Documentation:Misc

Miscellaneous other cool things you can do with VLC.

Snapshot Tool

Did you know you can use special codes to automatically generate filenames in the Snapshot Tool?

Audio Bar Graph over Video

This section specifies how to enable the audiobargraph audio filter and video overlay, (mostly) via the GUI. This displays an audio meter overlaid on the video.

There are three parts: an audio filter, which sends its output via TCP to the Remote Control (RC) Interface. This information is then picked up and displayed by the Audio Bar Graph video subpicture filter (OSD).

To enable this, VLC needs to be started with the --rc-host command-line switch e.g.

> "%PROGRAMFILES%\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" --rc-host localhost:12345

In the GUI, set the following (this example from VLC v1.1.9 on Windows 7):

• Preferences:Show settings:All
• Audio → Filters Enable "Audio part of the BarGraph function"
• Audio → Filters → Audiobar Graph Use defaults, change "Sends the barGraph information every n audio packets" to 1 to enable viewing a more accurate display
• Interface → Main interfaces Enable "Remote control interface"
• --Interface → Main interfaces → RC Enable "Do not open a DOS command box interface"^{[Check this — outdated ?]}
• Video → Subtitles-OSD Enable "Audio Bar Graph Video sub filter"
• Video → Subtitles-OSD → Audio Bar Graph Set the following settings:
  • Value of the audio channels levels = 0 (setting this to 0:1 crashes VLC v1.1.9)
  • X coordinate = 0
  • Y coordinate = 0 (this doesn't seem to affect anything)
  • Transparency of the bargraph = 128 for 50% transparency which looks ok
  • Bargraph position = Left (seems to only work Left,Center,Right—can't go top or bottom)
  • Alarm = 1 (enables the silence alarm: puts a red border around the bargraph if silent for too long)
  • Bar width in pixel = 10 (20 if you want it to be really visible)

How to show album art

1. Close the VLC media player.
2. Open the config file (Windows: "%APPDATA%\vlc\vlcrc") with your preferred text editor.
3. Search for:

   #metadata-network-access=0

4. Delete the leading hash sign and change 0 to 1.
5. Save the file.
6. Open a MP3- or a M3U-File in a folder there a file like Folder.jpg, AlbumArtSmall.jpg, AlbumArt.jpg, Album.jpg, .folder.png, cover.jpg or thumb.jpg exists. The player should show the album art.

If you have none of the files above but any other file you can put this filename in vlcrc. Search for album-art-filename.

This page is part of official VLC media player Documentation (User Guide • Streaming HowTo • Hacker Guide • Modules)
Please read the Documentation Editing Guidelines before you edit the documentation

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.