VLC was a widely used player in Windows 10, but there is doubt about its compatibility with Windows 11 . All companies are adapting to the new Microsoft OS, and we show you the experience of watching Matroska videos on Windows 11.
He believed that Microsoft would adapt to the times by offering a native player that could play videos in more “rare” formats, such as .MKV. In this case, it is a format that revolutionized the content, as well as the .flv format, but it seems difficult to support natively by Mac or Windows 11.
Index of contents
- What is VLC or VideoLan?
- Can Windows 11 play .MKV?
- VLC on Windows 11
What is VLC or VideoLan?
It is a multiplatform multimedia player that is free and has open source , which can reproduce the vast majority of multimedia files, such as broadcast protocols. Indeed, we can play “rare” video files and watch broadcasts via streaming.
VideoLAN was always a project and a non-profit organization that offers its application on Windows, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS. It has become famous for playing formats that are not compatible with native players, such as MKV or WebM , among others.
Its strengths are that it is completely free, it is lightweight and we find it a very interesting tool to watch videos in Matroska (MKV) formats as live broadcasts over the internet.
Can Windows 11 play .MKV?
After trying, we have verified that it does not “natively”, but we can install the HEVC extension for € 0.99 on our PC. This extension is purchased from the Microsoft Store and, once installed, we will be able to play a series of video file formats that we could not before.
This extension is designed for Windows 10 , but it is compatible with Windows 11. It is an encoder that allows us to enjoy videos in 4K or Ultra HD. Rather than include this natively, Microsoft has opted to offer extensions to make Windows 11 more compatible with certain formats at the consumer’s expense: the same goes for iPhone .HEIF photos.
So, we have 2 options : download VLC for free or pay € 0.99 to install the HEVC extension. A few years ago, it seemed that Microsoft had added native support for MKV in Windows, but the truth is that time has passed and we are still the same.
VLC on Windows 11
We go with the free option, but that, in return, we will have to install a third-party program. The tutorial is very simple and you just have to do these steps:
- We download VLC from its official page. You will see that when we click “download” it redirects us to a page where we are downloading the VLC for 64-bit Windows. This is because there is no 32-bit Windows 11 and it seems that the web automatically detects where we are accessing from.
- Google Chrome will tell you that it can damage your computer, but this warns you because it is an .exe file, not for anything else. Give it to download.
- Once downloaded, we run it and the installation wizard will startwithout any problem or warning.
- We give the following and modify the options we want (add-ons, assigned formats, etc.). Soon after it will start to install and it will pass very quickly because the program does not take up much space.
- Once finished, it will offer us to automatically run VLC. As soon as we run it, we will get this warning, and I recommend you uncheck both options.
- It only remains to execute a file with VLC and pre-assign the formatto that program; in this way, when we double-click on a file with that format, VLC will automatically run on Windows 11.
- In MKV files, Windows 11 will detect that VLC is highly compatible for the formats chosen at installation. We double click on the file and this window will appear: you have to select VLC and check the option below to assign the MKV format to VLC.
Voilà! We can now watch MKV videos without any problem.
What if we want to use VLC as the main player for any video format? Do the following:
- We open the start menuand go to Settings .
- Go to the Applications section and then to ” Default applications“.
- Now, we search for VLC Media Playerand select it to see in which file types or links it is the default application.
- We will get all the types of video files that Windows 11 recognizesa priori. We just have to select the one we want and mark VLC as the default player. I know it is quite tedious to go one on one.
Another way to do it is to right-click on the file you want, select “open with” and select ” open with another application ” and we will get the same window as the image above on which program to choose to open files of a certain format .
There are more players apart from VLC that we can download under the same conditions, although they are not as well known:
- MPV Player.
- Plex , although this player is much more complex.
- DivX player, a player that had tremendous fame in the first decade of the 2000s.
- GOM Media Player.
There are several, but I am more inclined to recommend VLC as a player because I think it is very good, easy to use and consumes few resources.
We hope this information has been helpful to you, if you have any questions, comment below and we will assist you immediately.
