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I'm trying to play an .mp4 video file in vlc through Terminal in Mac OS X 10.6.4. When I enter the command, VLC starts but doesn't do anything, and the file starts playing in QuickTime Player, the default video player.

I want the file to open in vlc not QuickTime Player, but I don't want to have to configure vlc as the default video player. Which extra switches does this command need to play video files?

Here's the Terminal command I'm using:

open /Users/sandy/Documents/vlc/VlC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC /Users/sandy/videoFiles/myVideo.mp4
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up vote 2 down vote accepted

You don't have the correct argument sequence. As per the manpage:

open [-e] [-t] [-f] [-W] [-R] [-n] [-g] [-h] [-b bundle_identifier] [-a application] file ... [--args arg1 ...]

In your command, you're telling open to open VLC, then to open your video, but not to open the video with VLC.

Instead, use:

open -a /Users/sandy/Documents/vlc/VlC.app /Users/sandy/videoFiles/myVideo.mp4

Note that you don't need to descend into the package contents with open.

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