VLC remote access with SSH and command line

trox · 10-16-2008, 12:56 PM

Hi all,

Ok, here is my problem in a nutshell. I am using my Nokia N800 as a remote control over wifi in my home network. I am using ssh to tunnel into my ubuntu box and start up music and movies. The command i use to do this is "ssh -X user@192.168.1.1"

I know that the -X option brings X to my N800. This is ok for music, but I want the movies to play on my desktop X screen and not my N800. Remember, I want to use the N800 as a remote control over wifi. What commands should I be using for vlc from the command line to do this? I want to be able to start, pause, fast-forward, and rewind movies from the command line just like you can with mplayer.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

tsai

trox · 10-16-2008, 01:13 PM

Ok, so after yet more searching, I find out that to start the movie file on my desktop from the N800, I do: export DISPLAY=:0 after logging in.

I still need to be able to maximize the player remotely if possible and stop/pause the movie. I figure I'll just use aumix for my volume controller.

Any clues?

Thanks,

tsai

ncsuapex · 10-16-2008, 02:00 PM

check out vlc -help

-f, --fullscreen,

so:

vlc -f filename.wmv

trox · 10-16-2008, 02:07 PM

Yep, I found the -f option right after my last post. I also figured that to pause a movie, I just ctrl-Z and to resume it I can do fg (foreground). Now, I just need to figure how to fast-forward and rewind. Then, I'll be good to go with-out getting off the couch!

I know that you can restart the movie with vlc --starttime option, but it would be nice to ff or rw in realtime without ever stopping the movie.

trox · 10-17-2008, 05:23 PM

Hello all,

This has turned into a tutorial in which, after two days of research and trial and error, I figured it all out! So after you have sshd to the machine from your Nokia n800/810 and started the movie in -f (full mode), you just use the power of Linux to pause the movie playing in VLC by:

1. ps aux to find the process id for vlc
2. kill -STOP xxxx the pid (process id) to pause the process id
3. kill -CONT xxxx the pid to continue the process id

Still need to figure fast forward and rewind.

The beauty of this is that wifi goes thru walls and has incredible range! You can control your system while cooking barbeque!

Hope this excites and helps anyone else who doesn't want to configure a remote control but wants to use their Nokia n800/810 as a remote control without leaving bed or the couch! Works great for audio as well!

Rock on Linux/Unix!

tsai