Python bindings

Python bindings

The bindings feature:

• Complete coverage of the libvlc API, since it is automatically generated from the include files.
• No compilation hassles: the generated module is pure python.
• No versioning hassles: the same module works with multiple VLC versions.
• API documentation.

Download

The preferred install method is through PyPI:

pip install python-vlc

or (if you are using python3):

pip3 install python-vlc

You can also download the vlc.py module from the Git repository. It only depends on ctypes (standard module in python >= 2.5). Put the module in some place accessible by python (either next to your application, or in a directory from sys.path).

Alternatively, you can generate it by yourself using the generate.py program and accompanying files in the vlc source tree (see [1]).

Note that this only installs the python module itself, which depends on the availability of the libvlc libraries. You must also install VLC itself to get these libraries.

Usage

The vlc.py file also contains a runnable example player application (see code at the end of the file, starting from the line if __name__ == '__main__').

A set of helper examples examples provide a pyGtk, a pyQt and a pyWx player to ease integration.

There is also a README

Note: you must install VLC before using it through Python.

Projects using this binding

https://code.google.com/p/movie-content-editor/ See also LibVLC_Users

FAQ

Win32 initialization

When initializing vlc.Instance() with no parameter, it tries to guess the location of the modules. However, if you pass any argument to vlc.Instance(), you will need to supply the appropriate --plugin-path=/path/to/the/modules yourself.

See also

• Old Python bindings - The old, obsolete python bindings that are no longer used and since then removed. Kept only for historical interest.