- Better Macos Video Player For Mkv Files Than Vlc Free
- Better Macos Video Player For Mkv Files Than Vlc Download
- Vlc Player
by Christine Smith • 2020-07-09 11:34:52 • Proven solutions
Sound But No Vision HD video mp4 files taken with my Samsung mini video camera have until a few days ago played perfectly well via Video Player on my Tab 10. Since last week after downloading the files via the usb connection from the microsd card as usual, when I use Video Player I get a box saying 'play audio data only' so no.
Although MKV has robust capabilities to handle video, audio, image, and subtitle content in a single container, even if they are in different formats, it’s not yet an industry standard that is supported by any media player. Here we’d specifically talk about how to play MKV file in VLC, which is a powerful and open-source media player runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, and UNIX OS.
Part 1. How to Play MKV Files in VLC
First of all, you need to download VLC media player from videolan.org, the official website. Otherwise, you might get unwanted malware. Follow the guide to install it correctly, and then you’ll have 2 ways to use VLC to play MKV.
Way 1: Right-click on the MKV video file and go to Properties in the context menu.
Then click Change… button to swap the default application with VLC media player.
After that, simply double-click the MKV file would open it with VLC.
Way 2: Open VLC media player and select Media>Open File… and then go to the location of the MKV video, as shown below, select the target file and click Open.
Part 2. VLC Not Playing HD MKV Media File Issue
According to the official VLC feature, MKV is supported by default by VLC. However, VLC error that not play MKV video happens at times, i.e., fail to open an MKV file, shows a grey screen or an error pops up a window while playing MKV file, and even loading MKV indefinitely. What’s worse, deleting preferences, reinstalling, and even rebooting is not going to solve the freezing, skipping, or stuttering problem. So we’ll tack these issues one by one in this part.
1. VLC Media Player Has No Sound
Check whether Sound is muted and ensure it is not muted before proceeding. In the case that this fails, then VLC menu Tools > Preferences menu to display the preferences window, then click on the Audio section and ensure that Enable Audio is checked.
2. VLC Skipping MKV or HD MKV
Go VLC Menu Tools > Preferences to open the preferences window and select the All radio button on the bottom left of the preferences. Go to Input/Codecs Section, and a list on the right will appear with preferences. Scroll to the bottom of the list to locate the File Caching (ms) option under the advanced section and set it to 1000.
3. Choppy Video While Playing MKV and HD MKV on VLC
Go to the VLC Menu Tools > Preferences, and in the preferences window, click on the All radio button on the bottom of the window. Now select Input/Codecs > Video Codecs > FFmpeg and disable hardware decoding on the list that appears.
Part 3. Tricks on Playing MKV Files in VLC Smoothly
If you’re still having issues while playing MKV or HD MKV (dragging, error screen, choppy video), you can try to convert MKV to DivX, WMV, MPEG-4, and other VLC-supported formats as an alternative. Then Wondershare UniConverter (originally Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate) comes in handy, which is capable of 150+ video/audio format conversion and playing MKV with an inbuilt player.
Wondershare UniConverter - Best MKV Converters for Windows/Mac
- Convert MKV files to play in VLC with optimized presets.
- Support 1000+ video formats, including MKV/MOV/MP4/AVI/WMV and more others.
- Transfer videos from computer to iPhone, iPad, and other devices directly and vice versa.
- Download and record videos from 10,000+ video sharing sites easily and quickly.
- 30X faster conversion speed than common converters with unique APEXTRANS technology.
- Edit videos with trimming, merging, cropping, adding watermark, subtitles, etc.
- Burn and customize MKV to your DVD or Blu-ray disc with free DVD menu templates.
- Versatile toolbox: Add video metadata, GIF maker, cast video to TV, video compressor and screen recorder.
- Supported OS: Windows 10/8/7/XP/Vista, Mac OS 10.15 (Catalina), 10.14, 10.13, 10.12, 10.11, 10.10, 10.9, 10.8, 10.7, 10.6.
Security Verified. 7,975,022 people have downloaded it.
Step 1 Install and Launch Wondershare UniConverter
Download Wondershare UniConverter to your PC, and then launch it after installation. Make sure you’re downloading the right version (take Windows version for an example).
Step 2 Add MKV Files to MKV to VLC Converter
Click the +Add Files button to add MKV files to the software, or you can directly drag and drop them.
For entries in zip which had extra data record (crc, compressed and uncompressed sizes after the end of data), zip4j was writing uncompressed size as -1 in the local file header, which in theory should not matter because the actual size is in the extra data record. But I guess there were some additional checks added to the zip utility in Catalina, and in those cases where zip4j wrote -1, the zip files could not be opened on Catalina (used to work fine on older versions of Mac). Fix was to write 0 instead of -1.
Hope that helped.
Step 3 Select VLC Output Format
Select your desired format that you want to convert to under the Convert all files to section on the right side. Then click the Convert All to proceed with MKV to VLC conversion.
Tips: You can also directly play MKV files by hovering to the video’s thumbnail icon and clicking on the PLAY button.
When you need to play a video on your Mac, what do you do? Which app do you open? If you’re new to macOS, you might just double-click on the media file and it’s likely that QuickTime Player will start up — good enough for the most common tasks.
Soon though you’re bound to feel QuickTime’s limitations. It might be that you’ve transferred a file from your camera that’s not supported, or you want to watch a foreign movie with external subtitles. All this is difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish with QuickTime Player. You need to upgrade.
More top-notch media players for you
Instead of having one VLC player alternative, get an entire collection. Setapp is a Mac apps subscription that gives you a large choice.
What Makes VLC Player For Mac Good
From the first moments of looking for a better media player, VLC for Mac is going to show up in search results again and again. The app is free, has good ratings, and seems to be universally loved. There’s even a version for your iPhone (and nearly every other operating system in existence). What’s not to like?
The official story of VLC player goes back to 1996, when a few students of École Centrale Paris in France developed the app as their academic project. Back then, they called it VideoLAN Client (VLC for short). As VLC player got more and more recognition and became popular worldwide, the original developers released the code under the open-source license, so that anyone could fix bugs and contribute new features.
By now, VLC player is available on Windows, macOS, iOS, Apple TV, Linux, Android, Chrome OS, and Xbox One. The only question left is how to find a VLC for Mac download.
How to get a VLC download for Mac
Unfortunately, due to some licensing issues, VLC player for Mac isn’t available on the App Store (although the iOS version is). With a simple Google search you’ll find that lots of third-party websites offer you VLC for Mac downloads — but beware! Such download files are often infected with various kinds of malware looking to find an easy way into your computer.
The only option that’s 100% safe is to find a VLC download for Mac on its official website:
- Go to videolan.org/vlc
- Click Download VLC
- Double-click the .dmg file in your Downloads folder
- Move the VLC icon into Applications
With regards to technical requirements, VLC player is supported by any 64-bit Intel-based Mac that runs macOS 10.7.5 or later (the latest one is 10.15). This covers 99% of Macs in use nowadays. And even if you need to make VLC player work with ancient Macs, older VLC versions are available for download from the official website as well.
To play a video on VLC for Mac:
- Open VLC
- Either drag the video you like onto the app’s window or go to File ➙ Open File… ➙ select the video ➙ Open
One of the most beloved VLC media player features is adding and fine-tuning external subtitles. When you’ve downloaded the .srt subtitle file you want to use:
Better Macos Video Player For Mkv Files Than Vlc Free
- In the menu bar of the VLC player, click Subtitles
- Add Subtitle File… ➙ select the file ➙ Open
- In the same Subtitles menu you can change the text size, thickness, color as well as the background color
With so much to offer, why would anyone choose any other app for their videos than VLC player? True, while QuickTime Player struggles with nearly every video encounter, VLC for Mac handles all the basics pretty well. But there’s so much more to discover in the land of video-playing features: multiple subtitles, audio extractions, ad-free web playback, AirPlay streaming, etc. Let’s see which VLC alternative for Mac offers it all.
Stream anything anytime with Elmedia Player
If VLC media player for Mac is a shell you can open content in, Elmedia Player is a full-on entertainment center. Get any videos you want anytime, thanks to its streaming functionality. The app is able to download YouTube directly to your Mac or play videos instantly using its web-browser extension, which allows to bypass all the ads.
Moreover, any downloaded videos can then be easily played on your AirPlay-enabled devices — watch a movie on a big screen with Apple TV, for example, without the need for USB drives or awkward cables. And while VLC media player might get stuck playing HD videos on a big screen, Elmedia will sail through them seamlessly with the help of hardware-accelerated decoding.
Play, stream, and download video
Get Elmedia Player, a perfect replacement for VLC, which has a streaming feature and a browser extension for direct downloads.
Elmedia Player, simply put, has everything you’ll ever need not to get bored. Even when videos become too much, you can extract audio files and save them as MP3 for easy on-the-go listening.
Gain full video control with Movist Pro
As good as Elmedia Player is, the ultimate VLC alternative for Mac could be a mighty 4K movie player called Movist Pro.
Movist Pro not only effortlessly decodes any video you come across (with an option to select decoders manually if needed) but also lets you configure the perfect video-watching scenario, including the quality and the size of each file.
If you want to watch a high-dynamic-range (HDR) video, but your screen doesn’t support it, the colors will show up dull and faded. Movist Pro features a built-in HDR tone-mapping technology that automatically adjusts colors to what they are supposed to be.
Better Macos Video Player For Mkv Files Than Vlc Download
While nearly every VLC alternative for Mac lacks powerful subtitle management that VLC is known for, Movist Pro takes it a step further with support for multiple subtitles at once — invaluable when you’re trying to learn a new language or watching a movie with a bunch of international friends.
Finally, using the Movist Pro Safari extension, you can watch any video right from your browser window, with any of the above personal settings already specified.
How to start with Movist Pro? One step only: simply drag and drop your video onto the app and enjoy.
The best VLC alternative for Mac
So while some might argue that VLC media player for Mac is still good, the truth is — lots has changed since 1996. New entrants like Elmedia Player with its built-in downloader and ad-free streaming, or Movist Pro with multiple-subtitle support and HDR improvement are winning the market. The one you choose should quite frankly depend on the features you’re going to use the most.
Vlc Player
Best of all, you don’t need to go all in and buy Elmedia Player or Movist Pro to see how they work. Both apps are available to you on a free seven-day trial from Setapp — a platform with over 150 Mac apps, where each one is the best for a particular task, whether it’s budgeting, retouching, or just getting things done. What might you be watching tonight?