VLC Media Player

VLC Media Player

The VideoLAN software originated as a French academic project in 1996. The first release of the VLC Media Player was on 2001.
VLC is a packet-based media player that plays almost all video content. Even some damaged, incomplete, or unfinished files can be played, such as those still downloading via a peer-to-peer (P2P) network.
It also plays m2t MPEG transport streams (.TS) files while they are still being digitized from an HDV camera via a FireWire cable, making it possible to monitor the video as it is being played.
The player can also use libcdio to access .iso files so that users can play files on a disk image, even if the user’s operating system cannot work directly with .iso images.
VLC supports all audio and video formats supported by libavcodec and libavformat.
VLC can be installed or run directly from a USB flash drive or other external drive.
VLC can be extended through scripting; it uses the Lua scripting language.
VLC can play videos in the AVCHD format, a highly compressed format used in recent HD camcorders.
VLC can generate a number of music visualization displays.
The program is able to convert media files into various supported formats. Both desktop and mobile releases are equipped with an audio equalizer.
The desktop version of VLC Media Player has some filters that can distort, rotate, split, deinterlace, and mirror videos as well as create display walls or add a logo overlay during playback.
It can also output video as ASCII art. An interactive zoom feature allows magnifying into video during playback. Still images can be extracted from video at original resolution, and individual frames can be stepped through, although only in forward direction.
Playback can be gamified by splitting the picture inside the viewport into draggable puzzle pieces, where the row and column count can be set as desired.
One of the devices with which VLC Media Player is most frequently used is Google Chromecast, the device that allows video and audio to be transmitted via the Internet even on more obsolete devices, mainly non-smart televisions.
It could be used for:

• Training & Education: Create tutorials and training videos for employees and customers.
• Product & Engineering: Review code, demo product, and share feedback and ideas.

VIDEO CREATOR AND PLAYER

Pedagogical background
The production of student learning videos (or blog posts) is one method to stimulate the construction of knowledge. Students have to search information and to understand their topic very good to produce a video.
The method ‘learning by teaching’ (Martin, 2008) is combined with flipped classroom. The students produce a video instead of making a presentation for their classmates. Learning by teaching would include further a peer to peer process, in which the students would organize the lesson and support their classmates in the learning process.
In this scenario the students often only produce the videos while the teacher facilitate the setting of the learning process and video production.
Blogging in academic classrooms can be used to increase knowledge, communication and confidence. A blog can be a place where all the bits and pieces students create and explore in the online and offline world can be housed. This could include videos, podcasts, graphic designs, articles, links etc.
This player allows also to play DVD and create videos.

Assessment
It can be used for summative assessment or for formative assessment to stimulate reflection or critical thinking. This second option is the most interesting in terms of learning and soft skills development. Quizzes can be performed by students by themselves or during class: the tool automatically grades the performance.
The teacher can also prepare feedback (that is shown automatically by the tool) or discuss results in class together with students.
For instance in one of the cases analyzed the teacher gives students a question about a physics problem to be attempted individually. Then the teacher asks students to discuss among peers about their answers to the question in group of 2 or 3.
After few minutes he stops the discussion and he asks students to answer again individually. At the end the teacher shows the right answer.
This use of classroom response system has been undertaken in a large classroom (more than 200 students) to stimulate engagement, self reflection and discussion among peers.

Use cases/examples of usage: (tutorial)

Strenght: Is a packet-based media player that plays almost all video content, it can distort, rotate, split, deinterlace, and mirror videos. It is also used with Google Chromecast. You can record a part of the video that VLC is palying in an independent file. It’s free and open source.

Weakness:

People opinion about the tool: https://www.g2.com/products/videolan/reviews

Similar Tool: Windows Media Player; Media Player Classic.

Technical and operational requirements: PC, mobile.

License Tool: Free.