Looking for a media player like VLC, but with better playlist support
October 24, 2022 10:56 PM Subscribe
I like VLC because it has good functionality (will play pretty much anything) but feels pretty lightweight...but it doesn't support very good playlist management
I've never liked iTunes, but it has much better playlists. maybe I should just use iTunes? I'm on a mac, and I find it hard to believe that there's nothing better out there. I'm willing to pay a little for something decent.
I don't need a super complicated media library...I have plex setup but honestly, it's overkill for my purposes, and playlist management in plex actually isn't very good either (perplexingly, frustratingly)
I really just want VLC...but with better playlists. the ability to have different playlists that I can access easily, and the ability to move files in between playlists easily (basically exactly what iTunes allows)
I do not need support for streaming media, remote streaming etc...that aspect of VLC I've never used. for that plex is fine
I've never liked iTunes, but it has much better playlists. maybe I should just use iTunes? I'm on a mac, and I find it hard to believe that there's nothing better out there. I'm willing to pay a little for something decent.
I don't need a super complicated media library...I have plex setup but honestly, it's overkill for my purposes, and playlist management in plex actually isn't very good either (perplexingly, frustratingly)
I really just want VLC...but with better playlists. the ability to have different playlists that I can access easily, and the ability to move files in between playlists easily (basically exactly what iTunes allows)
I do not need support for streaming media, remote streaming etc...that aspect of VLC I've never used. for that plex is fine
Response by poster: ah, infuse looks really good, but my mac can't go past catalina :( sigh, more and more apps are macos 11 and up only these days, will probably have to get a new mac soon but not quite yet...
posted by wooh at 11:47 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by wooh at 11:47 PM on October 24, 2022 [1 favorite]
foobar2000
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 4:19 AM on October 25, 2022
posted by AlbertCalavicci at 4:19 AM on October 25, 2022
Response by poster: whoops, I should have specified. in this case, I am playing videos. mainly mkv, occassionally mp4 or other formats. afaik, foobar2000 is audio only
posted by wooh at 5:17 AM on October 25, 2022
posted by wooh at 5:17 AM on October 25, 2022
the ability to have different playlists that I can access easily, and the ability to move files in between playlists easily (basically exactly what iTunes allows)
Does the Mac version's Media menu not have the "Save playlist to file" option that's there in the Linux one? That covers the "different playlists I can access easily" part perfectly for me.
Moving files from one playlist to another isn't something I often do, but the way VLC's interface treats saved playlists as essentially equivalent to media files makes it easy to aggregate them.
Adding a new track (or folder full of tracks, or playlist full of tracks) to an existing playlist requires only opening the saved playlist with VLC, then opening the new thing, doing whatever draggery and droppery is needed to order the result the way I want, then saving the playlist to a file again - either using the same name or a new one.
Aggregating multiple existing playlists works essentially the same way, except that instead of the second step being to open a new track, I open another existing playlist. That will initially show up in VLC's current playlist as what looks like a .m3u8 "media" item, and if I leave it that way before saving the current playlist to a file, the resulting file will reference it as such. Double-click it before doing the save, though, and it will expand to be replaced by its contents. So I get the choice of having my aggregate playlists remain exactly as they were when I saved them, or containing references to existing playlists and therefore inheriting any updates I subsequently make to those.
Deleting a track (or a reference to a nested playlist) involves opening the playlist with VLC, exposing the playlist window, deleting the item I want to delete, then saving the playlist to a file again.
I like this a lot better than the iTunes playlist facility, which I have personally found enraging every time I've had to attempt to make iTunes do anything I want it to.
The fact that each VLC saved playlist is a single file in a simple, easily comprehensible text based format that doesn't involve having to spelunk through a proprietary binary blob or mountains of fucking XML to extract meaning from is nice as well. It's good to be able to tweak these things with a text editor and have some kind of confidence that the result will only ever break in explicable ways.
posted by flabdablet at 6:12 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Does the Mac version's Media menu not have the "Save playlist to file" option that's there in the Linux one? That covers the "different playlists I can access easily" part perfectly for me.
Moving files from one playlist to another isn't something I often do, but the way VLC's interface treats saved playlists as essentially equivalent to media files makes it easy to aggregate them.
Adding a new track (or folder full of tracks, or playlist full of tracks) to an existing playlist requires only opening the saved playlist with VLC, then opening the new thing, doing whatever draggery and droppery is needed to order the result the way I want, then saving the playlist to a file again - either using the same name or a new one.
Aggregating multiple existing playlists works essentially the same way, except that instead of the second step being to open a new track, I open another existing playlist. That will initially show up in VLC's current playlist as what looks like a .m3u8 "media" item, and if I leave it that way before saving the current playlist to a file, the resulting file will reference it as such. Double-click it before doing the save, though, and it will expand to be replaced by its contents. So I get the choice of having my aggregate playlists remain exactly as they were when I saved them, or containing references to existing playlists and therefore inheriting any updates I subsequently make to those.
Deleting a track (or a reference to a nested playlist) involves opening the playlist with VLC, exposing the playlist window, deleting the item I want to delete, then saving the playlist to a file again.
I like this a lot better than the iTunes playlist facility, which I have personally found enraging every time I've had to attempt to make iTunes do anything I want it to.
The fact that each VLC saved playlist is a single file in a simple, easily comprehensible text based format that doesn't involve having to spelunk through a proprietary binary blob or mountains of fucking XML to extract meaning from is nice as well. It's good to be able to tweak these things with a text editor and have some kind of confidence that the result will only ever break in explicable ways.
posted by flabdablet at 6:12 AM on October 25, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yes, I'd agree with flabdablet - look up .m3u file format, which is a music playlist that VLC supports. You can make them in VLC or lots of programs and edit them with a text editor, and VLC will play them.
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:38 AM on October 25, 2022
posted by The_Vegetables at 7:38 AM on October 25, 2022
Microsoft resurrected Windows Media Player. (I could be wrong.)
posted by Oyéah at 12:44 PM on October 25, 2022
posted by Oyéah at 12:44 PM on October 25, 2022
« Older Places to eat, visit, and shop in Jefferson City... | How do I help my spider friend through the winter? Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by michaelh at 11:15 PM on October 24, 2022