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VLC video player launches on Apple TV

VLC video player launches on Apple TV

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VLC's versatile video player is now available on the Apple TV. Like its desktop app, VLC for the Apple TV lets you play back videos in a variety of unconventional and lesser-used formats. It also lets you choose custom playback speeds, select between multiple audio and subtitle tracks, and view album art and artists' bios when playing radio streams. To be clear, this is not an app that most people will need: it's primarily for playing back local video files — stereotypically pirated ones — since there are few easy ways to get those playing back on a TV.

The biggest hurdle to using VLC is getting files from a computer over to a TV. To handle that, it's made a web interface that allows you to drag in files from a local computer and have them sent over to the Apple TV. For those who want to go way nerdier, the app will also check for local media servers and can pull content in from there. VLC says it plans on adding more user-friendly services soon, including Dropbox, OneDrive, and Box, all of which are currently in testing.