VLC 0.9

VLC 0.9 has released to widespread acclaim. The media player of choice for many, has packed in a horde of new features and marked changes in the design and interface. There are only two issues we have with the new design, which we will put out of the way first. The playback bar has jazzed up buttons, which won’t appeal to those who went for the minimalist charm of VLC. They have also inverted the direction in which the scroll works with the media, you scroll down to go backward, and scroll up to go forward which is counterintuitive to everyone and irritating to the long term users. Now for the good stuff.

Take Snapshots Of The Video

Go to Tools > Preferences > Video. Under video snapshots, enter the directory, a prefix, check ‘sequential numbering’ and choose a format. The default is .png.

To take the snapshot while the video is playing, go to Video > Snapshot.

Alternatively, you can take a snapshot using the keyboard with the hotkey [Shift] + [S].

To use a button to take a snapshot, go to Tools > Advanced Controls. The snapshot button appears on the playback bar.

Adjust The Colour Of The Video

In the playback bar, click on the icon that looks like the equaliser for lesser media players. This is right next to the playback button.

Then select the ‘video effects’ tab. The ‘basic’ tab will be selected by default. Check the ‘image adjust’ checkbox. From here, you can adjust the hue, saturation, contrast, brightness and gamma of the image. There is also a ‘brightness threshold’ slider.

The changed take place in real time, an this can be used to enhance dark videos.

Stream Video Across A Network

This can be used to broadcast a video over the Net, or to stream videos to everyone’s PC in the office at once, or to everyone’s laptops in a conference room.

Click on advanced open file, select ‘show more options’.

On the bottom right corner, next to the play and cancel buttons will be a small additional options button. Click on this, and select stream. A stream output dialogue will pop up.

You can select the encapsulation, the video and audio codecs and the bitrate. Remember that not all formats can be converted to all other formats, this is a limitation of the format and not of the player. Under outputs, select a protocol. Selecting multiple protocols will stream the video output in all the protocols.

To open a stream, go to ‘Advanced open file’, select the ‘Network’ tab and select the relevant protocol and address.

Overlay A Logo On The Video

Go to Tools > Preferences. Select ‘All’ under ‘Show Settings”

Go to Video > Subtitles / OSD > Overlays.

Click on ‘Logo Subfilter’ under Sub Picture Filter Module. Enter the path and filename in the bar below.

To do this via command line, go to Tools > Add Interface > Command Line.

Add A Ticker To The Video

Go to Tools > Preferences, select ‘All’ under ‘Show Settings’

Go to Video > Subtitles/OSD > Marquee. Enter the text in the marquee, and the text will scroll across the screen while the video is playing.

You can also tweak the settings to get an RSS feed to scroll across the video. Copy the feed url, then go to Tools > Preferences, select ‘all’ under ‘show settings;

Go to Video > Subtitles/OSD tick on “RSS and Atom feed display’ and enter the URL in the bar.

There is an option to display or not display images in the feeds.

Add Effects To The Video

We are not sure why this feature is provided, but it is fun and users may discover innovative uses for them.

Click on the effects button. Go to Video Effects > Image Modification.

The gradient effect gives a cartoonish feel to the video. The motion blur has a factor slider. These are the two main effects.

The other effects include waves, motion detect, noise, water and psychedelic. You can apply a selection of these effects at once to the video. The changes take place in real time.

To Resume Playback From A Specific Time

If you were interrupted while watching a video or a movie, and want to resume from the exact moment you left off, there are two ways to do it.

While playing the movie, go to Playback > Go to specific time, and enter the time in dialogue that pops up.

The other way to do this is to go to Media > Advanced open file, check ‘Show more options’ and enter the Start Time.

Use VLC As A Transcoder

Open a file, then go to Media > Convert/Save. In the file tab, click on the Convert/Save button.

Select the ‘File’ checkbox under ‘Outputs’. Enter a file name. Make sure that draw raw input is unchecked.

Then select an encapsulation, that is basically the format under ‘profile’.

Select a video codec and audio codec under the ‘Video codec’ and ‘Audio codec’ tabs.

You can save files in a format to be played on a portable media device.

Click on Save.

Change The Jump Settings

There are hotkeys to jump backwards and forwards through the file (refer to the list of hotkeys). The default values for the ‘Very short’, ‘Short’, ‘Medium’ and ‘Long’ jumps can be changed as per individual preferences.

Go to Tools > Preferences under ‘Show settings’ select ‘All’. Go to Interface > Hotkey Settings and under ‘Jump sizes’ edit the values as per your preferences. You can also use this window to change the default hotkeys, and add hotkeys to functions that have no default hotkeys.

Using The Loop Function

VLC can loop a part of a song or a video over and over again. To use this feature, go to Tools > Advanced controls.

The loop button should appear on the playback bar. Open the file you want to play, click the button when you come to the part on the media you want to start the loop at. Click on the button again at the part of the file you want the loop to end. VLC will now start playing that portion of a file in an endless loop till you click on the loop button again to stop the loop.

Play Image Files In VLC

VLC has the capability to play image files without having to mount the image files on a virtual drive first. Although many formats are supported, many are not. Open an image file directly for the video to start playing.

Listen to podcasts.

Go to Playlist > Additional Sources > Configure Podcasts. Add the podcast url, or add multiple urls.

Go to Playlist > Additional sources > Podcasts.

Go to Playlist > Show playlist. The list of podcasts you added should appear in the playlist window now. Double-click on one to start playing.

Listen To Online Radio

To listen to online radio, go to Playlist > Shoutcast Radio Listings.

Then go to Playlist > Show Playlist. The Shoutcast radio option should have appeared below the ‘Playlist’ and ‘Media Library’ options. A long list of genres and radio stations will appear. Select one that you want to listen to you. Some of the stations listed don’t work, and some might make the player crash. Some stations are listed under multiple genres.

Prevent Screensaver Interruption

This is a highly useful feature that prevents a screensaver from interrupting the movie you are watching.

Go to Tools > Preferences. In the dialogue that pop ups, look at the bottom left corner, and select the ‘All’ radio button under ‘Show settings’. Click on ‘Video’ preferences, and under ‘General Video Settings’ look for the ‘Disable Screensaver’ checkbox.

Skins

VLC supports skins. VLC skins can be downloaded from their site, but VLC also supports winamp 2 and xmps skins. Go to Tools > Preferences. In ‘Interface’, select the ‘Skins’ radio button and load the skin file from here.

system silencer

System Silencer is a tiny app that runs quietly in the background and only performs action on your computer when it's been idle for a period of time that you specify. The utility can be especially useful for saving battery life on notebook computers, or just making sure that the music playing in your headphones doesn't bother everyone around you when you put your headphones down to go to the bathroom. The app is tiny and free, and Windows only.

Once you have it installed, System Silencer gives you several options you can toggle on or off when your system is idle, and you can even set individual idle times for each action. For example, if you'd like your computer to mute itself after it's been idle for 10 minutes, but you want to lock the workstation after the computer's been idle for 15 minutes, you can set those times independently.

System Silencer also allows you to run certain files after your computer has been idle for a period of time, like a screensaver or a search utility that needs an idle processor to index your system. You can even hide certain windows or kill certain processes when your system goes idle, and if you have a laptop, you can set the processes to take place when your computer is docked and has line power and/or when your computer is running on its battery.

Regardless of whether you want your system to lock or you just want the speakers to mute when you walk away, System Silencer gives you some options to control the way your computer behaves when you're not standing in front of it. The app does need to run in the background in order to know when your machine is idle, but it doesn't use much in the way of system resources while it's running, and the ability to turn off the monitor and mute the speakers after you get up and walk away is a benefit on its own, especially if you don't want to lock your workstation

How to share folder in windows XP

In this tutorial we will learn how to share a folder or file so that other user on network can share file with your PC. This is very easy process which will allow you to a file or folder or drive of your computer on the LAN. But this should be done very carefully and I would recommend you not to share system drive (C :\) as you never know people on LAN could delete or alter your system file, which will render your system useless.

So, all you need to do is simply follow below steps one by one. That’s it.

Double click on My Computer and then right click on Shared Documents and select “Sharing & Security” option.

the red rectangle as mentioned in the below image. On clicking this will pop up a small window. This would appear only if you are sharing the folder on your computer for first time. If it so then skip to step 3.

Click on “Just enable file sharing” radio button & click OK button.

Check the option “Share this folder on network”, this option allows us to share the selected folder on network. Next, in the textbox specify the name of the shared folder; this name would appear on the Network. Third option “Allow network user to change my files” makes your folder read-only if it is unchecked, means user from LAN can use files of this folder in read-only mode and they cannot paste anything in this folder. And if this is option is checked then network user will have full privilege of read & write. This permission depends on you. After this click OK button.

Now you can notice that the shared document’s icon has changed and a hand like image is appeared. Congratulation! You have successfully completed the LAN connection and shared the folder. Repeat the same steps on the other PC or Laptop.

Now I m sure that you want to see the other shared PC form your PC. For that just do the following: double click on “My Network Places”. Here you should see some shared folder of your own as well as other’s PC (shared folders are only visible if you have configured properly min. two PCs). These shared folders which you can see here only display the shared resources of the same workgroup. To see the shared resources PC wise to this, click on “View Workgroup Computers” on the left pane as shown on image.

In “PC wise view of shared computers” image there is red numeric marking, where 1 tries to shows the name of the workgroup, and 2 shows the UP arrow button, on clicking which; it will show the different workgroups.

"Access is denied" error message when you try to access a folder on LAN

To resolve this problem, you must turn off Simple File Sharing, and then take ownership of the folder:

1. Turn off Simple File Sharing.

• Click Start, and then click My Computer.
• On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
• Under Advanced Settings, click to clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box, and then click OK.

2. Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.
3. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message, if one appears.
4. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
5. In the Name list, click your user name, Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group.

If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, click to select the Replace owner on sub containers and objects check box.

6. Click OK.

You may receive the following error message, where Folder is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of:
You do not have permission to read the contents of directory Folder. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control? All permissions will be replaced if you press “Yes”.

7. Click Yes.
8. Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and the folder contents.

Source: Microsoft Support