Remember position

[BrianAdamsID]

Yes, please add this! I registered for this forum just to say that this feature is needed. I've been using Media Player Classic just because it has this feature, but MPC doesn't render video as well for me as VLC, and it can't play .ISOs easily like VLC, for me.

[skay]

For many years, I've been using VLC Player for Windows (Win32, XP-Pro) to play FLAC files, video files (like Forbrydelsen!), and audiobooks. There's lots I like about the VLC Player. Unlike the Windows Media Player, the VLC Player plays FLAC audio files flawlessly, supporting fast-forward & rewind without a hitch. And I can create a virtual library of playlists in the VLC Player, while keeping my media files in various locations on my drives, without having to copy all the media files to a central location on the C drive, as iTunes requires.

However, both the Windows Media Player and iTunes have settings that are terrific for audiobooks -- especially the setting to "remember position." The VLC Player offers nothing of the kind, forcing me to take "bookmark" notes in text files, where I specify the file number and exact time where I left off. And I must refer to such a text file every time I wish to resume listening to an audiobook in the VLC Player.

(Actually, the VLC Player could improve upon iTunes and Windows Media Player by permitting users to create different TYPES or CATEGORIES of playlists. In such a system, any 'audiobook' playlist would have the "remember position" setting enabled by default. Likewise, in such a system, any 'music' playlist would have the "remember position" setting disabled by default.)

Users of the VLC Player have been requesting a 'remember position' feature for years now. If I had the skills, knowledge, and time, I would add it myself, but I do not possess such resources. So I do hope somebody with such resources will add this feature. (I suspect it has not been added to VLC Player because it's not desirable as a global setting for all audio or all video files. But as I suggested above, there are other ways to implement it.)

Best regards,
Steve

[lovelove]

Seeing that creating bookmarks via CTRL+B is already possible (worksforme), isn't all there would be left to do: saving these bookmarks (i.e. the content of the CTRL+B window) in a bookmarks.xml file upon exit and reading it upon VLC start?

Code: Select all

<bookmark> <file>D:\path\file1.ext</file> <pos>600</pos> </bookmark> <bookmark> <file>D:\path\file2.ext</file> <pos>1200</pos> </bookmark>

Or is it much more complicated than that?

[VLC_help]

Or is it much more complicated than that?

That wouldn't work with DVD movies, since they all have same X:\VIDEO_TS as item.

[lovelove]

that's what you have the path for, no?

X:\someDVD\VIDEO_TS\
X:\someotherDVD\VIDEO_TS\

[VLC_help]

All DVD Video discs have the same structure, so when you insert DVD Video disc to DVD drive, the .vob files will always be in x:\VIDEO_TS

[lovelove]

oh, I didn't know you were talking about external optical discs.

So you take an exceptional case (for which bookmarks are difficult to implement) as argument for not implementing them in general (where no showstoppers exist) ?

Sure there might be ways to distinguish one DVD from another (file sizes, timestamps, structure, etc.), but I doubt that's remotely worth the effort...
... just exclude DVD/Bluray drives from bookmarks. I don't know any player which would support this anyway. And what is the benefit of a bookmark, if you have to manually look for your DVD and insert it into the drive? Defeats the purpose I'd say.

[VLC_help]

So you take an exceptional case (for which bookmarks are difficult to implement) as argument for not implementing them in general (where no showstoppers exist) ?

What I mean is, that URL itself isn't unique enough to save current position in reliable way.

The issue also bothers memory card based stuff, USB drives (drive letter order can change based on attach order), network locations etc.

... just exclude DVD/Bluray drives from bookmarks. I don't know any player which would support this anyway.

PowerDVD supports that very well.

[lovelove]

I would just store the path to a file and the timestamp (seconds as integer value) in an xml file as posted above. That's very easy and would certainly make thousands of VLC users happy. Is your argument that since non-local content can change, bookmarks will not be implemented alltogether?

It's like arguing that Internet Browsers cannot have bookmarks, because the webpage a bookmark-URL points to could be replaced by different content.

If a remote resource is offline, that's not VLC's fault.
If the user bookmarks a non-local resource and the URL's content changes, that's also not VLC's fault.

VLC is not and is not supposed to be a clairvoyant, right?

Now there are various ways to make VLC a little more clairvoyant - as already posted above - namely by storing additional data ("file sizes, timestamps, folder content, DVD structure, etc."), and I am 100% sure that it's nothing that will ever be on the VLC developper wish list, so why are we even discussing that point, when the point is a hypothetical?

I still see no showstopper and no difficulties for an easy implementation in the form of the above posted XML file.

[lovelove]

Tell you what: It doesn't even matter if the bookmark URL points to a local drive or a non-local resource. That distinction is not pertinent as even local content can change! Unless you want to store filesize + last modified file date (for speed gain, to avoid hash comparison if time or size differs) and a 128+ bit hash value (must check if time+size matches), you will NEVER know if a bookmarked content has changed! period.

I personally think that's not VLC's responsibility to check if bookmarked content has changed. If you agree, then why are we discussing this point?

(I mean, I personally don't care that much. I have other players (e.g. MPC-HC) which support bookmarking. But I was just curious as to why VLC - which is capable of mind-bogglingly difficult things - cannot yet store a simple list of path+timestamp pairs in a text file.)

[VLC_help]

Bookmark/remember position failing is annoying to many people in same way as frame forward and loop a->b fails are. So bad implementation will just flood the forums with messages like this and this.

I personally think that's not VLC's responsibility to check if bookmarked content has changed.

It is just SUPER annoying to user, that when he/she enters new DVD Video discs to drive, VLC suggest returning to last position, even when user hasn't played that disc before.

Content change of the URL is only half of the problem, second part is the URL change of the content.

[lovelove]

bad implementation will just flood the forums with messages like this and this.

The links have nothing to do with bookmarking/remember position. The first link is about the well-known frame-by-frame bug and the second link is about an instance where VLC failed to display consistent/correct timecodes (possibly due to file which does not conform to specifications/standards).

Bookmark/remember position failing is annoying to many people

@bookmark: If user sets bookmark to location and afterwards removes the content from that location, it's user fault. And it's a pretty weird argument, it's almost like saying "VLC will stop supporting video playback, because users are annoyed that VLC does not play videos they have deleted from their HDD".
@remember position: it behaves just as advertised. If user doesn't like the feature, he should not enable it. Keep it disabled by default then.

It is just SUPER annoying to user, that when he/she enters new DVD Video discs to drive, VLC suggest returning to last position, even when user hasn't played that disc before.

there is an easy solution in the way MPC-HC has dealt with this issue:

Content change of the URL is only half of the problem, second part is the URL change of the content.

Again, if you want to know whether the content has changed, you need to store data capable of identifying the content (file size, time stamps, hash, etc.), as mentioned repeatedly already.
Again, I am 100% sure that won't ever be on VLC's to-do-list.
Again, so why are we discussing content identification if content identification will NEVER be on your agenda??? If you seriously consider content identification, then so say so clearly and I will continue this part of the discussion which is otherwise pointless.

There are not 36000 possibilities:
If you don't identify the content, you can only store the URL.
That's what 100% of all Internet browsers do.
That's what 99% of bookmarking-capable media players do.
That's what VLC could also do.

This is how MPC-HC deals with bookmarks. I personally don't see any problem with that whatsoever:



I am sure 100% of VLC users would be happy to have this rather than nothing as currently.
And 0% of VLC users would be annoyed, because if they don't actively bookmark something, nothing changes for them.

[mrl1138]

What I found one can do is to set a bookmark at the specific position and then save playlist to file (CTRL+Y). After opening the playlist bookmark can be restored. I know it's probably still easier to create txt file, so still waiting for an easy "restore last position" option like most do. Peace.

[Snurre86]

This is the feature I miss most in VLC media player, it is actually the main reason I avail myself of SMPlayer most. The first few times I used this feature, it was weird and confusing to start in the middle of a movie, but after about 50 times, it became a habit that I now can not be without. On longer informational, instructional videos and other videos you do not want to or can look at in one go, it is very useful as you can visualize.

[mederi]

As mrl1138 says, setting a bookmark and saving it with a playlist works. Semiautomatic at least

[mrl1138]

Another solution:

Open VLC,
Press CTRL+L to view the Playlist,
Choose Media Library in a left pane,
Right click on an empty space and add files or a folder with movies,
Add bookmark(s) in any movie at any time, that you want to start playing from next time you open VLC.

When you open VLC again, it gonna keep your Media Library list so you can easily get back to whatever movie you were watching and use bookmarks that you set, to play from the last time you stopped, no need to save anything like playlists etc.

[fredphoesh]

Wow, two and a half years later and this basic feature still has not made it to vlc... has it been forgotten?

I was just pouring through the incredible advanced options, amazingly powerful... but this is a must have feature and I am baffled why it has not been implemented, there are several threads about this subject, so obviously many, many people would want it...

Please guys, dont forget about it...

Thanks,
Mark.

[VLC_help]

Wow, two and a half years later and this basic feature still has not made it to vlc... has it been forgotten?

Nobody has implemented this. VLC is a volunteer project, nobody is forced to do anything.

[Adrioid]

Incorrect, MPlayerX for OSX did.

Quote from http://mplayerx.org: "Forget where you stopped playing last time? MPlayerX won't."

Please add this feature to get one more step closer to perfect!

[Sébastien Escudier]

No, he meant : Nobody has implemented this in VLC

[Adrioid]

Aaah, gotcha! My bad.

[laldrich]

The way I do it: while watching the vid I pause it at the point I want VLC to remember. I make note of the time mark below the volume indicator, then jot this time down on a piece of paper. Next time I open the vid I go to Jump To Specific Time (CTRL + T), enter the time I want to go to, and hit go. If any of the time units are single digits, use a leading zero or it won't work.

Works for me.

[Adrioid]

touché!

[CulleyS]

I understand that dev time is limited and completely voluntary, but this would be a great feature to have. There are workarounds, but those workarounds don't take into account the most likely time I'd want to have vlc remember my position: i.e. in cases where vlc exits unexpectedly. During a reboot, if the program crashes during playback, if the computer locks up, if another media file is opened before the current one is finished, etc.

On a side note, VLC is still my goto media player and has been for six years or so now and I really appreciate all the hard work the devs have invested into this and other VideoLAN projects.

Culley

[Dreamer]

Will be implemented with the dB in 1.1

Nice, but v2.0.0 is out and I still can't find this feature.

I used to record few hours of DVB video, even 5 and more, so it's even more annoying if I lose position there.

My suggestions for the feature:

Remember the time position on close and even if another file/video is opened (by accident), so just go back, or run previous file again. This way few files should be saved in cache, perhaps just one option, "Remember time position: [#]", where # would be number of cached files, 0 means disabled.

BTW AIMP (the best audio player ) has such a feature too and I couldn't live without it now.

Please.