Open and close VLC Player

[Tim S]

I use the android app VLC Remote by Hobbyist Software in the PlayStore to control my VLC Player on my HTPC from my phone and PlayStore compatible chromebook. With this, now I just say "movie time" and "movies over" to my Google Home to open/close VLC. This is super nice with my solid black background running on my HTPC for when I've fallen asleep on the couch watching something and only the VLC Player being open onscreen is the only bright light in the living room to simply say "movies over" and have my TV go dark.

To open

Start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe"

To close

taskkill /im vlc.exe

And it's awesome that Russ's "Autohotkey script for Play, Pause, Volume Up/Down, Next/Previous" works with VLC Player as well as WMP so I can say "wait" and "continue" to my Google Home to play/pause on these players.

EDIT: Sorry I should have added this a long time ago. Slipped my mind
And of course if you have your videos or songs all in a specific folder somewhere I have this batch file to say "Hey Google, Play TV Que" or "Movie Que" and VLC auto opens, loads all the media in the folder, and begins random play.

Start "" "C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" -LZ "V:\Enter_Folder\Path\to\PLAY"

Of course your folder path will most likely not be "V" but "C" though I have a 8tb NAS with it's video storage mapped as "V" drive on my PC.
I have also assign voice commands "full screen" and "aspect ratio" to get vlc how I want it hands free when I open it like this. For that I used AutoHotkey_1.1.26.01_setup that basically send keystrokes that I have customed VLC to respond to.

[Russ]

@Tim-S, that is awesome. I like how you're using the Google Assistant shortcuts for "movies over"..

I wish Alexa had shortcuts like Google Assistant has. That feature does a lot for TRIGGERcmd.

Alexa has routines, but they're only for Smart Home stuff, so to use them with TRIGGERcmd you have to use the SmartThings integration.

Thanks for posting this.

[A Former User]

Hi! as a newbie I have no idea how to do what you've said, is there any chance you could help me do this but with Emby instead of vlc please?

[Russ]

@daniel-o-Sullivan, I assume you mean you don't know how to setup Emby Theatre to open or close on your Windows computer when you run a command with parameter on or off?

If so, here's how I did it.

• I made a batch file called EmbyTheatre.bat in my tools folder with these contents:

  if "%1"=="on" %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Theater\system\Emby.Theater.exe
  if "%1"=="" %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Emby-Theater\system\Emby.Theater.exe
  if "%1"=="off" taskkill /im emby.theater.exe /f /t

• I added a command in the GUI editor like this:
  

• I tested running Emby Theatre locally with the green play button.

• I tested running opening and closing Emby Theatre from the www.triggercmd.com website with the orange Parameters button like this:
  

[A Former User]

@russ said in Open and close VLC Player:

EmbyTheatre

Thanks, alot buddy, it launches fine apart from when I did it through my google home it asked me to wait and nothing happened? I presume it's because I've not yet subscribed?

[Russ]

@daniel-o-Sullivan, no it should work fine if you're not subscribed. Please tell me more - like what exactly did Google Home say back to you? Also did you already link your account in the Home app?

[A Former User]

@russ Ignore that it's because I had to wait for a minute to pass, to be able to trigger another command

[Russ]

@daniel-o-sullivan, ok, that's the limiter I put in the code to encourage you to subscribe.

[Martin Musso]

I would like to know if it is possible that the vlc or another player that supports chromecast when I call it opens in the last file it opened (or the last file in the list and that it automatically plays in chromecast

[Russ]

@Martin-Musso, that's a cool idea. I did some research and figured out how to play a playlist and send the output to a Chromecast device:

"c:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" c:\playlists\playlist.xspf --sout="#chromecast{ip=192.168.86.25}" --demux-filter=demux_chromecast

But, I haven't figured out how to tell it to resume where it left off. This sortof worked, but only for the first thing in the playlist.

I tried this extension with no joy. https://addons.videolan.org/p/1154044/
If you do try it, you'll want to download it from the Files tab and manually drop it in
C:\Users(your user)\AppData\Roaming\vlc\lua\extensions
If you search and install it from within VLC you'll get an old version that's even worse.

Reference:
https://wiki.videolan.org/VLC_command-line_help/
https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=145868