Remote for VLC (Fork)

This application allows you to control media playback of VideoLAN Client (VLC) from your Android-powered mobile device.

Get it on Google Play™

Remote for VLC (Stream Fork)

This application allows you to stream audio and video from VideoLAN Client (VLC) to your Android-powered mobile device.

Get it on Google Play™

About

Like the names suggest, these applications are a fork of the application Remote for VLC by Peter Baldwin, which is released under the GNU General Public License v3.

The source code for Remote for VLC (Fork) can be obtained via the GitHub repository. The source code for Remote for VLC (Stream Fork) will be provided on request once you have purchased the application.

View GPLv3 License

Remote for VLC source

Remote for VLC (Fork) source

Design

The applications have been designed to work on a range of devices from small phones to large tablets.

The available UI elements will be moved around to ensure that the space is being utilised effectively in both landscape and portrait modes.

The images have been designed to be density independent, allowing better quality for higher density devices.

The applications try to conform to the Android design principles which gives users a consistent Android experience throughout.

ICS Tablet

User Interface on the Nexus 10

Streaming

Remote for VLC (Stream Fork) gives you flexibility in how your media is streamed. There are multiple predefined streaming profiles that offer 360p, 480p, 720p and 1080p streaming quality with an option to create a custom streaming profile.

The custom streaming profile allows you to select the video codec, resolution, bitrate and the audio codec, bitrate and channels.

If your media is supported on Android, there is an option to attempt to transport the video without transcoding, providing you have sufficient bandwidth.

You can also specify whether to use RTSP (Real Time Streaming Protocol) or HTTP Live Streaming for transport.

The application doesn't handle the video decoding itself, instead the stream address is passed to another application such as the built in Android media player or a third party application such as MX Player which will handle playback.

VLC media player

VLC handles the media encoding

Changes

Below are some examples of how the Remote for VLC (Fork) differs from the original upstream application:

Settings on Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Settings on Samsung Galaxy Nexus

User Interface

  • Display bottom action bar to smaller screens for cropping, subtitle track, fullscreen, audio track and aspect ratio.
  • Added preferences to allow the action bar buttons to be changed
  • Playlist loading progress
  • Layout changes
  • Preference to hide the DVD tab for smaller screens
  • Updated some icons
  • Added a ViewPager to provide swipeable tabs for phone layouts
  • Added preference for showing playback controls in the notification drawer

Media Filename Detection

  • An attempt is made to detect the media information from the filename (TV and Movies) for the current playing item.
  • Preference to detect media information for each item in the playlist

Advanced Controls

  • Added next/previous chapter buttons for large enough screens (required VLC 2.0+)
  • Added preset preferences for audio/subtitle delays that can be toggled
Notification Controls on Samsung Galaxy Nexus

Notification Controls on Samsung Galaxy Nexus

VLC Servers

  • Added an icon to distinguish which server is current being used.
  • Added ability to give servers nicknames instead of displaying ip/host:port
  • Added preference to display the current server in the action bar.
  • Added icons to distinguish between normal servers, servers that require authentication and servers for which access is forbidden
  • Servers can now be edited via the context menu.
  • Servers no longer show username/password in the title. Can still be viewed when editing.
  • Added ability to test server connection before adding
  • Added support for VLC 2.1+ http interface which uses HTTP basic authentication instead of an access control list (.hosts).
  • Prompt for password if server requires authentication.

Browse Library

  • Fix for VLC 2.x not showing the parent (..) entry in the list on Windows.
  • Normalise file paths to avoid displaying any parent entries e.g. /path/../to/another/../path
  • If a directory is accessed without the correct permissions (or other error), send the user back to the previous directory instead of back home.
  • Added preference to display directories sorted before files.
  • Added support for libraries which allows multiple directories to be viewed as a library. This is similar to Windows Libraries. This can be useful when your media is spanned across multiple drives.