Question / Help OBS Studio - How to get VLC Video Source?

Kevinsmak

New Member
I have OBS Studio 64 bit and I also downloaded VLC Player 64 bit. I thought this was all that was needed to have VLC Source show up in OBS Studio. I added it on another computer awhile ago but can't get this to work. Windows 10, am I missing a step?
 

shc.info

New Member
Hey Guys, i do have the same issue but im working on a Mac.
Which source is here the one from the VLC?

Thanks for your help
 

shc.info

New Member
It worked, but sometimes the source ist showing up and sometimes it isn't... don't get why.
but thanks for your help.
 

Banyarola

Active Member
I would try it using a different source..See if it works better then...
If you still have problems post a new help post because, while I use the browser source, I'm not too familiar with it's inner workings...
 

DigitalDirector

New Member
I have OBS (20.1.0) installed on my main iMac (Sierra) and VLC for Mac 3.0.1 and VLC shows up as a source in that system.

When I try on the Mac Mini with MacOS High Sierra, I have both VLC and OBS installed and VLC is not showing up as a source...

Desperately need a solution to what's happening. I need to be able to pull from VLC in the Mac Mini OBS
 

AlexKordan

New Member
OBS 64 sees VLC but I dont have any window on stream I can't move it etc wtf

U Just did Game capture on VLC and it works but why then have VLC source in obs
 

koala

Active Member
The vlc media source in obs is no media player. It behaves almost exactly like the ordinary media source, except that in addition it accepts a list of files to play and accepts every path/url VLC is able to play. This includes remote sources of various kind. The replayed media does not get a player window like VLC itself that you need to capture. Instead the media is already captured and you can put the source directly in the OBS preview.

The source is not meant to be used interactively, i. e. you have only limited options to start/stop the media by activating/deactivating the source. If you need to do that, you need to really capture some video player. If you ask why there is no more interactive player functionality, the answer is probably that OBS Studio is a tool that is made for broadcasting newly created stuff. Stuff recorded from a game or a camera. Reproducing and navigating through pre-recorded stuff isn't a use case. You can always capture a real player for this.
 

Umlingo

New Member
Hi There,

I've tried to update to 64 bit on Windows, did not work - However - You can play .flv files directly in OBS, by choosing a "Media Source" :)
 

Harold

Active Member
you shouldn't be trying to use OBS as a media player.
But to get VLC source in OBS, you install the matching bitness of VLC then close and re-open obs.
 

Dihelson

Member
The vlc media source in obs is no media player. It behaves almost exactly like the ordinary media source, except that in addition it accepts a list of files to play and accepts every path/url VLC is able to play. This includes remote sources of various kind. The replayed media does not get a player window like VLC itself that you need to capture. Instead the media is already captured and you can put the source directly in the OBS preview.

The source is not meant to be used interactively, i. e. you have only limited options to start/stop the media by activating/deactivating the source. If you need to do that, you need to really capture some video player. If you ask why there is no more interactive player functionality, the answer is probably that OBS Studio is a tool that is made for broadcasting newly created stuff. Stuff recorded from a game or a camera. Reproducing and navigating through pre-recorded stuff isn't a use case. You can always capture a real player for this.

Hey, koala, but in capturing a true VLC window, I always have a problem, in order to have full resolution, I need to have VLC running on a second monitor on full screen. When I run on my main monitor on a window, I can't get the full resolution from the videos I'm playing, so, OBS would ever be a two monitor software ? Can't I capture a VLC player window running at 1080p on a small window ? If I run VLC full screen on the same monitor, I can't see the rest of the applications running on the same PC. Have you any idea how to solve that, my friend ?
 

Dihelson

Member
you shouldn't be trying to use OBS as a media player.
But to get VLC source in OBS, you install the matching bitness of VLC then close and re-open obs.

Sometime ago, I heard that for VLC to work along OBS, it should be to a certain version, not above, even running 64 or 32bit versions would not be enough. You couldn't install modern versions above a certain point. I read that sometime ago, and that's why I never updated VLC beyond certain version. I don't know if the OBS team solved that problem on recent versions. Does someone have the complete story of this problem ?
 

koala

Active Member
Capturing the standalone vlc player, as capturing any other media player, is like filming a TV with a camera: you get exactly the resolution the player is currently set to. This us usually some rescaled resolution. This is not the original movie file resolution, thus inferior to playing the video in a OBS media source directly. The VLC media source in OBS is using the VLC libraries for accessing and decoding the file or network location, but rendering internally the native resolution of the movie file.
Even more, some standalone players do some kind of postprocessing to the video to enhance the viewing experience. These postprocessing modifications are visible in a recording as well, so you get even less of the original video quality but some mangled video instead.
 

ericnjiya

New Member
Hi I don't why I can't active my desktop audio on my mac it does not work I try to active. Anyone can help with that
 

mattbatt

Member
Hey, koala, but in capturing a true VLC window, I always have a problem, in order to have full resolution, I need to have VLC running on a second monitor on full screen. When I run on my main monitor on a window, I can't get the full resolution from the videos I'm playing, so, OBS would ever be a two monitor software ? Can't I capture a VLC player window running at 1080p on a small window ? If I run VLC full screen on the same monitor, I can't see the rest of the applications running on the same PC. Have you any idea how to solve that, my friend ?

Not Sure if you figured out a way around this but I wanted to share the solution that worked for me. https://obsproject.com/forum/threads/show-only-some-content-on-screen-or-projector-locally.125874/
 

Ishatix

New Member
In VLC open settings and go to bottom left and set "Show Settings" to "All" to see advanced option. Then go to Video → Output Modules and set the video output module to OpenGL.
In OBS add a Game Capture → Capture Specific Window and then select VLC from the Window drop-down selection box.
 

iMark77

New Member
A bit of a update for Mac users since this is the thread I ran acrossed looking to solve the same problem. Noticed that VLC video source was not listed on my system. In case anybody else runs into this apparently OBS is checking the root /Application directly for VLC and giving up. Which is fine if you don't have it installed but if you do happen to have it installed in say /Applications/-Apps/AV/VLC.app like I do all it took was a symbolic link to redirect and I was up and running.

In case you don't want to move your applications around.
Terminal command.
cd /Applications
ln -s /Applications/-Apps/AV/VLC.app
 
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