YouTube is the largest video streaming site of this generation. With over 51 million YouTube channels in the world, it has become the primary source of entertainment and learning. Although, YouTube has its own robust, fast and reliable video player form streaming videos yet does not contain video and audio editing feature like VLC media player.
VLC media player is one of the oldest media player we have been using, and it's video streaming feature has been there for a long time. VLC can capture streaming link of online videos from various platforms like YouTube, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Mashable etc. For the sake of this blog post, we are going to see how to stream YouTube videos in VLC media player.
Before we move down to the steps for streaming YouTube videos in VLC, you need to know a few things about YouTube streaming.
Things to consider before streaming YouTube videos in VLC:
1. Video Quality Support
YouTube has a rich support for high quality videos, including 1080p and 4K videos. On the other hand, VLC media player video quality support depends upon your system hardware and graphics. If you have a high-end system with enough resource available, you might be able to play videos up to 4K quality. But, an average system can go up to 720p videos. Streaming 4K or 1080p YouTube videos on such system will make VLC laggy or may crash it.
2. 360 and VR Support
360 degree and VR videos are the future of video streaming, YouTube player supports playing 360 videos in mobile devices and VR videos using VR headset. But, in case of streaming YouTube videos with VLC, you might not be able to play such videos. If you are using VLC app on smartphone, it may play 360 videos to some extent, but playing VR videos are not supported on VLC.
3. YouTube Private or Copyrighted Videos
You may encounter error playing some YouTube videos on VLC media player. This may happen because the video you are trying to play is either private or restricted by copyright. YouTube does not allow playing private videos externally other than its native player. Moreover, YouTube also give control to content creators to allow or restrict their videos under Creative Common license. In both the cases, you will not be able to stream YouTube videos in VLC.
Steps to Play YouTube Videos in VLC Media Player in PC
- Open VLC media player in your PC.
- Go to youtube.com and browse for the video you want to stream on VLC.
- Copy the url of video from the address bar. It should be like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUHjeDylhE8
- Now switch to VLC and go to Media > Stream… to open Network streaming dialogue box.
- Paste the copied YouTube URL in to the stream input box provided in VLC.
- Tap on the Stream button in the lower right corner.
- Now wait for a while, if every thing goes right, video will start streaming in VLC. You can see the buffering status in the player timeline.
As mentioned above, you might not be able to play every single videos from YouTube, but most of the videos are eligible to be streamed in VLC media player.
Just like you played YouTube videos in PC version VLC, you can do so in VLC android app. Things are a little easier while playing YouTube videos in VLC android app.
Steps to Play YouTube Videos in VLC Android App:
- Open YouTube app or go to youtube.com in your browser.
- Search for the video you want to play from YouTube.
- Alongside with like and dislike button you will see share button, tap on that to populate all the sharing apps in your smartphone.
- Look for play with VLC option in the list of sharing options and tap on that.
- Wait for a while, VLC will automatically grab the video link and play your video in its native player.
If you like, you can also paste the video link in stream option in VLC media player. It works the same way it works for in PC.
What you can do after playing YouTube videos in VLC Media Player:
VLC media player is one of the best player with rich audio and video editing features. If you are using VLC desktop version, you can apply a bunch of video and audio filters on YouTube video. This includes Geometry filter, image filter, watermark, hue, saturation, etc. You can also adjust audio pitch, treble, bass etc. using equalizer settings.
For those who are trying to stream YouTube videos in VLC android, you will get a limited set of customization options like changing audio codes, adjusting brightness, volume boost, fast playback speed etc. Video and audio filters are certainly not available in VLC android.
Wrapping Up
VLC media player is one of the oldest and most trusted media player. It has tons of video and audio editing features available in its desktop version. One such feature is streaming YouTube videos. Although YouTube has its own stable lightweight player yet lack some capability, VLC media player has. In my personal opinion, both players are great in its own place, and it is totally up to you which one to try.