Did you know that VLC has a web interface?
Well, it does! \o/ (...from v2.0)
And with it you can control the player remotely, say via a web browser, with your phone, or even from your programming language of choice.
The thing is that it's not enabled by default, but activating it is really simple.
As I said you'll need at least version 2.0 of VLC installed. Then to activate the interface follow these steps:
1. open VLC
2. go to Tools->Preferences
3. show All settings
4. select Main interfaces on the left, and tick the Web checkbox on the right
5. Done!
To check that it is working just open a browser in the same computer running VLC and point it to http://localhost:8080.
You should see the web interface.
If you get an authorization error, or are prompted for a login (as could be the case for VLC versions above 2.1), just:
1. search for lua in VLC preferences dialog
2. and set a password for Lua HTTP there
3. reopen localhost:8080 in your browser and insert the password when asked, but remember to leave the User Name field blank!
VLC should be listening for incoming connections in port 8080 (restart VLC if it still doesn't work).
On Linux, you can check this with netstat -tnpl | grep vlc. You should see a line similar to this one:
Proto Recv-Q Send-Q Local Address Foreign Address State PID/Program name
tcp 0 0 127.0.0.1:8080 0.0.0.0:* LISTEN 7958/vlc