This issue exists for me in latest stable release on both Windows (Vista/7/8) and Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, so it appears to not be OS specific.
I simply want to open a folder that contains both pictures and videos, via the command line. I am setting up a slideshow TV, and it will need to play both pictures and video.
Doing vlc.exe V:\folder only creates a playlist with the videos in the folder. Any images are ignored. If I open the image directly (vlc.exe V:\folder\image.jpg) VLC plays the image.
My current workaround is to use a batch script to generate an .m3u playlist, then open that with VLC:
:Start
DEL /F /Q list.m3u
FOR /F "tokens=1 delims=" %%A IN ('DIR /B V:\folder') DO ECHO V:\folder\%%A >> list.m3u
START /B /wait vlc.exe list.m3u
GOTO Start
It seems that there should be a much simpler/elegant way of doing this, but I cannot find it.