VLC Media Player

The Ubuntu Movie Player is great for a basic program, but if you want bells and whistles you may wish to try the VLC Media Player, which you can download and install in the usual way by entering “vlc” in the search field of the Ubuntu Software Center. Once installed, it becomes available in the Applications → Sound & Video menu.

Figure 14-4 shows the minimal window that appears when you run it. But don’t be fooled by its modest appearance, because VLC is packed with powerful features for playing just about any kind of media, including DVDs and network streams. It can even convert and save files in different formats.

Figure 14-4. The VLC media player

It’s well worth your time to browse through the various menus to discover the features that VLC offers, which also include a graphic equalizer and spatializer, as well as image transformation effects such as sharpening, rotation, cropping, and more.

Note

To open files in VLC, you can right-click them and select Open With → VLC media player. To associate VLC as the default player for a file type, right-click a file and select Properties, click the Open With tab, and then click the radio button next to “VLC media player.”