Programatically open VLC media player from browser

1
votes

I use .mkv videos on my website, but the VLC media plugin for browsers is effectively useless.

But, VLC media player has the option to open a network stream, that stream being a direct link to my video.

I can have everything I need to watch that .mkv video in VLC media player by specifying the direct HTTP link to the video.

Now, how do I start up VLC media player on someone's computer and automatically have VLC load the network link?

Do I use JavaScript, HTML? How can I make a client's computer application start from the browser?

Thanks,

1
javascripthttpvlcmkvmatroska
You don't. Short of having the user install browser extensions there's no way to get information what software the user has installed on their computer. It's up to the user to configure VLC to load the content. - JJJ
hopefully unless you use some horrible activex microsoft only trick , you cant do that. Broadcasting on the web has constrains , use formats that can be actually read by the users. - mpm
@camus ActiveX wouldn't even be my last resort. - Marc Brown

1 Answers

3
votes

You can't start an arbitrary application from a web page, that would be a huge security problem!

Fortunately, you can use HTML5 video tag to play it on Chrome and FireFox (without any need of extra software)