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htmlhyperlinkvlc

How to pass parameter in a link to open VLC?

It's an HTML page which I use only locally.

I have a link to a video in my HD like this:

<a href="/path/to/myvideo.mp4">Watch video</a>

When clicking it, it launches the video with VLC directly as expected. Now, I'd like to pass parameter inside like the starting time for this video.

In the shell for example you can do:

vlc  /path/to/myvideo.mp4 --start-time=126

And it will launches the video at the 126 second point.

How can I do that with my HTML link? I've tried for example:

<a href="/path/to/myvideo.mp4?start-time=126">Watch video</a>

But it still launches it from the beginning of the video.

Solution

  • At this point I think you would need to use some kind of server-side wrapper/listener, as I had commented in a related question's old answer, the plugin is not available on modern web browsers anymore.

    Depending on how badly you need to control the start time (and if its a thing you need to build into an application) then you could call the VLC HTTP Server via its web API and remote control to scrub the player forward on the user's desktop. If you had some kind of push mechanism in place you could even control that via a regular link on the web.

    I would suggest to combine a framework like Pusher for the web controls: https://github.com/pusher/pusher-js

    Followed by your choice of backend language to listen over HTTP(S), and remote control VLC via its API (either HTTP or native):