control a VLC remote player

[jcduss]

Dear subsonic promoters and users,

I have integrated subsonic with VLC at the player level. It allows controlling a remote VLC media player running on another computer from the subsonic web interface. The controlling is carried out by the client web page (and not the subsonic server), so that the remote VLC player can be located in the same local network as the computer where the subsonic web page used to control the player is displayed. As an example, you can control an old laptop or PC of any kind hooked up to a hifi system from any other computer (i.e. a netbook) by browsing to the subsonic web interface.

The requirements on the remote VLC player side are that it must have the external http interface enabled (and access to it granted), as well as serve a little helper page for the http server embedded in VLC to support the integration (to be placed once in the http-src directory of VLC).

The result is pretty functional and supports various versions of VLC and browsers (see https://github.com/jcduss/subsonic-mods ... patibility) . Once a player has been configured as 'VLC Remote player' in subsonic (see first screenshot), one can load tracks to and play tracks on the remote VLC player, edit its playlist (basics), start/stop, control volume and seek within tracks (second screenshot).

It is not flawless either. Some playlist features are missing and some other might/should be improved. The general approach is open and versatile, as VLC is : you can control anything playing music as long as it runs VLC player, and do it from multiple subsonic web interfaces and/or using the standard VLC http interface from any client (e.g. start/stop/skip from a smartphone), or have the native VLC interface displayed on the computer playing the music, set up transcoding, etc.

If you are interested in using/improving this feature please let it know in the reply.

VLCsettings.png

VLCplaylist.png

The source code and a war file are available at https://github.com/jcduss/subsonic-mods-jcduss.

Regards.

Thomas

[ytechie]

Wow! That is mighty cool. Wow! Only thing is I don't want to reinstall subsonic. Too bad though... This would be awesome!!

[Cook66]

Does this work with video as well?

[jcduss]

I haven't tested it. But it should work, as the VLC playlist gets filled with stream URLs pointing to the subsonic server, so video files should make no difference.

However, the current implementation dirtily hardcodes a mp3 transcoding parameter in the URL, but this could be properly done some time in the near future.

As for

Only thing is I don't want to reinstall subsonic.

I am currently working on porting the VLC player features to subsonic 4.6 and could possibly setup a patch to be deployed manually on top of an existing installation. But do you have a special/customised setup? Depending on your config, the installation could possibly be achieved by just copying a war file (and restarting your app server if it hasn't automatically).

Cheers

[diffy]

Any news on this?
Would you be able to release some code or instructions on how you did this?

[muiz]

This would be awesome if i can get this running on my linux dreambox

[jcduss]

Hello,

I've just published the mod on github at https://github.com/jcduss/subsonic-mods-jcduss/tree/vlc.

You're welcome to give it a try and comment on it.

Cheers