VLC is, despite the interface, the best media player available today, both for Windows and Linux, macOS, iOS and Android, as it supports each and every one of the video and audio formats, regardless of how popular, or not, the codec used is. But, in addition, it is an excellent application to carry out practically any work related to videos, such as ripping CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray. But, in addition, it also allows us to create playlists with links.
Thanks to this functionality, we can create playlists for IPTV channels, create music from YTube (as if it were a Spotify list), playlists for series or movies that we have yet to see in a specific order, among many others things where the limit is in the imagination of the users.
What are VLC lists for?
VLC lists allow us to create lists, never better said, of all the elements that we want to play in a specific order or, in the case of links to websites, it allows us to have all links to television channels via IPTV or lists in the same place. YTube music playlists . Although it is not used much, it also allows us to create presentations of images stored on our computer or on a local network, play content from optical drives, podcasts from radio stations and much more.
Like many of the features available in VLC, in order to get the most out of it, you need to really understand how the app works, because right off the bat, you’re not going to be able to take advantage of any of the great features it has to offer. . In this article, we are going to focus on learning how to create linked playlists.
How to create playlists with links
As we have mentioned above, VLC, like any other player, allows us to create playlists, lists that we can store on our computer and enjoy them whenever we want, depending on the type of content it includes. But, unlike other applications, with VLC we can also create link playlists, making it one of the best applications for IPTV lists.
To create link playlists from VLC, the first thing we need is to download the application from its website, since the version available in the Microsoft Store does not include practically any of the fantastic features that, over the years, have turned this application into one of the best on the market. To download the latest version available at this time, we must visit the VideoLAN website through the following link .
Once we have downloaded and installed it, we run it, a blank screen will be displayed inviting us to do nothing with it. Since what interests us is to create playlists, we have to, first of all, show this section in the application through the View > Playlists menu.
In the right column, we select the first Playlist option. If we want to create a list to play music or videos, we just have to drag the content to the application and place it in the order in which we want it to be played by dragging the titles to change their position.
But, if we want to add links to play content, we must place the mouse in the blank area on the right, press the right mouse button and select the Open advanced option.
In the window that appears, click on the Network tab. In the only section that is shown, Network Protocol, we find the option Enter a URL. Click on the blank text box and paste the URL of the web content that we want to display through VLC. We only have to paste the URL of the channel or content that we want to access, not where a playlist is located. Once we have pasted the content we want to view, click on Select.
If we check the Show more options box, we can in the case of YTube videos, for example, we can select when we want the playback to start and at what minute and second we want it to end. This function is not useful for watching IPTV channels.
Once we have added all the IPTV channels, YTube videos or any other content, the visual aspect of the list leaves much to be desired, since it does not allow us to correctly identify what type of content each link refers to. The solution to this problem is to add a name to each of the linked content.
To add a name to each and every one of the links in the list that we have created, we place the mouse over the first link that we want to rename and press the right mouse button to select the Information option. Next, in the Title section, we introduce the name of the content, for example, La 1 if it is an IPTV channel.
Fortunately, if we use playlists with YTube links, we do not need to fill in this information . VLC takes care of obtaining it by clicking twice on each title to start playing it, so it is an excellent option to create our own music library based on lists and we can forget about paying for the Spotify subscription.
Once we have created the playlist based on links through VLC, we must store it on our device, since, when we close the application, if we do not save the list, it will be deleted and we will have to create it again following the steps that we have shown you above.
To save the playlist on our computer, we go to the top menu of options, click on Media and then on Save playlist. We can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + y. Next, we introduce the name with which we want to identify the playlist on our computer.
The playlist format is .xspf. This list format can be played in any other application, not exclusively in VLC , so if we like this application, we can only use it to create lists and use other applications to play its content. The .xspf format is nothing more than a text file that includes links, it does not include any video or audio content. We can convert these types of files to the m3u format used by IPTV applications or other formats compatible with link lists based on text files.
