3 Useful Tips on Playing and Saving YouTube Videos with VLC Media Player

You can do a lot with VLC Media Player and one of those things is also that you can play and save any YouTube video of your choice using the VLC Media Player. Why would you want to do that when you can do the same thing on YouTube? Well for the reasons such as better control over the rendering of the video and audio, better seek controls, etc. Anyway, let us quickly see the steps one has to follow to be able to do this.

• Part 1. Play YouTube Videos Directly in VLC Media Player
• Part 2. Watch Entire YouTube Playlists in VLC Media Player
• Part 3. Best Way to Save YouTube Videos
• Part 4. How to Download a YouTube Video Using VLC

Part 1. Play YouTube Videos Directly in VLC Media Player (Windows and Mac)

Step 1Open the YouTube video that you would like to see in any of the browsers you have and copy the link to the video from the address bar on your browser.

Step 2Open the VLC Media Player and press Ctrl + N, this should open a popup window called Open Media for you. In the section that says Please enter a network URL: enter the link to the video that you had copied and hit Enter or select Play from the bottom.

Now, VLC should play the video in a few seconds after you have performed Step 2. Enjoy!

Part 2. Watch Entire YouTube Playlists in VLC Media Player (Windows and Mac)

Step 1Go to the YouTube playlist on a browser window and copy the link to that playlist.

Step 2Now, run VLC Media Player on your computer and go to View > Playlist or press Ctrl + L. This should open the section Playlist for you which should be empty at this point.

Step 3Press Ctrl + N to open the section Open Media on VLC and paste the previously copied YouTube playlist link. Press the button Play or Enter. Then, VLC Playlist should be updated with videos in the YouTube playlist and should start playing them sequentially shortly.

Part 3. Best Way to Save YouTube Videos

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If you are looking for the quickest way to save YouTube videos, we recommend UniConverter as the best choice. All you need is three steps: open the browser, copy the URL of the video, and paste it to the software. Done. Easy, right? Let’s see the details of how it works:

Step 1 Open the Video on the Browser

Open your browser and go to the video you want to export.

Step 2 Copy the URL of the video

Copy the address of the video from the top of the screen.

Step 3 Paste the URL

Open the software UniConverter – a complete video toolbox. If you haven’t downloaded it yet, you can try it for free by clicking the download button below.

Try It Free Try It Free

Then, go to the Home interface and click Downloader.

If you have copied the URL, UniConverter will automatically recognize it and start to download. Otherwise, you can click the adding link icon and choose what you want to download. Then, paste the URL.

After that, UniConverter will analyze the video URL and save the video to the default file location when finishing downloading. If you want to change the file location, you can change the setting by clicking the file button.

Tips

You can find the finished videos under the Finished category.

Part 4. How to Download a YouTube Video Using VLC

You can also save a YouTube Video with VLC. Here is the step-by-step guide:

Step 1Open YouTube on a web browser.

Step 2Find the video that you would like to download and copy the path of that video from your browser’s address bar.

Step 3Now, start VLC Media Player on your computer and press the CTRL + N keys. It should open up a new window for you called Open Media. Paste the video path that you had copied earlier in the section that says 'Please enter a network URL:' and select Play.

Step 4Right after you have clicked on the Play button, the VLC player should automatically start streaming & playing the video clip that you have selected.

Step 5Now, go to Tools > Codec Information which should open the Current Media Information window. You will see a link in front of the section ‘Location:’ which is the actual download link of the video file.

Step 6Go to this link and do right-click anywhere and then choose 'Select All' from the options.

Step 7Do a right-click on the link again & select 'Copy' from the options.

Step 8Go to your web browser now and paste the copied link in the address bar. Once done, press Enter. The video should now be playing on your browser.

Step 9This is the last step; in order to save the video now, simply right click anywhere on your browser window with the video open and being played in the background, then select the option 'Save Video As' and press 'Enter'.

There you go; you have successfully downloaded the video of your choice using the VLC Media Player. Now, you can repeat the same process for the different videos that you would like to download.

Tips

If you want to know how to play any videos on VLC,such as WMV files, move to How to Play WMV Files with VLC.