|
VLC Media Player
by Jocelyn Doire
Ive
been using VLC for a long time basically because it can
play every video and audio file Ive tried, because
its fast, simple, ad free and its free in
every sense of the word.
But lately I found out that it can do even more; it can
play also material from the internet, and to my surprise,
there are a lot of choices out there, of every style
conceivable, and many of them are pretty good.
For example, to play a selection of songs you can select
Free Music Charts followed by
2012-01-30 MP3 Podcast, you will then get
over 2 hours of music with occasional interruption by
someone that seems to be talking in German (you can fast
forward those bits).
Another
possibility is to listen to a radio station, if you like
classic rock you can select Icecast Radio
Directory and then Classic Rock
)(UturnRadio (yeah, I know, the parenthesis in the
name are weird), the first song I got was Stairway to
Haven from Led Zeppelin.
Alternatively you can also select a Podcast from your
favourite radio station, for example if you want to
listen to Quirks & Quarks from CBC, go to CBCs
podcasts web site and select the show, in this case http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/podcasts/. Then get the RSS link by moving
your mouse cursor over the orange RSS logo, right click
and select Copy link, in my case I got http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/includes/quirksaio.xml. Finally move your mouse over the
word Podcasts in VLC, click on the
+, paste the link, and voilą! you will get a
list a list of Quirks & Quarks that you can play
whenever you want.
Just a
little warning if your internet provider caps your
downloads, even though sound takes a lot less bandwidth
than video, you may want to watch from time to time how
much you have downloaded to avoid a nasty bill at the end
of the month.
The VLC web site can be found at http://www.videolan.org/
Bottom Line:
Originally published: March, 2013
top of page
|
Archived Reviews
A-J
K-Q
R-Z
The opinions expressed in these reviews
do not necessarily represent the views of the
Ottawa PC Users' Group or its members.
|