How to Play Certain Sections and Part of Video and Audio in VLC

Using VLC Media Player, if you want to play a certain portion of a video/audio and then skip some segments and then resume playing, then there is a special playlist trick that can be used. The bookmark feature in the player is useful for bookmarking and playing the currently active media file at different points or time. But once the player is shut off or closed, the bookmarks are lost forever. If you want to keep the bookmarks in VLC for the next time, then use this special trick. It’ll allow you to play only certain parts of a video.

This special trick allows you to specify a video file as well as the start and end time for it. There can be multiple start and end points for a single video. If needed, you can open multiple videos—one at a time—with specific start and end times.

If it sounds complicated, then think of it like this: You open a video, instead of playing it from the start you directly navigate to some point in the video and play it until it reaches another point. Then you can skip the portions or open up a totally different video and do the same thing. It is basically highlighting and playing only the portions of the video or audio that you want. It allows you to watch your favorite portions of a long media file or from multiple media files.

This trick is set up using a playlist that contains special instructions for the player. It might sound complicated to some but once you get the hold of it, you will be creating start and stop locations for video files like a pro.

Here are the steps to create a playlist to tell VLC to mark and play media files:

• Open up your notepad or any other plain text editor.
• Enter the start time, stop time and video file location like this: #EXTVLCOPT:start-time=28 #EXTVLCOPT:stop-time=36 video.mp4 #EXTVLCOPT:start-time=500 #EXTVLCOPT:stop-time=550 video.mp4 #EXTVLCOPT:start-time=900 #EXTVLCOPT:stop-time=1100 video2.mp4
• Save the file as .m3u file. Give it a name like playlist.m3u.
• Open the playlist using VLC.

Explaining the Playlist Instructions

It tells the start time in seconds for the video.

#EXTVLCOPT:stop-time=36

It tells the end time in seconds for the same video.

video.mp4

It is the name of the video file. We keep the playlist.m3u as well as the video.mp4 file in the same folder to keep it simple.

If there are more than one start and stop points for the same video then continue adding the start-time and stop-time along with the video file name. If there’s a different file, then change the file name as shown in the example: video.mp4 to video2.mp4.

After setting up the playlist, instead of directly opening up the media file with VLC; use it to open the playlist. It will automatically adapt to the time that you have set. Files will start to play from a certain second offset and then continue to play until it reaches the end time. Then if it needs to skip or if it needs to open another video, it will do it. Just be precise with the seconds that you enter. It might sound a bit complicated, but with correct calculations and some trial and error, you will be able to set it up easily.