Controlling the playlist

[odomok]

Hi,
Is there any way to control the playlist, either from the rc interface or python, which would allow either the insertion of an item at a specific point in the playlist - for instance next file to be played - or the removal of item(s) from the playlist except the currently playing item ? I am looking for a smooth transition from 1 playlist to another, playing files to completion rather than cutting them off arbitarily when the playlist is cleared.

I know a similar thread exists on the windows forum, but this is for Linux.

Thanks

[OlivierAubert]

The playlist control is very basic in the MediaControl API (add, clear, get list), and will probably stay this way (or may even be reduced to set_mrl /get_mrl ).

The bindings for the libvlc API are not complete, and are especially missing bindings to the playlist API (which is apparently not stable yet). I currenly do not have any time to work on these...

So I guess the answer for the moment is "No way".

[odomok]

Thanks for your reply Oliver, at least I didn't miss something obvious I will implement a work around for now....

[badrock]

Hy,

I really need this functionality, so, if you get something working in that direction, please let me know..

Thanks

[odomok]

This is a bit of a hack, but to implement what I am trying to achieve, I am first 'building a playlist' from individual small clips using mencoder to string them together into one file, this file is created on a ram drive, which is fast and does not 'stutter' the video that is playing while I am doing it. The file created is given a unique name based on the date/time, and inserted into vlc's playlist.

Once vlc starts to play it - detected by mc.get_media_position(vlc.AbsolutePosition,vlc.MediaTime).value - I then start creating the next playlist in the same way, I am using two ram drives and deleting the contents prior to creating the file, hence once played, the file no longer exists. Therefore vlc will not play this file again (my playlist is set to loop)

The very first file I play direct from the harddrive, and this becomes a default if nothing else is placed in the playlist.

The solution also has the benefit of avoiding the freeze frame effect between files as observed in my earlier post. At least it reduces the occurence to once every 10-15 minutes rather than after every 30 second clip.

[coolmanran]

Hello Olivier,

I am using a TCP connection to the remote console interface to control VLC. My application keeps an internal track of the playlist, and monitors VLC status via a thread that performs a periodic query to determine VLC status. Everything was working great with VLC 0.8.4 Janus.

Unfortunately, VLC 0.8.6a appears to not support the "clear" playlist command. I think this is a bug since the command is listed under the "help" option. I can add an item to the playlist, query for status, media length, and time elapsed. However, after sending the "clear" command VLC no longer responds, although it does not drop the TCP connection. Attempting to close the TCP connection and reconnect does not solve the problem either.

Any help is very appreciated. Thanks!

[coolmanran]

0.8.6f fixes the remote console "clear" command bug for MPEG TS streaming via UDP.