There seems to be a massive misconception about using VLC inside an application and many, many large wrapper libraries have been written. These are often harder to use than libvlc itself, buggy or just downright don’t work (at least not in what will be “the latest” version of VLC at the time you want to write anything).
Using the libvlc documentation directly and the libvlc example I wrote a simple wrapper class that performs the basics needed to play, pause and stop media. Because it is libvlc, things like resizing the video, toggling full screen by double clicking the video output or streaming media from a source device or network are handled automatically.
This code was all written and tested with VLC 0.98a but because it is taken from the documentation and example, it should work for all versions 0.9x and later with only minor changes. Because it is so simple, these changes should be easy to make. Most of the time, these changes will just be slight function name changes and no new re-structuring is needed.
The first thing to note is that there is no version of libvlc for Windows x64. All developers should set their CPU type to x86, even if they have a 32bit machine. If you set it to “Any CPU” then 64bit users will not be able to load libvlc.dll and will crash out. If you are compiling from the command line, this should look something like csc /platform:x86 foobar.cs
The second thing to note, which trips up a lot of users, is that you must specify VLC’s plugin directory. This may make distribution a nightmare, as the plugin directory is a large directory full of DLLs. It may be possible to narrow down these DLLs to just the ones your application actually needs but I don’t know if videolan have any advice about or licensing for redistribution of these.
libvlc is made up of several modules. For the sake of simplicity in this example, I will use 1 static class to contain every exported C function and split them up visually by module with #region.
The nicest thing about VLC, as far as interop with C# goes, is that all memory management is handled internally by libvlc and functions are provided for doing anything that you would need to do to their members. This means that using an IntPtr is suitable for almost everything. You just need to make sure that you pass the correct IntPtr into each function but another layer of C# encapsulating this would easily be able to make sure of that, as discussed in part 2. The only structure that you need to define is an exception, which is very simple. You then simply always pass in references to these structs with ref ex.
The code listing for the wrapper class is as follows:
using System; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; namespace MyLibVLC { // http://www.videolan.org/developers/vlc/doc/doxygen/html/group__libvlc.html [StructLayout(LayoutKind.Sequential, Pack = 1)] struct libvlc_exception_t { public int b_raised; public int i_code; [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)] public string psz_message; } static class LibVlc { #region core [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern IntPtr libvlc_new(int argc, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPArray, ArraySubType = UnmanagedType.LPStr)] string[] argv, ref libvlc_exception_t ex); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_release(IntPtr instance); #endregion #region media [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern IntPtr libvlc_media_new(IntPtr p_instance, [MarshalAs(UnmanagedType.LPStr)] string psz_mrl, ref libvlc_exception_t p_e); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_media_release(IntPtr p_meta_desc); #endregion #region media player [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern IntPtr libvlc_media_player_new_from_media(IntPtr media, ref libvlc_exception_t ex); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_media_player_release(IntPtr player); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_media_player_set_drawable(IntPtr player, IntPtr drawable, ref libvlc_exception_t p_e); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_media_player_play(IntPtr player, ref libvlc_exception_t ex); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_media_player_pause(IntPtr player, ref libvlc_exception_t ex); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_media_player_stop(IntPtr player, ref libvlc_exception_t ex); #endregion #region exception [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern void libvlc_exception_init(ref libvlc_exception_t p_exception); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern int libvlc_exception_raised(ref libvlc_exception_t p_exception); [DllImport("libvlc")] public static extern string libvlc_exception_get_message(ref libvlc_exception_t p_exception); #endregion } }
For a sample application to use this simple wrapper, I just created a new Windows form and added a play button, stop button and a panel for viewing the video. In this example, the stop button also cleans everything up so you should make sure to press it before closing the form.
At one point during this code, libvlc can optionally be given a HWND to draw to. If you don’t give it one, it pops up a new player. However, people seem to be confused over how simple this is to do in C# and have been making large amounts of interop calls to the Win32 API to get handles. This is not necessary, as System.Windows.Forms.Control.Handle allows you go get the window handle (HWND) to any component that inherits from the Control class. This includes the Form class and the Panel class (and even the Button class) so all you actually need to pass it is this.Handle (for the handle to the form itself) or panel.Handle (for a Panel called panel). If you want it to start fullscreen, add the command line argument “-f” rather than using the Win32 function GetDesktopWindow().
Because I will be using this to display PAL video, which is interlaced at 576i, I have added some deinterlacing options to the command line. These are --vout-filter=deinterlace and --deinterlace-mode=blend.
Without further ado, here is the code listing for the partial windows form class:
using System; using System.Collections.Generic; using System.ComponentModel; using System.Data; using System.Drawing; using System.Text; using System.Windows.Forms; using System.Runtime.InteropServices; namespace MyLibVLC { public partial class Form1 : Form { IntPtr instance, player; public Form1() { InitializeComponent(); } private void Play_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { libvlc_exception_t ex = new libvlc_exception_t(); LibVlc.libvlc_exception_init(ref ex); string[] args = new string[] { "-I", "dummy", "--ignore-config", @"--plugin-path=C:\Program Files (x86)\VideoLAN\VLC\plugins", "--vout-filter=deinterlace", "--deinterlace-mode=blend" }; instance = LibVlc.libvlc_new(args.Length, args, ref ex); Raise(ref ex); IntPtr media = LibVlc.libvlc_media_new(instance, @"C:\foobar.mpg", ref ex); Raise(ref ex); player = LibVlc.libvlc_media_player_new_from_media(media, ref ex); Raise(ref ex); LibVlc.libvlc_media_release(media); // panel1 may be any component including a System.Windows.Forms.Form but // this example uses a System.Windows.Forms.Panel LibVlc.libvlc_media_player_set_drawable(player, panel1.Handle, ref ex); Raise(ref ex); LibVlc.libvlc_media_player_play(player, ref ex); Raise(ref ex); } private void Stop_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) { libvlc_exception_t ex = new libvlc_exception_t(); LibVlc.libvlc_exception_init(ref ex); LibVlc.libvlc_media_player_stop(player, ref ex); Raise(ref ex); LibVlc.libvlc_media_player_release(player); LibVlc.libvlc_release(instance); } static void Raise(ref libvlc_exception_t ex) { if (LibVlc.libvlc_exception_raised(ref ex) != 0) MessageBox.Show(LibVlc.libvlc_exception_get_message(ref ex)); } } }
Note that this section of code is deprecated and the code from part 2 should be used instead.
Adding a pause button is similar to the stop button but without the cleanup.
Here is an example slightly further on down the line but using the same code:
See part 2 for more.
Hi,
I’m trying to get the Movie Lenght.
Therefor I used a wrapper for
libvlc_media_player_get_length ( libvlc_media_player_t * ,
libvlc_exception_t *
)
like this:
[DllImport("libvlc")]
public static extern Int64 libvlc_media_player_get_time(IntPtr player, libvlc_exception_t ex);
But that with the Int64 don’t work. Do you have a solution to get the lenght?
Sorry I was wrong. It works fine.
How can i play udp stream this way?
this way? because i use write
udp://ip address:port instead of filename it does not work.
I am not a VLC support forum. Please use the proper support channels. You could start with the Wiki.
All I can say is that the plugin-path argument is the most important so make sure you get it absolutely correct.
You should try running vlc.exe with the same command line arguments to test them first.
Hi
can you plz send me solution for this example
thanx
Hi Muhammad, you can download the project/solution at the bottom of “part 2″.
could you update for vlc 1.1.1?
Hi George,
I appreciate you for awesome code and explanation. I tried your code in Win 7 and VS2008. It is compiling fine but not playing the video. I used some .avi video and .mpg video. I would appreciate you for giving me an advice because I have to include VLS player for one of my project here.
Thanks,
Binu
Hi Binu,
I don’t know why it isn’t playing. There are three things I can suggest to start with.
Firstly, try a different version of VLC and compile against that. “Part 2″ of this post is more up to date.
Secondly, try waiting a few minutes after you hit play. Occasionally it takes some time to play the first video after compiling for me, I don’t know why. It could be something similar to when VLC itself says “rebuilding font cache”, but without the popup telling you what it’s doing. This seems to be quite rare but it has caught me out a few times where I thought I had done something to break it, and just waiting for it eventually started it. After the first time it tends to load instantly the next time you run it.
Finally, check if any errors are being thrown anywhere. The code here does not have much error handling and if something is going wrong it may not tell you. In the debugger you can check if handles are 0, for example.
Yes now it is working. I reinstalled the VLC.
Thanks a lot George!! I appreciate once again your great advice and work.
Binu
Hello George,
i’m using VS2008 so how do u reference the plugin folder ? Do you do it through right-click -> Proporties->Refernece Paths or do you copy the folder to system32 ?
Thank You
You do not reference the plugin directory inside Visual Studio itself, but rather change the args string when initialising the instance of libvlc. Pass the appropriate path in the constructor. You can clearly see where the plugins path is in the sample code.
really great stuff George. i am trying to get live stream from camera with ip address . can vlc do that in csharp
I suspect libvlc can stream from a camera with IP address (particularly if VLC itself can) but I don’t have a camera to test it with, so you should probably ask on the libvlc forum.
Can this play youtube video directly from link??
The actual vlc player can do this, but i am not sure if libvlc supports it.
[...] Firstly, libvlc is great! , almost – all streaming types – are supported. However, it is written in C language and also finding a good wrapper for C# is very hard. After litte research and try, we decided to use helyar’s libvlc wrapper. [...]
Really great information and an excellent introduction to how to use libvlc from .NET. Really, this is the first post I’ve seen that had some simple, easy to follow, non-complicated advice on how to use Interop to interface with the library. This will go a long way to help me with my project. Thank you!
I can’t find libvlc.dll anywhere, why isn’t this file on http://www.videolan.org ?
When I try your code I get a System.DllNotFoundException …
moon, you need both libvlc.dll and libvlccore.dll. You also need many of the dlls from VLC’s plugin directory, as these are what provide codec support, interlace support, etc. These all need to be from the same version of VLC too. This means that you need almost the entire VLC installation to get all the dlls, so just install or extract the latest version of VLC, take the two main dlls from there and change the plugin-path argument in your libvlc initialisation call to point to the plugin directory inside the VLC directory you just created when installing or extracting.
You may be able to distribute a subset of the DLLs in the plugin directory but distribution is not covered here.
I’ve created a media payer using libvlc.dll. While playing the video it is not displaying the context menu with this vlc control. I need to display the context menus when playing the video. If it is not playing it is displaying the context menus when right clicking the mouse. Please help me..
The context menu is part of the VLC client, not the libvlc library. Write your own.
Hi George,
Thanks for your replay. I’m using C# winform to create this application. I’ve already set the ContextMenuStrip with the axvlc plugin. Axvlc plugin has the property ContextMenuStrip to set the ContextMenuStrip. Actually I’m using multiple axvlc plugin in a form.ContextMenuStrip is working fine when video stops. It is not working while the video is playing. Please help.
Thanks,
Aneesh
Hi Helyar, i need VLC media player in my c# application. But i can’t use it. My computer CPU type 64bit and my application must work in 64bit. How do i use VLC ? Can you give me some VLC examples for 64bit if it possible.
@Bayaraa
Read the post again.
There is no 64 bit libvlc. If you want to use libvlc, you need to set your C# project to 32 bit (which will still allow it to be run on 64 bit windows). This also means that any other DLLs you link to in the same binary must also be 32 bit.