
It was intended to consist of a client and server to stream videos from satellite dishes across a campus network. Since VLC is no longer merely a client, that initialism no longer applies.

VLC used to stand for "VideoLAN Client" when VLC was a client of the VideoLAN project.

The VideoLAN software originated as a French academic project in 1996. It also gained distinction as the first player to support playback of encrypted DVDs on Linux and macOS by using the libdvdcss DVD decryption library however, this library is legally controversial and is not included in many software repositories of Linux distributions as a result. It also has its own protocol implementations. The libavcodec library from the FFmpeg project provides many of VLC's codecs, but the player mainly uses its own muxers and demuxers. The default distribution of VLC includes many free decoding and encoding libraries, avoiding the need for finding/calibrating proprietary plugins. It is able to stream media over computer networks and can transcode multimedia files. VLC supports many audio- and video-compression-methods and file-formats, including DVD-Video, Video CD, and streaming- protocols. VLC is also available on digital distribution platforms such as Apple's App Store, Google Play, and Microsoft Store. VLC is available for desktop operating systems and mobile platforms, such as Android, iOS and iPadOS. VLC media player (previously the VideoLAN Client and commonly known as simply VLC) is a free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. GPL-2.0-or-later with some libraries under LGPL-2.1-or-later VLC for iOS (MPLv2.0) Windows, ReactOS, macOS, Linux, Android, ChromeOS, iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, watchOS, Xbox system software Interface is very clean and minimalistic, which makes it easy to navigate.GUI: C++ (with Qt), Objective-C (with Cocoa), Swift, Java There are only a few buttons and options, everything is clearly labelled. Interface includes a volume control and a playback speed controls. Software has a basic control panel with play, pause, stop, seek buttons. Interface has a number of buttons that allow user to control playback of video. Second part is video window, which shows media that is currently playing. First part is playlist, which shows files that are currently loaded into player. Main window of VLC Media Player download is divided into two parts. Interface is available in over 50 languages. Interface is highly customizable, users can change skin, colors, and layout to suit their preferences.

Application has a number of features that make it a good choice for playing audio and video files.

Player has a number of skins that can be used to customize its look. Player has a number of options that are easy to find. Player has a number of controls that are easy to understand.
