VLC Thing with multiple instances

One of the nice things about the Windows desktop version of VLC is that you can run multiple instances. I've created two separate installs which lets me create two configuration files with different remote TCP ports. I was hoping this would allow me to have two VLC Things hosted on one PC. The problem I seem to have is the port assignment. Anything other than 8080 doesn't work for me. Yes I made sure the port assignment matches in the HE device settings and the VLC settings. I've looked at the code and I don't see anything that fixes the port to 8080. Is there something about HE that interferes with the port assignment?

I have used ports like 3000, 3001, and 8090 to communicate with LAN connected devices with no issues. So the platform isn’t the limiting factor. I don’t have any experience with VLC Thing though. Do you have a link to the source code?

I grabbed the code from this post: Porting VLCthing

Where are you changing the settings for the port in VLC?

The VLC Thing read me has me setting the main interface --> Lua telnet port

Not much closer to solving this, but the direction for setting up VLC tells you to set the password and port on the Lua interface page. The port doesn't matter. You can set it to anything because it uses the default web interface of 8080 anyways. Trying to do IP Aliasing now, I can get both players connect but only the first one I setup and launched plays a sound. I'll keep plugging away.

Mike

IP aliases seem to be bad. My hub has crashed twice when restarting PC with two IP addresses on the same NIC. By crash I mean nonresponsive with red light on front. My dreams of running one instance of VLC Thing for each announcement, since I can't get tracks working will go on hold until next week.

Mike
All advice or critique's welcome.

I believe you may need to change the port in the config file.

http://www.videolan.org/support/faq.html#Config

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You may be able to set it as a command line option when starting up VLC.

https://wiki.videolan.org/Documentation:Command_line/#Network_options

I tried that route, it was a no go. While messing around with this I couldn't help but noticing the option to send http get commands. Maybe I can run one instance of VLC Thing for TTS and use CLI calls to play sound effects for events. I was traveling this weekend so couldn't try anything, but first I need to figure out why my hub keeps locking up. I had to have one of my kids reboot it twice in two days. I was chalking it up to my playing with IP aliasing's, but maybe it's something else.

Mike

Do you have any Amazon Alexa devices? If you want a simple TTS solution, check this out...

I have one, but not in the room I want the announcements. I'm probably not the typical household in that I have unused modern PCs (Core i3/i5/i7) sitting in every room and a few unused sitting in drawers waiting for a purpose. So that's a good suggestion but I want to put these PCs to work.

Mike

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Hi michael.l.nelson
Could you finally connect your HE to two VLC on windows and control them separately?

I'm researching about this but no solutions found so far...

I eventually gave up and bought a eufy speaker for $20 and haven't looked back.

Ok.. but can you use it offline?
I mean .. Can you play TTS or play some tracks on it using HE offline?

Oh yes, I should have explained further. I muted the microphone and used the media render app to set it up as a media player. So long as it's on my local network I can use it for TTS and play an audio file. The only two things I ran into is the need for a local file share to hold the media file and the fact that it doesn't like to change the file once it gets it remembered. I can change the URI I want to play and it keeps playing the first one I set up. I keep meaning to go back and investigate but I have so many more pressing projects that I never seem to get to it.

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