videolan/libvlcsharp

LibVLCSharp

LibVLCSharp is a cross-platform audio and video API for .NET platforms based on VideoLAN's LibVLC Library. It provides a comprehensive multimedia API that can be used across mobile, server and desktop to render video and output audio as well as encode and stream.

The official repository URL for this repo is https://code.videolan.org/videolan/LibVLCSharp.

• Features
  • MediaPlayerElement
• Supported platforms
• Installation
  • Preview builds
• Getting started
• Documentation
• Ebook
• Migrating from Vlc.DotNet
• Samples
• Quick API overview
• Roadmap
• Versioning
• Release Notes
• Contribute
  • Pull request
  • Gitlab issues
• Questions and Support
  • Bug trackers
  • Discord
  • StackOverflow
  • Commercial Support
• Code of Conduct
• Licenses

Features

Check out libvlc-nuget to get a basic understanding of how libvlc works, what it can offer and how to install it with NuGet.

Some of the features include:

• Play every media file formats, every codec and every streaming protocols
• Run on every platform, from desktop (Windows, Linux, Mac) to mobile (Android, iOS) and TVs
• Hardware and efficient decoding on every platform, up to 8K
• Network browsing for distant filesystems (SMB, FTP, SFTP, NFS...) and servers (UPnP, DLNA)
• Playback of Audio CD, DVD and Bluray with menu navigation
• Support for HDR, including tonemapping for SDR streams
• Audio passthrough with SPDIF and HDMI, including for Audio HD codecs, like DD+, TrueHD or DTS-HD
• Support for video and audio filters
• Support for 360 video and 3D audio playback, including Ambisonics
• Able to cast and stream to distant renderers, like Chromecast and UPnP renderers.

Most things you can achieve with the regular VLC desktop app, you can also achieve using libvlc.

MediaPlayerElement

Full featured video control for Xamarin.Forms available in LibVLCSharp.Forms (iOS/Android) and Uno platform (iOS/Android/UWP).

Supported platforms

Mono, .NET Framework and .NET Core runtimes are supported.

• Xamarin.Android
• Xamarin.iOS
• Xamarin.tvOS
• Xamarin.Mac (Cocoa)
• Windows Classic (WPF, WinForms, GTK)
• Windows Universal (UWP for Desktop, mobile and Xbox)
• Linux including desktop, server and Raspberry Pi (GTK)
• Xamarin.Forms
• MAUI
• Uno Platform 5 (WinUI, Android, iOS)
• Avalonia (Windows, macOS, Linux)
• .NET Standard 1.1 and 2.0
• .NET Framework 4.0 and later
• .NET Core (including ASP.NET Core)
• Unity3D
  • Windows Classic
  • Android
  • UWP
  • iOS
  • macOS

Installation

1. Install LibVLC in your platform specific project.

LibVLC is the actual VLC engine written mostly in C/C++ and compiled for your target platform. More information here.

dotnet add package VideoLAN.LibVLC.[Windows|UWP|Android|iOS|Mac|tvOS]

2. Install LibVLCSharp or LibVLCSharp.Forms (if you plan on using Xamarin.Forms)

LibVLCSharp is the .NET wrapper that consumes LibVLC and allows you to interact with native code from C#/F#.

Pre-release versions

LibVLCSharp 4 preview and LibVLC 4 nightly builds are distributed using https://feedz.io/ for now. To pull pre-release versions into your project, use the following NuGet.config file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <packageSources>
    <add key="videolan-preview" value="https://f.feedz.io/videolan/preview/nuget/index.json" />
  </packageSources>
</configuration>

See the docs for preview builds installation details.

Getting started

Follow the Getting started guide. Make sure you read it since it contains platform-specific caveats

Documentation

Our general documentation is part of this repository and we also have an API docs website.

Feel free to browse it and if you see something missing, you can improve it by sending a PR.

It includes helpful documents such as:

Best practices

This document details how to use LibVLCSharp in a correct way, notably taking into consideration the native interop part.

Q&A guide

This is a Q&A document which I compiled from all the questions I got asked regarding LibVLC and LibVLCSharp. Continuously updated.

Troubleshooting issues

When you encounter an issue with LibVLC/LibVLCSharp, identifying the cause is not always straightforward. This document gives you clues on how to go about it.

Libvlc specific information

This page focuses on the core native library and contains information regarding advanced libvlc configuration and its versioning strategy by VideoLAN.

Tutorials

This page indexes all available tutorial materials about LibVLCSharp. There are currently videos, talks, blogposts and code samples.

Community projects

Here we list several interesting projects made by the community using LibVLCSharp. Feel free to send a PR to yours!

Ebook

In September 2022, the first book ever about LibVLC, the VideoLAN community and LibVLCSharp was released!

The Good Parts of LibVLC contains everything you need to know about VLC, LibVLC and how to use it from .NET with LibVLCSharp.

Samples

For more advanced samples, have a look at libvlcsharp-samples with apps such as:

• Chromecast sample: Discover chromecasts on your local network and select one for playback in 100% shared code (Xamarin.Forms, iOS/Android).
• Record HLS sample: Simple .NET Core CLI app which shows how to record an HLS stream to the filesystem.
• RTSP Mosaic sample: Cross-platform RTSP player sample with 4 views mosaic (Xamarin.Forms, iOS/Android).
• PulseMusic UX sample: A stylish music player UX example using Skia on iOS and Android.
• Gestures sample: Cross-platform touch gestures and 360 videos on iOS and Android.
• LocalNetwork sample: Cross-platform local network browsing and playback with network shares (SMB, UPnP) on Android, iOS and WPF.
• MediaPlayerElement sample: Minimal iOS/Android sample showing how to get started with the crossplatform MediaPlayerElement control from LibVLCSharp.Forms.
• SkiaSharp Preview Thumbnailer sample: .NET Core sample app showing how to use LibVLC 3 video callbacks and encode the frame with SkiaSharp before saving it to disk.
• lvst: Watch a movie while it is downloading! lvst is a .NET Core CLI app using MonoTorrent and LibVLCSharp for macOS, Linux and Windows.

Feel free to suggest and contribute new samples.

Quick API overview

using var libvlc = new LibVLC(enableDebugLogs: true);
using var media = new Media(libvlc, new Uri(@"C:\tmp\big_buck_bunny.mp4"));
using var mediaplayer = new MediaPlayer(media);

mediaplayer.Play();

Console.ReadKey();

• LibVLC.cs: Main object pointing to a native libvlc instance in native code.
• MediaPlayer.cs: Manages playback, offers event listeners and more. Accessible from VideoView with data-binding support.
• Media.cs: Class representing and providing information about a media such as a video or audio file or stream.
• VideoView.cs: Custom native view which holds a MediaPlayer object.
• MediaDiscoverer.cs: This object should be used to find media on NAS and any SMB/UPnP-enabled device on your local network.
• RendererDiscoverer.cs: Use this to find and use a Chromecast or other distant renderers.
• Dialog.cs: Dialogs can be raised from the libvlc engine in some cases. Register callbacks with this object.

The LibVLCSharp.Forms and Uno packages features a MediaPlayerElement control, similar to the ones provided by the .NET Framework on WPF and UWP. It currently supports iOS, Android and UWP (Uno only).

Roadmap

• Game engines (Unity, Unreal, Godot)
• LibVLC 4 support

If you have a request or question regarding the roadmap, feel free to open an issue (using an issue template) or PR.

Versioning

As this is a libvlc binding, we try to follow the libvlc versioning scheme as much as possible. The versioning strategy is explained in the versioning document.

Release Notes

Check out the NEWS file for details about each release.

Contribute

Pull request

Pull requests are more than welcome! If you do submit one, please make sure to read the contributing guidelines first, and use our pull request template.

Gitlab issues

You can look through issues we currently have on the VideoLAN Gitlab. Please pick one of our GitLab issue templates so we can assist you better.

There are up for grabs tickets as well if you would like to start contributing.

Questions and Support

Bug trackers

You have encountered an issue and wish to report it to the VLC dev team?

You can create one on our Gitlab (using an issue template) for .NET related questions/problems.

For LibVLC/VLC specific issues, usually native code, please go to the bug tracker of the VLC project.

Before creating an issue or ticket, please double check for duplicates!

Discord

We are on

StackOverflow

We regularly monitor the libvlcsharp tag on

Forum

If you have any question or if you're not sure it's actually an issue, please visit our forum.

Commercial services

If you would like VLC developers to provide you with:

• custom development on LibVLC and/or LibVLCSharp,
• training and workshops,
• commercial licenses,
• support services,
• consulting services,
• other multimedia services.

Feel free to contact us.

Code of Conduct

Please read and follow the VideoLAN CoC license.

Licenses

LibVLCSharp is released under the LGPLv2.1 and is also available under a commercial license.

Note: the .NET4.0 LibVLCSharp build references a nuget package that may indicate its license as the .NET Library license but it's actually opensource under MIT.