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[[Image:Interface_2.PNG|thumb|194x150px|VLC Interface on Windows 7.]] 

==Overview of the VideoLAN project==

VideoLAN is a complete software solution for video streaming and playback, developed by students of the [http://www.ecp.fr Ecole Centrale Paris] and developers from all over the world, under the [http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html GNU General Public License] (GPL).

VideoLAN was originally designed to stream MPEG videos on high bandwidth networks, but VideoLAN's main software, VLC media player, has evolved to become a full-featured, cross-platform media player.

More details about the project can be found on the [http://www.videolan.org/ VideoLAN Web site].

==VLC media player==

Originally called VideoLAN Client, VLC media player is VideoLAN's main software.

VLC works on many platforms: Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, BSD, Solaris, Familiar Linux, Yopy/Linupy and QNX.

It can play:
*MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 / DivX files from a hard disk, a CD-ROM drive, and so on
* DVDs, VCDs, and Audio CDs
* From  satellite cards (DVB-S)
* Several types of network streams: UDP/RTP Unicast, UDP/RTP Multicast, HTTP, RTSP, MMS, etc.
* From acquisition or encoding cards (on GNU/Linux and Windows only)

VLC can also be used as a streaming server. These aspects are detailed in the [[Documentation:Streaming HowTo|Streaming HowTo]].

The present guide describes all the playback (client) aspects of VLC media player.

==Getting help==

===Documentation===

The VideoLAN documentation is made up of four documents:

* The ''Play-Howto'' (for which this article is the introduction): The complete guide to the VLC media player.
* [[Documentation:Streaming HowTo | The ''Streaming Howto'']]: The complete guide to VLC as a streaming server, including practical examples to set up a streaming solution.
* [http://www.videolan.org/doc/vls-user-guide/en/vls-user-guide-en.html The ''VLS user guide'']: The complete guide for VLS (VideoLAN's legacy streaming server)
* [[FAQ]]: Frequently Asked Questions about VideoLAN.

The latest version of these documents, in a variety of languages, can be found on the [[Documentation:Documentation|documentation page]].

===User support===

There are different methods to get support from The VideoLAN team. For more details, please visit our [http://www.videolan.org/support/ Support page].

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