If you don't like the interactive interface or would like to use VLC with other options, you need to edit your ~/.bash_profile accordingly, e.g. Now type vlc and you'll get to the command line.
Once you've added this, you need to restart your Terminal. Or, execute the following in order to have the above line registered as an alias to vlc: echo 'alias vlc='/Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I rc'' > ~/.bash_profile This will open the interactive command line VLC. The binary you search for is in the VLC.app package, so you can type that into a terminal: /Applications/VLC.app/Contents/MacOS/VLC -I rc This doesn't have anything to do with a command line binary of the same name, which isn't installed by default. The command open bla.avi -a vlc works because OS X is using its Launch Services database to open the application VLC.
