Downloading the VLC Media Player

VLC is  freeware media player that runs on most platforms and supports most types of media files.  The instructions here are explicitly set to use it for the format of the two needed video presentations.

  1. Download the VLC media player from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
  2. Choose your operating system (I've only done it for Windows, so that's what I'll describe here.)
  3. Choose the USA download (from Optralan) of the self-extracting package (the first set)
  4. Save the file to disk.  It will appear on your desktop.
  5. Accept all of the defaults until you get to the "Choose Components" screen.
  6. On the "Choose Componets" screen, scroll down to "File Type Associations", expand it (click on the +), expand the "Video Files" item and select ".mp4"
  7. Continue with default settings until you get to "Completuing..." screen.  Unselect the Run option and click Finish.
  8. This completes the installation.
Now to watch the video,
  1. Click on the video link that you want to watch.  I dialog box will open to ask if youwant to open or save the file.  Open it.
  2. The VLC media player will come up in a new window and the dialog box will disappear.