VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVD, Audio CD, VCD, and various streaming protocols. Technically it is a software package that handles media on a computer and through a network. It offers an intuitive API and a modular architecture to easily add support for new codecs, container formats and transmission protocols. Most known package that comes from VLC is the player which is commonly used on Windows, Linux and OSX.
According Videolan website, this project is quite complex to understand:
VLC media player is a large and complex piece of software. It also uses a large number of dependencies.
Being open source allows VLC development to benefit from a large community of developers worldwide.
However, entering a project such as VLC media player can be long and complex for new developers.
Code is written by expert C hackers and sometimes it is very hard to understand. Probably a book is needed to explain how VLC works. I’ll try in few words to summarize what I found in my mining. Let’s start by the highlevel architecture:
Read more: enjoyTheArchitecture