Kodi 17.3 using external player (VLC)

Hoping some can help me.

I have kodi 17.3 installed on my Raspberry Pi3 (Raspbian) with a MythTV backend (v28).

I have configured kodi to use VLC to play “.iso” files, and indeed it does launch VLC todo it as witnessed below:
pi@rpi-3b:~/.kodi/temp $ ps -eaf|grep -i vlc
pi 1222 1132 0 12:11 ? 00:00:00 sh -c “/usr/bin/vlc” “/media/pi/Videos/STAR_TREK_XI_DOM.iso” –fullscreen –play-and-exit
pi 1223 1222 99 12:11 ? 00:11:40 /usr/bin/vlc /media/pi/Videos/STAR_TREK_XI_DOM.iso –fullscreen –play-and-exit

Yes VLC really is running, I can hear the Audio. However the Kodi GUI still occupies the fullscren.
contents of playercorefactory.xml is below:
pi@rpi-3b:~/.kodi/userdata $ cat playercorefactory.xml
<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<playercorefactory>
<players>
<player name=”VLC” type=”ExternalPlayer” audio=”false” video=”true”>
<filename>/usr/bin/vlc</filename>
<args>”{1}” –fullscreen –play-and-exit</args>
<hidexbmc>false</hidexbmc>
<hideconsole>false</hideconsole>
<playonestackitem>true</playonestackitem>
</player>
</players>

<rules action=”prepend”>
<!– DVDs –>
<!– Use VLC for .iso images –>
<rule name=”dvdimage” dvdimage=”true” player=”VLC” />
<rule filetypes=”dvdimage” />
<rule filename=”*.iso” player=”VLC” />
</rules>
</playercorefactory>

I have tried with both hidexbmc and hideconsole set to TRUE and FALSE and the results are always the same.

Suggestions anyone ?