Force VLC to play video files as audio via m3u

[ParadoxImmobilizer]

HI,

I have a m3u playlist that contains many streams. All of these streams are videos, but I only care about the audio. I need some way to tell VLC to treat the streams as if they are audio only.

I know about the #EXTVLCOPT directive for m3u files, but have not found any options that work, as VLC blocks many of them for safety reasons. I have tried vout=none, no-video, role=music, no-sout-video, no-sout-display, and audio-visual=goom. All of these throw

Code: Select all

main error: unsafe option "<option here>" has been ignored for security reasons

except for no-video, which does nothing.

I know that you can set arguments to allow these options to run in m3u files, but it is likely that this playlist is going to be shared among multiple people. I don't want to have to explain to them how to change command line arguments, nor do I want to set these arguments myself. Plus, anybody who sets these options is potentially open to malicious playlist files. I also don't want to have to tell people to manually set their VLC to not show video, especially because they would have to either set it for every individual stream, every time they used the playlist, or change their global settings, meaning if they wanted to watch a video they how have to mess with their settings again.

This playlist needs to be able to work on both the PC and Android/iPhone versions of VLC.

If there is another playlist format that allows me to do this, such as XSPF, I am willing to change formats.

Thank you for your time.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

You can't control output from a playlist, only input.

[trysting]

Since ParadoxImmobilizer is asking to only access the audio stream, surely that IS controlling the input.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

How does that affect the input in any way? He's trying to discard video output.

[ParadoxImmobilizer]

I may be incorrect, but my understanding was that most streamed video streams video and audio separately, as two synchronized streams that are then recombined by VLC.

I have noticed that, when I have poor internet, playing streams through vlc will sometimes be quite laggy and often buffer, but will stop buffering when I select "play as audio," making me think that the "play as audio" option tells VLC to only request the audio stream.

In addition, tools like youtube-dl allow you to only download the audio of a video, without ever downloading the video itself.

I guess I phrased the question poorly - I would like to be able to create a playlist file, with links to video streams, and have vlc only request the audio from those streams, without requiring additional input from the user or settings changes to vlc.

I feel that this constitutes affecting the input as I want vlc to never request the video itself, not simply discard the video after receiving it.