command line option difficulties

[tedbeta]

My goal is to use the command line remote control interface with the unix socket (i.e. -I rc --rc-unix /path/to/socket) so that I can have an external application send commands to the running VLC to play/pause/etc movies. I'm running VLC 0.9.8a on Mac OS X 10.4.11. Quite a few issues I'm running into:

(1) Is the "cvlc" or "civlc" binary no longer included or relevant to the latest releases? Should I be using this or installing it separately somehow? Or should I be using an older VLC version?

(2) Whenever I start the binary (/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC) with the '-I rc' option and a playlist value, the video does not actually display anywhere on my screen. If I'm using command line interface, should I be specifying the -vout or -vcd options? The detailed help file does not actually list what the acceptable values for these two options are -- is there a list or explanation anywhere?

(3) Again, with the '-I rc' option specified, it is often impossible to actually quit the application. When I type quit in the console control, the status output changes to (quit) but the application doesn't actually die or close. ^C does not kill it either. I have to stop the job and then actually 'kill -9' the process. Any thoughts on how to cleanly quit or stop?

(4) In addition to using the unix socket remote control interface, my goal is to start VLC in fullscreen mode on a 2nd display (which I understand is possible from the FAQ and forum posts). I'd also like to have no media titles, menu bars, no menu controls fading in/out over the video. From the detailed command line help, it seems these options might be the following:

--no-video-title-show --video-on-top --mouse-hide-timeout=0 --no-video-deco --no-spu --no-show-intf --playlist-autostart

Does this look correct or are some missing? How can I ensure that the little menu bar with the play/pause/stop/etc icons doesn't ever appear over the video even if the mouse is moved? In other words, I want the only control interface to be through the unix remote control socket.


Thank you for any info or assistance you can provide!

-- Simon

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

1) cvlc is vlc -Idummy
2) -V gives you the video output
3) run with vlc -Irc and text quit or -Idummy and ^C.
4) --fullscreen maybe.

[tedbeta]

Thank you for providing this information. However, when I use those options, nothing happens. For example, if I type the following:

/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -vv -Idummy -Irc -V --fullscreen Desktop/test.mov

Then, the movie does not play at all. Towards the end of the debug output, I see the following...

[00000397] main decoder debug: looking for decoder module: 31 candidates
[00000397] avcodec decoder debug: libavcodec initialized (interface 3407872 )
[00000397] avcodec decoder debug: ffmpeg codec (H264 - MPEG-4 AVC (part 10)) started
[00000397] main decoder debug: using decoder module "avcodec"
[00000397] main decoder debug: TIMER module_Need() : 25.874 ms - Total 25.874 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 25.874 ms)
[00000397] main decoder debug: thread 26677760 (decoder) created at priority 0 (input/decoder.c:217)
[00000397] main decoder debug: thread started
[00000387] main input debug: `Desktop/test.mov' successfully opened
[00000395] mp4 demux debug: elst (0) gives 0ms (movie)-> 0ms (track)
[00000395] mp4 demux debug: track[Id 0x1] using Sync Sample Box (stss)
[00000395] mp4 demux debug: stts gives 0 --> 0 (sample number)
[00000387] main input debug: control type=1
[00000397] main decoder debug: no usable vout present, spawning one
[00000430] main video output debug: window size: 720x480
[00000430] main video output debug: looking for video output module: 6 candidates
[00000430] opengl video output debug: Texture size: 720x480
[00000430] opengl video output debug: requesting "default" opengl provider
[00000433] main opengl debug: looking for opengl provider module: 2 candidates
[00000433] macosx opengl debug: display is Quartz Extreme accelerated
[00000387] main input debug: EOF reached
[00000387] main input debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
[00000387] main input debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
[00000387] main input debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty
[00000387] main input debug: waiting decoder fifos to empty

...and then this error is repeated indefinitely until ^C is pressed...

Any ideas? Thank you!

[tobyspark]

hello. same use case here. i can confirm that in my use any other interface than the default native gui results in no video, with vlc consuming cpu and requiring a force quit to kill.

VLC 0.9.8a; OSX10.5.5

./VLC --intf=dummy --vout-filter=deinterlace --deinterlace-mode=bob --fullscreen udp:@<IP>:<port>

remove the --intf and it works. add --video or any other advice here, same.

will be happy to test further on instructions from more knowledgeable VLC types!

toby