How can I open 2+ instances of VLC and control them programmatically?

Question

I was thinking about writing an app (in either C++ or C#) to help me sort videos faster and I was wondering: How can I open more then 2 (maybe more) instance of VLC and control them though my EXE? What are my options? I know I can SendMessage to the EXE directly. Could I do something like simulate user keys?

How do I open the VLC exes in my EXE? its been a while. Lately I have only done command line apps.

Answer 1

You could try,

Process.Start("Path to vlc.exe");

That should launch VLC. But as for opening files in VLC I have no idea if there is an interop or API for VLC.

You may find some more info here

http://wiki.videolan.org/Developers_Corner

Answer 2

Ryan is on the right path. You need to use the Process class to open a vlc.exe process, but then you need to append a command-line statement to that. VLC has a rich command-line argument syntax that will let you do a lot of things to a video file or capture device.

I recently wrote an application that allows users to customize multicast broadcasts from multiple satellite dishes, dvd devices and digital tv converter boxes via VLC. So it can be done, and fairly easily.