Even though Microsoft’s latest version of Windows, Windows 10, comes with its own music and video player, most users are still fond of using VLC media player because of its cool, easy-to-use format.
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Many users don’t really want to use Windows Media Player, and several other users want their media player to perform specific functions, a host of which VLC can perform well. But since Windows 10 does not have VLC media player set as default, it can get pretty inconvenient for users to ask the system for individual media to be played using VLC each time. But you can easily set VLC media player as default by following these simple steps:
- Click on the Start button.
- Choose Settings from the Start menu.
- Under Settings, click on System (subheading: Display, notifications, apps, power)
- Click on Default apps from the left hand side menu of System.
- On the other side, under Choose default apps, select “Music” given for Music player and “Video” for Video player.
- A window called “Choose an App” will be displayed. Choose VLC media player from the given list after clicking video player,
Make Vlc Media Player Default In Windows 7
- Similarly click Music player and set VLC as default.
How to Set VLC as default even for Mp4 files
But by default, VLC will not play your MP4 files even after you have manually set VLC as your default media player. You can of course right click on MP4 files when you want to watch them, and then ask to play using VLC, but it would be easier to fix it as default once and never have to worry about it again. That can be rectified quite easily, if you follow these steps:
- Open the Start menu and choose Settings.
- Choose the System category under Settings.
- Click on Default apps on the left side of the System menu.
- Click on “Choose default apps by file type” option
- You will need to keep scrolling down until you see “.mp4”.
- Click on .mp4 and choose VLC media player from the box of options that appears. This sets VLC as default for playing your MP4 files as well.
What to do if VLC doesn’t appear on the list of apps in Default apps
A reason why VLC may not be appearing as media player under the “Choose an app” heading could be that your system is unable to recognize VLC media player as a media player. While this is not a usual problem, if it does occur, there is an easy way to troubleshoot. This method will work even if taking steps such as selecting preferences in VLC to make it default, did not work. This is what you need to do:
- Choose any music file on your computer and right click on it.
- Click on “Open with” from the options that appear, and then select “Choose another app”.
- At the bottom of the list of apps that appear, click on “More apps”.
- Yet again scroll until you get the “Look for another app on this PC option”.
- Make your way to the location of VLC media player on your computer, from the Open dialog box that appears.
- Click on Open, and then close VLC. VLC will now appear in the list of apps under “Choose an app”.
- If even this fails to work, and VLC does not appear in the Default Apps, open Local Disk C:, click on Program Files. Then scroll down to VideoLAN, and open vlc.exe from the VLC folder. This will definitely solve the problem.
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If you have multiple video players on your Windows 10 and Ubuntu along with VLC Media player; then you would have been facing a problem of selecting it among different media player while playing any audio or video file. However, you can set VLC media player as default on Ubuntu Linux as well as on Windows 10. Here is the tutorial on that.
Set VLC default media player on Windows 10
Step 1: Install VLC Media player
Of course, to set the VLC media player as a default player on Windows 10, first, we need to install it. I assume that you already have done this, however, if not then visit the official website videolan.org and download it.
Step 2: Access Default apps option
Go to the Search box of Windows 10 and type Default apps. When it appears, click to open it.
Step 3: Set VLC player as Default Music player on Windows 10
First, we make our VLC as a default music player and then will move for a video player. However, if you don’t want VLC as a default audio player then skip this step and move to the next one.
On the Default apps settings, from the right side click on the default apps and then under Music player, click on your previous default which could be Groove Music. However, in our case, it is MPC- player.
Make Vlc Media Player Default Video Player
When you click on the Music player option, a pop-windows will open to offer you the apps that we can set as default for music. Select the VLC player.
Step 4: Set VLC as a default Video player in Windows 10
Like same we have done for Music player in the above step, the same we have to do for Videos. Click on Videos Player’s Choose a Default option and simply select VLC Media player.
Make VLC Player a default video/audio player on Ubuntu Linux
Here we are using Ubuntu 19.04, however, the steps will be the same for Ubuntu 18.04 LTS, 17.04, 16.04 and 14.04…
Step 1: Install VLC Player first
The command to install VLC player using command terminal on Ubuntu is:
Step 2: Open Ubuntu System Settings
Go to the extreme right side of the Ubuntu notification bar and click on the arrow icon and then gear icon to access the settings.
Step 3: Details option in Ubuntu
Scroll down and select the option Details to see further related options.
Step 4: Default Applications on Ubuntu
Now select the Default Applications and the from right side under Music and Video drop-down, select the VLC media player to make it default for audio and video files.
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When opening video files, sometimes the aspect ratio doesn't fit my TV and I see black bars either side:
How can I set the default aspect ratio to 16:9, so that I don't have to right-click and change each video's aspect ratio manually every time?
Danny Beckett
Danny BeckettDanny Beckett63244 gold badges1414 silver badges3434 bronze badges
1 Answer
Open VLC, and go to Tools > Preferences.
- Choose Show settings > All.
- From the left pane, scroll down to the bottom and click Video.
- From the right pane, scroll down to Source aspect ratio; fill in
16:9
. - Hit Save:
The next time you open VLC, your videos will automatically have your chosen aspect ratio:
Danny BeckettDanny Beckett63244 gold badges1414 silver badges3434 bronze badges
protected by Community♦Mar 13 '17 at 21:46
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