VLC is great, no question. That is undisputable. But it has a very serious flaw. I've come back again and again periodically to this forum over the years to see if this problem has been fixed but, so far that I can see, no proper solution!
To describe the issue, I'll give the example of my media player machine hooked up to my TV. I put a USB flash drive in it with movies of all different formats, and, like VLC, it'll play anything thrown at it (AVI, MKV, MP4, MP3s, JPGs, etc., etc.). I'll switch and changes movies on the USB stick several times a week and never have to fuss with the media player. Plug the stick into it and start at the file of choice and it'll play continuously from THAT POINT FORWARD in the folder and IN SEQUENCE without touching the remote control again (AND it remembers the last play point on each file so if you stop it, next time it'll prompt to restart from beginning or resume from last point!!). So the media player starts from the file you choose in that folder and plays continuously in sequence, all with ONE push of a PLAY button! So if I press that special continous PLAY button, it'll play the files IN SEQUENCE in THAT FOLDER, from that file on - but, get this, I do have the choice of playing one file if I just press another button, the OK one! I never use the OK button and always use the PLAY button, but one does get a choice!
Not so VLC! Only ONE file at a time and you have to keep choosing the next file. And equally annoying that on both VLC for Windows and VLC Android, I can't seem to find where to set the starting home directory. And when we go to play files, it lumps and brings up ALL media files in ALL folders into it. Gahhh!!! We need a starting directory that VLC will stick to on the Android phone!!! If I need to play media files outside that folder, I should have choice to still set home directory but should be able to navigate to another folder and press play and it'll play from THAT folder only and in sequence, too!!!! (I have manuals and stuff in other folders but want VLC's home directory to be the movies and TV episodes folder!)
This has become such a serious annoyance that even after years of mostly quite-satisfied use of VLC, I'm very, very ready to jump ship to any other software media player that handles many file formats like VLC does in a portable manner but with this much-needed behaviour! I've lived with this annoyance more or less (less actually) on my Windows app but it's just beyond acceptable on the Nexus where fast and efficient operation can't be compromised on.
No, we don't want to create playlists for every darn single folder and, no, we don't want to have to navigate all the time to a folder to open all media where VLC will dump every single darn file into it even if it's a format it can't play like PDFs, text files, Word files, etc., etc. (via MEDIA > OPEN FOLDER ...). That's the only advice ever given here, so far, that I've seen. All unacceptable.
What's needed is to be able to click on a file and it'll play all MEDIA files in the folder from that point forward and in sequence of filename. If my new media player hooked up to my TV has been doing that for several months and the old one that only played AVIs did so for 5 years and it was a cheap old thing from Walmart unlike my new one, then something as advanced as VLC has always been should do this as well. And it should just be built-in with no fuss or muss!!!!!!!!!!!!
So if anyone knows if there's a way to do this WITHOUT doing a playlist or having to navigate to a folder, that would be great. I don't mind at all downloading a new version, either, for both PC and Android. Equally seriously annoying on my Nexus that _all_ media files get picked up, to begin with, and then I have to move back to the folder and choose the next file to play after every single media file. And, no, creating a playlist on dynamic folders (that change constantly) is NOT the answer! Nor having to navigate to the folder in question esp. since both OSs VLC don't seem to have an option to set the starting home directory either, isn't an answer - both being the only solutions I've seen come up in this forum every time I've looked here.
Thanks for any constructive tips! I had to copy about a hundred short how-to vids from PC to my media player that I must hunt through for research purposes since neither home PC VLC nor Android VLC will handle continuously in sequence properly. I have to reached frustration threshold today, that's for sure <sigh>!
Cheers,
