For most people, VLC media player is just that orange traffic cone you double-click when Windows Media Player refuses to open a file. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but for me, VLC has graduated from “backup video player” to an absolutely non-negotiable piece of infrastructure on every device years ago.
It's the app I fall back on for a lot more than just watching videos. Do I use every single VLC feature? No, nobody does. But there are ones I genuinely touch once or twice every week, either for convenience or out of necessity. And when I do end up having to use these nifty features, I couldn't be happier that they exist.
Streaming content to my TV
It's called VideoLAN Project for a reason
This one started rather innocently. My retired mom has recently started revisiting decades' worth of family backup videos โ old camcorder clips, phone recordings from five devices ago, and family events from years ago. Naturally, she wanted to watch them on the TV, and God knows, I tried to help her through the USB drives and using the TV's built-in media player.
Finding the path of least resistance becomes the only way out when dealing with technologically-challenged parents, so that's what I had to do,…