-in-beta Blu-ray ripper app MakeMKV - can let you play Blu-rays as well as Macgo's app, if not better. VLC Media Player 3.0.10 is free, open-source donationware for OS X 10.7 and up, as well as Linux, Windows and Android. (Older versions are also available for earlier Macs.) VLC Media Player’s latest release includes security patches, Catalina tweaks, and other improvements. Multiple DVD fixes & improvements; Better adaptive streaming support.
If you try to open an .avi file or .mkv file among many others,QuickTime will give you any one of the following errors:
Or even worse QuickTime will give you a tantalising teaser that isgoing to open the video:
Shortly followed by the familiar, QuickTime can’t open
Now don’t get me wrong QuickTime has some great features includingscreen recording, but for opening video files you received from a longlost cousin in Eastern Europe it just doesn’t cut themustard! Enter a great & open source piece of software “VLC mediaplayer”. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Vlc Media For Mac
To get started simply head to https://www.videolan.org/vlc/& download the VLC player. For Mac, it will download into your downloads folder:
Open the .dmg file (that’s a disk image in case you wanted to know, notstrictly a file).
And then drag the VLC icon to the Applications icon in the now openedwindow:
This will take a couple of seconds:
Navigate to your Applications folder and double click on the VLC icon:
You should see the message to tell you downloaded this from a webpage click Open:
For ease of access in the future go back to the folder which has your.avi or .mkv or other uncommon video format and either right click onthe file icon and choose Get info or click on the file to highlight itand choose File > get Info.
The Info window will open and from the Open With drop down chose theVLC player:
Next on the same Info window after selecting the VLC player under “OpenWith” click the “Change All…” button:
This will associate all of the files of that particular format with theVLC media player so you don’t have to manually choose which app to openthem with each time.
Now instead of those pesky error messages the file will open in the VLCplayer:
Vlc Movie Player Mac
The interface is very easy to use and shares many of the same featuresand buttons you find in most media players.
Vlc Media Player For Mac Catalina 2016
VLC player also has a media browser, which includes access to Internetradio stations, and allows you to organise your media. However the builtin Apps such as Music (iTunes), Photos already provide these servicesand they are better integrated with your other Apple products so it’sbetter to just use VLC player to open those files which QuickTIme cannotmanage.
There is a very well documented wiki on how to use VLC player and allof its great features over at VLC’s website.
Vlc Media Player For Mac Catalina Mac
And don’t forget although this is free to use you can still make adonation to the VLC organisation to help support the on-goingdevelopment for VLC.
Videolan Vlc Media Player Mac
I hope this has cured another Mac headache for you, let us know whatyou think in the comments below.