VLC Media Player allows us to easily stream videos from online sources. Online videos from video hosting sites like YouTube, DailyMotion, LiveLeak etc can be opened and played from VLC Media Player. It can stream audio radio as well, but this post deals with only streaming video. Streaming videos is really simple and easily.
To stream online videos to your machine using VLC Media Player follow these steps:
- Get the url from the address bar of your browser for the online video that you want to play. As an example we are going to use the url: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=51a_1383872272 which is a video from live leak.
- In VLC Media Player, on the menu bar click on Media and then Open Network Stream [CTRL + N] is the shortcut.
- Paste the video URL in the “Please enter a network URL” input field.
- In the bottom, make sure to click on the Play button.
- Depending upon your internet bandwidth, VLC Media Player will begin playing the online video right from the local player.
Pro tip: If multiple resolution streams are available, we can also choose the video quality that is picked up by VLC.
In VLC for Android (app)
- Click on the hamburger menu (three lines on the top-left)
- Tap on Stream
- Input your video address in the box
- Hit the go button.
Why Play Online Videos using VLC?
- You will get to use all the features of VLC media player on the online video that you are playing.
- Features include: Playing speed, subtitles, using playlists for continuous videos, several audio and video effects to name a few.
- You will also skip annoying advertisements placed on videos when you play them online.
- You will not require browser plugins like flash which is required for online video players.
- In conclusion, you will have more control over the video that you will be playing. But one limitation is that you won’t be able to select the quality of videos as VLC seems to choose the best quality automatically.
Note: It should be noted on whether all the videos are legal to be played via VLC or not. Some sites depend upon video advertising and when you are skipping it using VLC, it might be against their TOS.
View Comments (16)
I've copied & pasted the URL in to open network stream box and click the play button. No joy.Is there any other solution to this problem?
Thanks for this blog !
It's a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files, and various streaming protocols. Download VLC.
How come VLC will open videos on some websites, like Youtube and LiveLeak, but not others, like the BBC website? Will this ever come about?
It all depends on the sites the developers decide to support for streaming. They need to keep the streaming feature updated as well because those video hosting sites are changing all the time.
TOTALY USEFULL
Hello VLC team, I use onedrive mobile and also VLC mobile. What happens in it is that when you open a video in onedrive, the application of Onedrive redirects itself to the VLC player and you can watch that video in VLC.
So I had to tell you that when I use ONEDRIVE web and try to stream in VLC in the link of that video, it does not stream at all. So I want to know how I can stream from my computer to vlc player with video link of onedrive. And I also want to know how to stream on vlc player on computer with the link of google drive
PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME
Why does VLC only works with few streaming websites and not all ?
I think it is because every website has different methods of storing and streaming their online videos. So, VLC only supports the most popular ones.
do you know how to pause and play the stream on VLC using cmd?
Is there a way to change the quality? I am trying to do some live streaming with a gopro (I took the m3u8 file) and it looks much lower quality in VLC then it should.
How come VLC will open videos on some websites, like Youtube and LiveLeak, but not others, like the BBC website? Will this ever come about?
Well, it doesn't support all websites with video out there.
Thank you. I tried doing this with a network video (Gotham on Fox) and it does not work. Here is a sample URL: http://www.fox.com/watch/439064643983/7684182528 Any advice?
It doesn't support all online video streaming websites.