Questions, answered straight.

We've tested video files up to 10 GB, and the rule is simple: if your computer opens and plays a file properly before encryption, you should have no problem playing it with Obscured Media after. Playback starts within a couple of seconds — on a quick machine it feels instant — and you can skip anywhere, even deep into a huge 4K film. Exact speed depends on your hardware, as with any player.

Really free. Full file encryption and the complete player on your PC, forever — playlists, thumbnails, saved moments, Family Library, Boss Key, restore. The only trial is 14 days of Plus, and its clock doesn't even start until you first turn on streaming to other devices. When it ends, nothing locks; the PC keeps working exactly as before.

All the common ones — MP4, MKV, MOV, AVI and friends — play directly, encrypted the whole time. For the rare codec the built-in player can't decode, it hands the file to VLC automatically: a quick message, VLC opens and plays it, then closes itself and your library takes back over — even mid-playlist.

And it's still secure. VLC only ever receives a short-lived stream with a random one-time ID — never the real file or its name. The file on disk stays fully encrypted, VLC can't reopen it on its own, and all its history could ever show is a meaningless dead ID.

One thing to know: VLC itself is yours to install — it's the free player from videolan.org. We don't bundle it, so the hand-off is only offered once VLC is on your PC.

Yes — Obscured Media is an image viewer too. All the main image file types — JPG, PNG, GIF, WebP, BMP and HEIC — get the same treatment as your videos: encrypted on disk, shown as real thumbnails in your library, and viewable in a full gallery without ever being decrypted back onto your drive. Photos and videos can live in the same protected folders.

Yes. Audio files live in the same encrypted library as your videos and photos, play with the same single click, and can be mixed into playlists alongside video. Tags, star ratings and saved filters work on them exactly the same way.

Not in daily use. Videos are decoded on the fly, in memory, and start the moment you press play; the library stays smooth past 10,000 items, even on a modest older PC.

The one job that takes real time is the first encryption of a big library, because Secure Mode rewrites every byte. That's a set-and-forget background job you can pause and resume — or use Fast Mode to conceal an enormous collection in seconds and upgrade the files that matter most later.

Never. There is no cloud, no account and no telemetry — the app works completely offline, and there's no server that could receive your files even by accident. When you stream to your other screens, that traffic stays on your own home network.

Even "Check for updates" doesn't phone home — it just opens this website in your browser. The app itself never connects to us, because there's nothing to connect to.

When you set up, the app creates a recovery file — keep it somewhere safe (a USB stick, another drive) and it can let you back in without any account, server, or help from us. It works completely offline.

If you lose both the password and the recovery file, nobody can bring the files back — including us. That's not a support gap; it's what real encryption means, and it's exactly the guarantee protecting you from everyone else.

Always, and it's permanently free. Select a folder, press Restore, and everything decrypts back to exactly where it came from — same folders, same subfolders, same names, byte for byte. The only difference you'll spot is fresh date stamps, because each file is physically recreated.

The one requirement is the obvious one: restoring means unlocking. As long as you have the software and either your password or your recovery file, you will always be fine — your files are yours to bring back, guaranteed. Keep one of those two safe and there is nothing to worry about.

Nothing is lost. An original file is only ever removed after its encrypted replacement has been fully written and verified, and long jobs are built to survive a crash or power cut mid-way. Pull the plug during an overnight encrypt and you just resume where it stopped.

No — and that difference is the whole product. Hidden-folder and "vault" apps move or rename files, which anything that looks can find and anything that finds can play. Obscured Media encrypts every file individually with real AES-256: open one in any other program and you get noise with a random name. The Encryption page shows the difference on video.

On this PC, everything is free. Plus adds your other screens, each with its own proper client:

• Windows PC — the full app: encrypt, browse, play, restore. Free forever.
• Android phones & tablets — a native Android app, which also runs on Chromebooks. Quick Resume PIN included.
• Meta Quest — a dedicated VR client build: a private cinema in the headset, streamed from a PC that shows nothing.
• Any browser — a built-in web client for the screens with no app: iPhone, iPad, Mac and Linux. Nothing to install.
• TVs — Chromecast, Google TV and NVIDIA Shield securely; basic smart TVs too, with a plainly-worded trade-off. Casting is in beta — working, still being polished.
• Your second and third computers — connect as clients to the main library.

Every device is approved by you — and can be cut off by you, instantly.

Yes — that's the Family Library, and it's free. One encrypted library, two passwords: yours opens everything, and a second family password opens only what you've chosen as safe for them. Mark the child-friendly content, give the kids that password, and it's all they can ever see — everything else simply doesn't exist for them, across search, thumbnails, playlists and every connected device.

The family side keeps its own watch history and resume positions too, so nobody's viewing leaks into anybody else's.

For a new, small publisher, yes. SmartScreen trusts reputation, and reputation takes time — the warning says Windows doesn't know us yet, not that anything is wrong. Only download from our official website, www.obscured.media — every build is published with checksums so you can verify exactly what you got. Details are on the download page.