| This page describes how to play multiple instances of VLC media player. | Other 'how to' pages |
In version 0.8.5 it was easy to have multiple instances of VLC playing each with its unique stream of data.
- 1Graphical
Graphical
2.0.3 is a major update that introduces Mac OS X 10.8 support. 2.0.3 introduces a few fixes with flv files. With faster decoding on multi-core, GPU, and mobile hardware and the ability to open more formats, notably professional, HD and 10bits codecs, 2.0 was a major upgrade for VLC. VLC 2.0 aka Twoflower has finally been released and is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. This new VLC release comes with faster decoding on multi-core systems, GPU, and mobile hardware, with the ability to support more file formats than its previous version. One of the major new formats include professional HD and 10bits codecs. Unlike some previous versions, VLC 2.0 is a major VLC. About VLC Player for Mac VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, avi) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
Windows
In versions 2.1.x and 3.x.x playing multiple VLC instances and different streams in each is as easy as clickingTools → Preferences... (or just pressCtrl+P):
- in the Interface tab scroll down to playlist and instances
- untick checkboxAllow only one instance
- untick checkboxuse only one instance when started from file manager
- PressSave.
- This allows users to use more than one VLC player at a time. Once you've done the above you should be able to play as many VLC instances and video or audio files as you like.
macOS
On the Mac, running multiple instances of VLC is not supported out of the box.
As a workaround, you can create a Droplet/App that does the following:
- launch the VLC droplet/app to get a separate instance of VLC,
- drop one or more files onto VLC droplet/app, or
- associate your .mov, .avi, and other files directly with the VLC droplet/app, allowing you to simply click on the files to launch the files in a new standalone VLC session.
Paste the code below into a new AppleScript Editor script and save it as an application.
File Association with the Droplet/App can be done as follows:
- OpenFinder and find the video file of interest
- Right click on the file (assumes you have right click enabled)
- Choose Get Info
- Under Open with:, click dropdown and select the VLC droplet/app
- ClickChange All button
- If prompted 'are you sure', select 'Yes'.
Command-line
Use the option --no-one-instance.
On *nix systems you can create background jobs:
Vlc 2 For Mac
On Windows systems you might use START: