VLC
| Summary |
|---|
| Installing and configuring the VLC multimedia player. |
VLC is a media player by the VideoLAN team designed to emphasize portability and compatibility. Historically, it was groundbreaking for Linux media software by being the first player to ship with libdvdcss, letting it play encrypted DVDs. This is now a feature that almost all players include, and is no longer an advantage.
Contents
1 Installation
To install, simply run
# pacman -S vlc
If you want to play audio CDs, you should also install libcddb.
2 Language
It seems VLC does not offer an option to change language in its Preferences menu. But you can use the LANGUAGE= prefix. For instance:
$ LANGUAGE=fr vlc %U
will switch VLC interface to french.
3 Skins
VLC can be "skinned" for a different look and feel. You can obtain new skins for VLC from http://www.videolan.org/vlc/skins.php.
Installation of skins is simple just download the skin you wish to use and copy it to:
~/.local/share/vlc/skins2
Open up VLC, click tools->preferences. When the preferences window opens up you should be in the "Interface" tab
Choose the "Use custom skin" radio button, and browse to the location of the downloaded skin.
Restart VLC for the change to take effect.
4 Web Interface
Run VLC with the parameter "--extraintf=http" to use both the desktop and web interface.
# vlc --extraintf=http
Or you can enable this feature in the UI by navigating to "View" > "Add Interface" > "Web Interface".
VLC defaults to port 8080: http://127.0.0.1:8080
Edit /usr/share/vlc/lua/http/.hosts to allow remote connections. You will need to restart VLC in order for changes to take effect.
5 Control using hotkeys or cli
install netcat-openbsd
Get script at: http://crunchbang.org/forums/viewtopic.php?pid=112035%23p112035#p112035
Follow instructions in script to setup a socket for vlc.
Either run the script from the command line or register the script with keyboard shortcuts through your desktop.
6 Preventing multiple instances
The default settings for VLC is to open a new instance of the program for each file that is opened. This can be annoying if you are using VLC for something like playing your music collection. To remedy the problem you can do the following:
- Open VLC
- Go to Tools -> Preferences (Ctrl+P)
- Go to the Interface tab and find the "Instances" section.
- Tick "Allow only one instance"
- Optionally tick "Enqueue files when in one instance mode" - This will keep the current file playing and add any newly opened files to the current playlist.
7 Troubleshooting
7.1 PulseAudio Lag
When using PulseAudio as the audio output module, you might encounter audio/video sync problems. These problems can usually be fixed by editing /etc/pulse/default.pa or ~/.pulse/default.pa to reflect the following changes.
.ifexists module-udev-detect.so load-module module-udev-detect tsched=0 .else
7.2 Video broken or other issue after upgrade
Now and then VLC will have some issues with configuration even in minor releases. Before making bug reports, remove or rename your configuration located at ~/.config/vlc and confirm whether the issue is still there.
7.3 Segmentation fault
When starting VLC you can get a segfault, a possible workaround to this is running the following:
/usr/lib/vlc/vlc-cache-gen -f usr/lib/vlc/plugins
And reinstalling the VLC with:
pacman -S vlc
