Obsidian VLC Bridge

This plugin

• Starts VLC Player with the Web Interface active and opens video addresses written in Obsidian URI format at the specified time,
• Pastes timestamped link or snapshot from existing video into note
• Allows you to control the player by sending request to the VLC Web Interface with commands,

so you can take notes from the video without losing focus from the Obsidian Editor.

demo.mp4

Installation

Turn off Settings → Community plugins → Restricted mode, click Settings → Community plugins → Browse and search for "VLC Bridge" or open this link, then install and enable it.

Or:

With BRAT

1. Install and activate BRAT by opening the obsidian://show-plugin?id=obsidian42-brat link or from Settings → Community plugins → Browse
2. Install VLC Bridge by using the Add a beta plugin for testing command and then entering zuluwi/obsidian-vlc-bridge or by opening the link obsidian://brat?plugin=zuluwi/obsidian-vlc-bridge

Manual

1. Download Latest version
2. Create a new folder at <vault_location>/.obsidian/plugins
3. Move the downloaded main.js and manifest.json files to this folder
4. Turn off Settings → Community plugins → Restricted mode and enable VLC Bridge in Installed plugins.

Usage

Important

To use the plugin,

• for Windows, you must first select vlc.exe in the plugin settings from the location where VLC Media Player is installed,
• for Linux and macOS, you must install the vlc command line on your system

and then set a port number

Opening Video

• Using the Select a file to open with VLC Player command or by clicking on the icon in the sidebar
• By clicking on a timestamp link you created with the plugin
• or by dragging and dropping a video to the player you have already opened with the plugin

you can control VLC Player with the plugin for videos you open in these ways.

Tip

If you want to be able to use the plugin when you open VLC yourself on your computer, you must save the parameters you set in the plugin settings in the VLC preferences

1. Open Tools → Preferences → select "All" in "Show Settings" at the bottom-left corner → Interface → Main interfaces and check Web, then in Main interfaces → Lua set the password to vlcPassword in the Lua HTTP header
2. select "Simple" in "Show Settings" at the bottom-left corner → Video → Video snapshots and set Directory to the folder you set in the plugin settings
3. VLC Player uses port 8080 and this cannot be changed in the preferences, so you have to set the port to 8080 in the plugin settings.

Add Timestamp Link

Open the command palette (Ctrl+P) and use the command Paste timestamped link of current video to paste the timestamped link of the current video where the cursor is in the editor.

Link Syntax:

[{{Timestamp Linktext}}](obsidian://vlcBridge?mediaPath=<File URI>&subPath=<File URI or Absolute Path>&subDelay=<in seconds>&timestamp=<hh:mm:ss.ms or in seconds or percentage value>)

Tip

• Check Pause video while pasting timestamp in Settings
• You can add delay with Timestamp offset setting
• In the Link templates settings you can set Timestamp linktext and a template for how to paste the link

Include Subtitle Link

If you want to include the subtitle link in the video link, instead of dragging the subtitle to the VLC Player, use the Add subtitles command to select the file and add it to the video, otherwise the plugin will not be able to access the existing subtitle in the player.

Add Snapshot Embed

Open the command palette (Ctrl+P) and use the Take and paste snapshot from video command to paste a snapshot of the current video with the timestamped link where the cursor is in the editor.

Tip

• Check Pause video while pasting snapshot in Settings
• If you want to open the exact frame in the snapshot with the timestamp link, enable Use percentile position instead of seconds as timestamp value in the link in Settings
• In the Link templates settings you can set Snapshot linktext and a template for how to paste the snapshot embed

Transcript View

Open the command palette and use the Open transcript view command to view the subtitles with .srt, .vtt, or .ass extensions in the video you added using the Add subtitles command or opened with a link containing the subPath value, based on the transcript template you set in the settings.

Running Syncplay with plugin arguments

Syncplay is an application that connects to an online server to open the preferred player and synchronizes the connected players. If the syncplay command line is installed on your system, or in Windows by selecting Syncplay.exe from the plugin settings and clicking the Start Syncplay button, you can start Syncplay so that the plugin interacts with the VLC Player that the app will open.

Tip

Create a shortcut with the url obsidian://vlcBridge-runSyncplay to open Obsidian and then Syncplay

Contribution

My knowledge of using Git and collaborative project management is very limited, and I only spend time on this plugin at long gaps. If you have new ideas about the plugin or additions you want to make, please feel free to fork the repository and release a new version. If these changes are related to issues in the repository, please feel free to redirect those who opened the issue to the versions you released. 🙏

Attributions

• Media Extended
• Obsidian VLC Control
• Syncplay
• Obsidian Kanban (for localization handler)