VideoLAN VLC Media Player is perhaps the most loved media player in the world. It is available for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android and other platforms. The main reason why it is installed on millions of devices worldwide is its ability to play any type of media file without requiring any external codecs.
If you want to control VLC media player remotely through a web browser then it is the easiest thing to do. All we need is a bit of changes in the VLC media player configuration. VLC media player provides everything we need for the remote control of the player with complete web interface. It is similar to controlling your router through a web interface.
1. Making changes in VLC media player
- Launch VLC player and press Ctrl+P to open Preferences. Select All for Show Settings.
- Select Advanced → Interface → Main Interfaces and then select Web checkbox.
- From Main Interfaces → Lua, set a password for the Lua HTTP interface. This password will be used in the next step in the web browser extension.
- Click Save button and then restart VLC media player.
2. Controlling VLC from a web browser
- Make sure VLC player is running. It is better if you open a playlist so that you can access it from the web interface later.
- In any web browser, type localhost:8080 in the address bar and press Enter. When asked to provide credentials, leave username blank and enter the password that you had set in the VLC settings.
- You will find VLC web interface in your web browser. Through this interface, we can do everything that we would be able to do from the actual VLC media player.
- If you are accessing VLC remotely from a mobile phone, then you can visit localhost:8080/mobile.html which is a much more compact interface for VLC.
We tried the above setup with VLC Media Player 3.0.12 along with Mozilla Firefox 86.0.1. In the first attempt it did not work. So we reset the VLC settings and then it worked flawlessly.