Play YouTube videos with VLC Media Player

I was searching the internet for a way to play YouTube videos with special audio and video effects like color correction, hue & contrast adjustment and other special effects. It was quite a surprise to learn that the solution was within my fingertips all the time. 

Countless times, videos have been viewed using VLC media player, simply by double clicking the file on Windows Explorer. Therefore, the Media menu rarely attracted attention and the solution was silently waiting there to be explored.

Here are the simple steps.

1. Open VLC media player.
2. Under the Media menu, select  Open Network Stream (Ctrl + N).
3. In the Open Media pop up dialog box, select the Network tab.
4. Copy the URL of the YouTube video and paste under Please enter a network URL:.
5. Hit Play button.

The adjustments can be made to the video /audio content using the options available under Adjustment and Effects (Tools -> Effects and Filters).

Adjusting the playback quality...

By default, the video will play with the available best quality resolution. If network bandwidth is limited, high quality video playback will result in frequent pauses. To get around this problem, set the Preferred video resolution to a lower value.

1. Select Tools -> Preferences (Ctrl + P). 
2. Open Advanced Preferences by selecting All option under Show Settings.
3. Search for Preferred video resolution. The setting is listed under Input / Codecs.
4. Select a suitable value from the drop down list.

Original Video

With Sepia Effect