Try running VLC without a window manager

[netbofia]

Test this out to cut down on resources.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Display_manager
Starting applications without a window manager
You can also launch an application without any decoration, desktop, or window management. For example to launch google-chromeAUR create a web-browser.desktop file in /usr/share/xsessions/ like this:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Web Browser
Comment=Use a web browser as your session
Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome --auto-launch-at-startup
TryExec=/usr/bin/google-chrome --auto-launch-at-startup
Icon=google-chrome
Type=Application
In this case, once you login, the application set with Exec will be launched immediately. When you close the application, you will be taken back to the login manager (same as logging out of a normal DE/WM).

It is important to remember that most graphical applications are not intended to be launched this way and you might have manual tweaking to do or limitations to live with (there is no window manager, so do not expect to be able to move or resize any windows, including dialogs; nonetheless, you might be able to set the window geometry in the application's configuration files).

[netbofia]

https://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?t=45975
vlc -Idummy

https://raspberrypi.stackexchange.com/questions/8805/auto-login-into-lxde-and-auto-start-video-player-omxplayer
omxplayer
[vlc stream] https://www.wumpus-cave.net/2013/11/06/running-vlc-automatically-on-a-headless-raspberry-pi/
lxterminal http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/trusty/man1/lxterminal.1.html