VLC (standing for Video LAN Client) Media Player Portable is an online media platform that allows different files to be converted and played in one place regardless of format. The VLC player can be downloaded onto a standard PC or Mac but it’s at it’s best when downloaded in it’s app form as the VLC Media Player Portable. This version can be downloaded on iPhone iOS, Android and Google Play. This allows for your favorite videos be taken with you when you are out and about.
You can enjoy them using headphones while commuting to work on public transport, or put your favorite movies on your iPad or tablet to take on vacation. It can be watched in full HD on a plane or when you reach your destination. Portability is key and you can share your videos between devices using cloud storage on your phone, tablet or computer. The app is designed to work with a variety of file types, such as: MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, MP4, AVI, MKV, DIVX, OGG and MP3. It can also use a uni or multicast streaming data from IPV4 and IPV6. This of course is not an exhaustive list, but simply an indication of the various types of files.
Another rather impressive feature that isn’t seen on many video player apps, is how VLC Media Player Portable updates codecs to suit the video being played. More often than not, users will download a video player app only to find that their chosen media is an unsupported file type’. VLC is loaded with codecs and can download more if required. Even older codecs that may have been discontinued by 2019 are still available in VLC. This is great news to anyone who has older files that they still enjoy watching. VLC also supports full HD and Blu-ray files without a stuttering frame rate. Although one drawback to this is the media player itself needs the device supporting it to also be capable of running this media. Downloading the app itself may not always be enough.
The good news is the software behind VLC is solid and works on most hardware. For any hardware that would struggle to run a HD or Blu-ray file type, it may be the case that the device itself is too old to run the VLC software, which itself is only available on the more recent forms of Android, Google or Apple iOS. This means having a video that cannot be played due to hardware limitations is fairly rare to begin with. Interestingly reports of videos not working are generally much more common on the desktop version of VLC. This may be because those using it are using older forms or Windows or Apple iOS, or perhaps simply older computers that may not be compatible with high-end video content. After all, a computer is limited in its frames per second by its graphics card, RAM, hard drive speed and processor.
VLC Portable doesn’t suffer from any of these limitations due to the app taking one-size fits all approach across a range of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. The VLC portable app has been assessed on new Apple MacBook computers and seems to work in a similar way to its iPad friendly mobile counterpart, but the same cannot be said for the version running on windows or 3rd party devices. It’s reasonable to assume that VLC engineers will be working on this. After all, the app does advertise that it works on operating systems as old as Windows Vista. Machines bundled with this controversial operating system will be considered very out of date by today’s standards. It’s admirable though of VLC to make an effort to include it though. Overall though poor performance here cannot be placed at their door.
Updating the VLC Portable app is incredibly simple and will more than likely be done automatically through iOS, Android’s etc.’ apps stores. This should make sure the app is up to date with available codecs, file type availability and the latest performance upgrades. If in doubt you can delete the app and re-download it to be certain you’re using the most up to date version on whichever device you choose to use it on.