Play audio and video

The easiest way to play audio and video on the Raspberry Pi is to use the pre-installed VLC application;

The VLC program uses hardware acceleration and can play many popular audio and video file formats.

Graphical interface

Select the file to play, right-click, and select "VLC Media Player"

Command line

Note: To play audio or video in the command line, you need to enter the directory where the file is located

Play video

• vlc <video_name>

Example: Play Test.mp4 file

vlc Test.mp4

• vlc --play-and-exit <video_name>

Example: After playing Test.mp4 file, exit the application

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vlc --play-and-exit Test.mp4

• vlc --play-and-exit --fullscreen <video_name>

Example: Play Test.mp4 file in full screen, and exit the application after playing

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vlc --play-and-exit --fullscreen Test.mp4

• cvlc --play-and-exit <video_name>

Example: Play the Test.mp4 file without displaying the VLC graphical interface

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cvlc --play-and-exit Test.mp4

• cvlc --play-and-exit --drm-vout-display <video_name>

Replace the contents of and <video_name>

Example: Video is output through HDMI1

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cvlc --play-and-exit --drm-vout-display HDMI-A-1 Test.mp4

Get a list of all DRM devices on the Raspberry Pi: kmsprint | grep Connector

Playing audio

Raspberry Pi 5 can only be used normally when connected to an audio device.

The play audio command and play video command only differ in the file name: play Test.mp3 file

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cvlc --play-and-exit Test.mp3

• cvlc --play-and-exit -A alsa --alsa-audio-device <video_name>

Replace the contents of and <video_name>

Example: Output audio through HDMI

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cvlc --play-and-exit -A alsa --alsa-audio-device vc4hdmi0 Test.mp3

Get the Raspberry Pi ALSA device: aplay -L | grep sysdefault