How to Play YouTube Video with VLC Media Player

How to Play YouTube Video with VLC Media Player

Yes VLC Media Player, the Universe’s favorite video player which supports exactly every video format, can also play YouTube videos on your desktop without requiring the web browser or the Adobe Flash player.

Open VLC player, press Ctrl+N , Network URL dialog will open and paste any YouTube video URL in the input box.

why to Watch YouTube Videos with VLC?

The streaming videos will play inside VLC Media Player just like any other local video file.

1. You can choose Video -> Always on Top inside VLC and the YouTube video window will stick to the foreground while you work on other tasks.
2. Press the Loop button in the player controls and the YouTube video will play non-stop in a loop.
3. You can change the Playback speed of the YouTube video and make it run slower or faster than the normal speed.
4. Use the Tools -> Take Snapshot option to capture a screenshot image of any frame or scene in the YouTube video.
5. Watch the YouTube videos without the ads. I played a couple of movies and music videos inside VLC and none of them carried any pre-roll ads.

Play YouTube Playlists inside VLC

VLC, by default, only supports single YouTube URLs but it also possible to import an entire YouTube Playlist into VLC and watch all the videos in sequence.

You can watch an entire playlist of YouTube videos inside VLC Media Player.

Here’s the trick. Right-click and save this file to your desktop. Now open the VLC installation folder (%ProgramFiles%\VideoLAN\VLC) and move the .lua file into the exiting /lua/playlist folder.

Restart the VLC Media Player and choose Media -> Open Network Stream. Now paste the URL of any public YouTube Playlist here and the enjoy the videos.