VLC Media Player can be pretty, too

Filed under: Audio, Utilities, Video, Windows

VLC Media Player can be pretty, too

by Romeo Wahed Dec 28th 2007

Love VLC Media Player's ability to play virtually all media but hate that it does not caress your media with a beautiful frame carved from Italian marble? Fear no more. Although we're fans of the no-frills design, those of you who are more exacting will be pleased to know that the large library of Winamp skins are all compatible with VLC.

This is how the magic works: Go to 'Settings' select 'Switch interface' then 'Skins 2.' You will then be greeted by a VLC that may be unfamiliar, but don't worry. Right-click somewhere on the frame, 'Select Skin' and open away. After experimenting with a few skins we found that most of them work fine, except that some had visual artifacts that may not appear if you were to use them in Winamp.

VLC does have a nasty tendency of resetting itself back to normal when you restart the application, so in order to prevent that, under 'Preferences' > 'Interfaces' > 'Main Interface' > 'Skins' select 'Advanced Options' and make sure the 'Skin to use' is the one you like.

And if you decide you don't like Winamp skins, you might want to sample the selection at the VLC skins page.

[via Lifehacker]

Tags: skins, vlc, vlcmediaplayer, winamp

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

William said 11:40AM on 12-28-2007

My understanding is that this will not work in OS X?

Captain_Hairy said 12:02PM on 12-28-2007

If it really doesn't take, even after using the advanced options, Windows users can force it to start with Skins2 active using "vlc.exe -I Skins2" as the shortcut.

Tutor said 3:11PM on 12-28-2007

"Please note that current releases of VLC do not support Skins on Mac OS X."

Its default theme fits OS X OK, though.

michael said 12:15AM on 12-29-2007

WMP 11 still looks tons better than some of these other alternatives.

And it's not that hard to Live Search a codec pack for WMP and install them.

Instead, I guess you could stick with a pretty boring player.

Kai said 9:48AM on 12-29-2007

A boring, cross-platform player that's reliable.

Not everyone uses Windows, mate.

bracho said 4:00PM on 12-31-2007

for windows users: if the skin it's still resetting to your default skin you can go to ''start'', then, '' all programs'' look for the ''videoLAN'' carpet ---> Quick settings ---> Interface ---> set main interface to skinnable.

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