When it comes to multimedia players, it is undeniable that VLC has become a benchmark in the sector, being widely used by millions of people around the world. And it is that this open source application adds new functionalities that its developers are implementing for free, some of which we even ignore. And it is that, for example, we have the possibility of looping both a video and a song or playlist in a simple way.
As surely many of you already know, this is a program that is responsible for playing multimedia files with the possibility of including our own playlists. In this way when we play any content, once the program is finished it stops. However, VLC has the possibility, through an integrated function, of being able to continue playback continuously or in a loop of any video, music or playlist that we are playing, and to be able to customize it.
By loop playback, we understand the possibility that once the audio, video or list file has finished playing, it starts playing again continuously, similar to what we usually see in a GIF animation. This is commonly used when we are listening to an album that we like very much and we do not care that once the last song is finished it will play again. With VLC we can create this type of sequences in a very simple way by applying this effect to any of the files that we play.
Continuous playback of a video or audio in VLC
As with most of the media players on the market, VLC also has the loop function available, which we can easily find as it is located next to the middle control buttons. By default, the loop button is disabled, so you will need to click on it to enable it.
To start, the first thing is to run VLC on our computer. Later we click on “File” and choose the “Open file” option to be able to select a file or add several to the application’s playlist. Alternatively, we can also add it by adding and dropping the file directly on the program interface.
Next, we move the mouse pointer over the loop button which is located at the bottom left, between the “Toggle playlist” and “Shuffle” buttons. Clicking once toggles the loop button for the entire playlist and clicking twice toggles it for a single video/audio. Thus, once this is done, the file that we are playing will do so repeatedly. In this way we can loop a single audio or video file from a playlist in VLC.
Set a loop by default
If we want to set loop playback by default, once we find the application open, the first thing we will do is click on the “Tools” option, located at the top of the main application window. This will cause a menu to be displayed, where we will click on its Preferences section. Likewise, we can use its keyboard shortcut Ctrl + P to access it directly.
This will cause a new window to appear where it is not placed on its “Interface” section. Here, we go to its lower left part, within the “Show settings” section, where we mark the “All” option so that we can access its advanced settings, essential to access the tools we need.
In the new window that we have in front of us, its list of functions appears on the left, so we look for the section that interests us in this case, which is none other than the Playlist , so we will have to move the bar towards the bottom. We locate it between the “Interface” and “Emission output” sections.
When clicking on “Playlist”, all the customization options that we have available and related to what we can do with these elements will appear in the right panel. As what interests us on this occasion is to achieve looped content playback, we can choose to check the options “Repeat all”, “Repeat current element”, “Autostart” or “Randomly execute files”, all in function of what interests us most in each case.
Thus, we will have different options so that our audio, video or list file is played by default in a loop every time we need it.
Loop a part of a video or music
It is possible that while playing a video or music file, we would like to be able to watch a specific section of the video in a loop so that it repeats itself over and over again. With VLC we can perform this action in a simple way using for this purpose pressing a button, such as Loop A to B that we will have available after enabling its “Advanced controls”. The steps that we must carry out are the following.
The first thing we must do is start from VLC, and then click on the “View” tab that we find at the top, along with the rest of the tools. This will display a menu where we must click on the “Advanced controls” section. If we have done it correctly, a mark should appear next to the name, which means that they are now enabled.
This will cause some new buttons to appear at the bottom left of the player. There are four buttons in total and they are located just above the traditional playback buttons. Later we must move the video to the starting point where we want the loop playback to start and then we click on the Stop Loop from A to B button.
This will make the first square on the button change its color to orange. Now, to finish the cycle we must take the video to the end point and click on the same button again. We will see how the two points of the button are now orange . Now we only have to play the video and we will see how it is carried out between section A and B that we have marked and it will play in a loop.