Use VideoLan Client to play video files (NO Codecs needed!) (1 Viewer)

[lockle]

In my opinion, the hardest part of configuring MediaPortal for a fresh install of WindowsXP is to setup all the codecs.

I'm no computer newbie by any measure, but when I put media portal on my computer, I had all sorts of problems. ffdshow didn't decode files well enough.

Here is how you can setup media portal to play videos without having to download and install ANY codecs at all!

First, download the excellent VideoLAN Client software at: http://videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

VideoLAN is a media player that comes with all the codecs you need as part of the package, and doesn't install the codecs in any system folders.

Go into your Media Portal configuration program and select the Movies group, and then select the Movie Player option.

Under Player Settings, check the box to specify that you want to use another program to play your videos. In the application box, put the location of your vlc.exe file

By default, this will be:

C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe

For the Paramaters field, enter the following:

--intf=dummy --dummy-quiet --video-on-top --fullscreen %filename% vlc:quit

This will launch VLC with no interface (just a video window that's fullscreen and on top of everything else) and play the video file. When the video file is complete, it will automatically quit the video player.

You may want to launch the VideoLAN Client video player by itself and go into the preferences to edit your key bindings. I customized mine a lot so almost all of the control is through the keypad, other than binding ESC to quit the program.

Cavets?

Well, VLC won't allow you to resume your videos from where you left off if you watch a video and quit and then relaunch it later.

Also, you need to make sure that Media Portal isn't set to always be on top either or you might end up with two programs battling each other for focus

Hope this helps some people!

 

[butcherBoy]

hi!

but you can't play more then one file. if you want to play movie_part01 and movie_part02 you will need a playlist and a way to tell vlc to play this playlist. i have written a script for myhtpc which generates a temp playlist on the fly. this script won't work with mp. have to take a look into it. but it would be much nicer with built in support of vlc via parameter in configuration.

the butcher