Documentation:VLC Modules Loading
VLC modules loading
Contents
How does VLC load modules?
Introduction about Modules
VLC has a core and a lot of modules (between 200 and 400 depending on the build).
VLC cannot do much without modules, since modules are providing most of the functionalities we expect. See the "Major Capabilites" sections.
A VLC module has 2 major properties:
- the capability, VLC_MODULE_CAPABILITY, that describes the category of the module
- the score, VLC_MODULE_SCORE, that holds the priority of the module
How does the loading of modules happen
The first time you load VLC, it will scan the default plugins directories that should contain VLC modules and generate a cache (named the plugins cache) so that the modules can be loaded quickly the next time VLC launches. Modules can be organized into directories (up to 5 layers deep) beneath the plugins directory.
Recent versions of VLC require that the modules follow a specific naming convention or they will not be loaded. Modules must be named in the following format: libmodule_name_plugin.ext where module_name should be the name of your module in lower case, and ext is the system's shared library extension. For example, the http access module is named libaccess_http_plugin.dll on a Windows machine.
When VLC needs a module, it tries to open the module with the highest score that has the required capability and accepts the request.
Let's do an example.
When VLC needs a "decoder" ("decoder" is one category/capability), it opens all "decoder" modules, until one matches.
It opens them in decreasing score order (biggest score first, smaller ones at the end), and runs the Open() function of the modules. When one module returns OK, VLC uses this module.
Advanced info about modules loading
Score of 0
If a module has a score of 0, it needs to be explicitly requested by the user or vlc (like forcing --codec, --vout or module_need("foo")) to be loaded.
all, none and other special tweaks
- The "all" mode means all modules will be tested in decreasing order of score.
- The "none" mode means no modules will be tested.
- Any module can be requested by using its direct shortname. This is useful for 0-scored modules.
Examples
Modules requests can be chained, as the examples show:
--codec avcodec,all try the avcodec module than all modules as a "decoder"
--demux avformat,none try the avformat module and no other module
By default, modules requests are in the "all" mode, and "all" can be omitted.
How to list Modules
- Using Console
vlc --list
- Using the Qt GUI
Menu → Tools → Plugins and extensions
Major Capabilities of Modules
audio filter- An audio filter, like an equalizer
audio mixer- An audio channel mixer, like a downmixer
audio output- An audio output, like Windows DirectX audio output
decoder- A codec decoder, like theora
demux- A demuxer, to open a file format, like mkv
encoder- A codec encoder, like x264
interface- An interface, like the Qt interface
meta reader- A meta reader, to read metadata
packetizer- A packetizer
playlist export- A module to write playlist, like .m3u
services_discovery- A module to get extra content from your computer or the network, like Upnp, DLNA
sout access- An access for the streaming
sout mux- A muxer when streaming and encoding
stream_filter- A stream filter
text renderer- A way to display subtitles and other text on top of the video
video filter- A video filter, like contrast adjusting
visualization2- A visualizer, to create videos from the music
vout display- A video output, to display videos like Direct3D or Xv
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