Playing YouTube Videos in VLC

For this week’s quick tip, we’ll be exploring one of VLC’s more “hidden” features. More specifically, you’ll learn how to play YouTube videos in said media player. This is quite simple and involves only a few steps.

1. In VLC, go to File > Open Network…
2. Open up the YouTube video that you want to watch. Once the video is open, right click the video and select “Copy video URL.”
3. Switch back to VLC and in the URL field, paste the URL and press open.

That’s it.

Why would you want to do this? There are a few reasons. First, this method will allow you to avoid Flash (you could also use HTML5 but that has issues as well). Second, you can make use of the equalizer which is great for videos in which the audio is important (such as a music video). Third, you can use your media keys and/or a remote to control playback.

Until next week, enjoy!

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