I’ve been looking for decent solutions to my desire to play video remotely
from a Linux box. I’ve experimented with Freevo and MythTV, and while they
have their strong points around the whole PVR bizzo, I don’t actually want
a PVR. I want a hassle-free way of queuing up and playing video clips.
Both also do a good job of that if you’re talking about TV or movie length
video, which is one part of my problem, but they do a lousy job of music
videos, because neither have playlist functionality for video, only for
music. It’s not much of a DIY C4 if you have to fire up each video from a
keyboard, or from a LIRC-compatible remote.
The overlooked part? VLC. I use Portable
VLC for my portable hard drive full of goodness when I’m at a client
site; while I was playing with that I found VLC’s very handy but not
prominently advertised web interface, which, to my delight,
does exactly what I want: lets me queue up music and videos for playback
via a remotely controlled interface, and has all the functionality of a
normal media play. Glee!
