There are plenty of websites giving instructions on how to stream - and even save - YouTube videos using VLC. You merely go Media/Open Network Stream, paste in the URL for the video and click Play.

However, on my Ubuntu PC running VLC 2.0.3, it doesn't work. At all.

Having done the above, I just get a black screen and nothing plays. I wait a while, in case it's opening the URL and getting the data. Still nothing.

Is there a setting in Preferences I should have changed to make this work? The tutorials on the web about this make it sound so simple.

All my YouTube URLs start with https://. Would the "s" at the end be a problem? Without it, I get an error saying the video can't be played, so it's necessary.

Thank you for any advice you can give.

Steve

In times i wanted to download youtube videos youtube-dl was useful app, however downloading youtube videos may be against TOS and you should avoid it.


Quick note: your version of Vlc is outdated, proceed to upgrade.

Very good point!
The latest version of VLC is 2.2.3. Whether or not it is availabe for the OP's version of Ubuntu, I don't know.

Thanks for your advice. I shall see about upgrading my VLC.