 If you're looking for a media player that goes above and beyond the one bundled with your operating system, you have quite a few options to choose from. One of the most popular and ubiquitous ones is VLC. It runs on everything. Windows, OS X, Linux, iOS, even freaking IBM's OS 2. Yeah, the official version of VLC does actually run on an operating system whose last release date was December 2001. VLC is known for being able to play essentially everything you throw at it, but we're not here to talk about how VLC reacts to a normal media playback situation. We're here to uncover some of the lesser known and actually fairly interesting features of VLC. The Cooler Master NovaTouch TKL utilizes genuine Topar hybrid capacitive switches and is now available at a more affordable price. Click now to learn more. Let's start with a few basics. VLC does things a lot of other media players don't. Like for instance, it's one key audio sync that helps offset with terribly encoded video. Audio Boost that amplifies quiet audio up to 150% without touching equalizer settings and even features an always top mode so you can multitask like a boss. But I'm having a good time and I don't have a curfew, so let's take this deeper. Before we get started, however, I want to issue a word of warning. Not all of these features are completely stable. In our testing, we experienced a significant number of crashes and the UI wasn't always completely user friendly, so I wouldn't necessarily recommend these features to completely new users or the faint of heart. But if you put in the time and you have the know-how and a bit of technical knowledge, you might be able to get a pretty decent level of stability. One more thing, I'll be demoing these on Windows with VLC version 2.2.0. Depending on your platform and version, the interface and shortcuts may differ slightly. So without further ado, here are the top five hidden features of VLC. Number five, did you know that you can stream your VLC media over the network? Yep, despite media players in the name, VLC is actually also a media server allowing you to stream video over a local network or over the internet. Well, as long as your internet connection can do that. To get started, you'll need to click media and then stream. From there, add a file or files that you want to stream. Or if you want to get fancy, you can stream from a disk or even a capture device. Next, select the new destination or HTTP and press add. Advanced users can even stream over multiple protocols at once. After pressing next, VLC will prompt you about active transcoding. Oh, do you want this? Well, maybe your device on the other end is slow or you'd like to save on bandwidth. Transcoding high bandwidth content, high bitrate content, sorry, can be really hard, especially when streaming over the internet. To start the stream, press next where it will give you a final overview of your settings and then press stream to start. One final note, if you're going to do this over the internet, you'll need to forward port 8080 to your host streaming PC. Also, please note that VLC acts as both the streaming host and the client. So to tune into the stream, simply click on media and then open network stream and type in the URL of your streaming PC, including the HTTP and port numbers. Number four, I touched on this briefly earlier, but VLC can transcode or encode audio and video on your local system. Maybe you want to convert that lossless video into something a bit more mobile friendly, or maybe you'd like to convert to QuickTime so your Mac buddy can edit an iMovie. Whatever you want to do, that's fine. To access transcoding features, simply use the media then convert slash save menu option. And from there, you'll add the file or files you want to convert. At the bottom, click convert slash save button. Next, you'll be presented with a bunch of preset profiles, good for most cases such as YouTube or Android. But if you want granular control, you can change basically whatever you want or even bake in some subtitles. When you're done selecting all that, provide a destination file and VLC will go to work. On to number three. So you're watching your favorite show and then something flashes on screen, probably some QR code or Easter egg of some sort. I mean, you could just play it back at a slower speed with the default settings of just hitting the minus hotkey, or you can take it frame by frame to get the perfect glimpse of the hidden secret. To do this, use the hotkey E to advance the video frame by frame. Then when you've got it just right, you can use shift S to save a PNG screenshot in your default pictures folder and upload it to Reddit or the Linus Tech Tips forum to show that you're such a keener. Oh, and if you don't like PNG or you'd like VLC to output the file somewhere else, you can change the directory file name, format, or even the width and height of the output file right in the preferences. Number two, whether you're a gamer, programmer, video editor, or just light computer user, there'll be at least one point in time in your life where it would be extremely helpful to capture video from your desktop. Maybe you got a weird bug and you need IT to help you, or maybe you just want to show off your amazing After Effects tutorial or something else. Add to media, then open capture device, and select desktop in the capture mode dropdown. From there, select a different frame rate, then hit that down arrow again and select convert. From there, it's just like transcoding, except instead of a file, you're transloading your desktop and live. Select your encoding options and your destination file, and then press start to get going. Once you're done, just hit stop and it'll save the file. All right, time for a bit of a tangent. Before we get to our number one hidden VLC feature, we have a bonus feature. Have you ever wanted to live in the retro matrix? Perhaps you have a nostalgic feeling for BBSs from the 80s. Well, VLC knows your pain. You can actually watch videos via colored ASCII art. To do this, go to tools, preferences, video, then under output, select color ASCII art video output, and enjoy your video in 16 color glory. Okay, back on track to number one. This is a neat little trick that's buried deep within VLC's interface. VLC actually has an integrated HTTP server that you can enable. By setting this up, you can remotely access your VLC client via a web browser. To set it up, head back to preferences and click the all settings radio button. Under main interfaces, click the web box, expand the main menu and click the Lua. Add a password to secure your server, click save and then close to reopen VLC. Setting this interface up makes the whole system much more powerful. Remember how we could stream our media over the internet? Well, it would be pretty inconvenient to remote in and start the stream so that you could watch it elsewhere every freaking time. This feature provides full access to your VLC client. You can play any item in your library of video content, manage your streams, adjust equalizer, even adjust the volume. Think of it like a web connected super remote. In conclusion, VLC is an extremely powerful program with an insane amount of options. And while it may be a little unstable in certain situations, and there are potentially better options for doing some of these things individually, it's pretty badass to have it all in one package at the low, low price of free. Speaking of being powerful, to the web, Squarespace is pretty powerful and has you covered if you want to set up a beautiful responsive site without the hassle of coding it yourself. We use Squarespace on the company website, LinusMediaGroup.com, and have never encountered a major issue with it. But if you do encounter any major issues, they have 24-7 tech support via live chat or even email to help you out. If you want to set up a information setup, if you want to set up an online store, they have an e-commerce site that you can set up through Squarespace. So get a free trial at Squarespace, no credit card required, and start building your site today. And when you choose to sign up for the service, make sure you use offer code LINUS. That saves you 10% off your first purchase. Thanks to Squarespace for supporting us here at Linus Media Group. Let us know down in the comments or over on the forum, what are your favorite hidden features of VLC? There's a ton of awesome functionality that we didn't cover, so I'm sure you've got a few. While you're here, like, dislike, share, subscribe, favorite, follow... but that was really fast. I think I got everything though. And comment down below or check the description to see a cool shirt that isn't from Twitch, but probably has more funny stuff on it because Nick designed it or someone else designed it and he got them to make a shirt of it. Whatever, he does things and it's cool. Over on the forum, if you check the support us link, you can become a contributor to the forum, which is great. You can change your Amazon affiliate codes, which is great. You can install the Linus Tech Tips Notifier plugins for your browser, which is great because you can go in there and set up it to automatically change Amazon URLs for you. There's a bunch of cool stuff. Thank you guys for watching and I'll see you next time.