Trippy ASCII Art Playback in VLC

I was reading this article on Lifehacker today, and they mentioned how mplayer has a mode to output video in ASCII art generated on the fly. I thought this was a pretty nifty, if useless, trick and poked around in VLC for a similar option. ‘Lo and behold, it indeed does have this option as well. Even though it makes things generally unwatchable, it’s still pretty cool to watch and show some friends.

Enabling ASCII Output

To enable it you first go into the Tools menu, then Preferences. Once there, on the bottom left hit All under Show Settings. Click on Video in the sidebar, and then click Output Modules. On the right pane change the Video Output Module from Default to Color ASCII Art Video Output and save your preferences. It’s now enabled. To change it back, simply switch back to Default.

ASCII Charlie Brown is so hip and fresh!