Exactly how do I stream over the Internet?

[AmG]

I already tried reading all the user manuals and FAQs. It isn't exactly clear on what to do.

I want to use my home computer as a server, using either VLC or VLS (I know both can be used as a server).

And I want to access this stream online on another computer, using VLC as the client.

*EXACTLY* what do I have to do on both the SERVER side and CLIENT side?

Thank you.

[jravenel]

I have the same issue.... can someone please explain the how-to in layman's terms.... I've also posted the same request ... with no replies. Thanks in advance ....;

[Gibalou]

It sounds like you only want to share static content. In this case you'll be better off installing a web server (eg. apache) and put your files in there.

VideoLan is mainly useful for realtime streaming (eg. dvb channels, video acquisition cards, webcams, etc...).

[redrider]

not whether it is static content or realtime strreaming.

I have made an effort to set this up on my home LAN and have had difficulties that made me want to give up. That is what sent me here to the forums.

This program is great if you can decypher the geek speak. For those of us that are NOT gurus, perhaps it is not ready for prime time.

If you think it is, perhaps you could explain how to set it up thoroughly for us. Pages such as...

http://www.videolan.org/doc/videolan-howto/en/file.html

...are virtually worthless to us.

If not I would suggest to other casual users to give it up while the software evolves into something easier to use.

[robsmith]

Hello,

Here is a basic guide which should be able to get you started streaming (Video On Demand):

- Install the Apache Web Server (http://www.apache.org) (IIS does not work as well as Apache)

- Edit the configuration file to point to the location where the video is stored (httpd.conf)

- Once you have Apache set up, use VLC (VideoLAN client) to connect to:
http://<Name or IP address of your APache Server>/name of movie.mpg

Detail:

Open VLC
File -> Open Network Stream
Select HTTP/FTP/MMS and enter the address

OR, from a command line:

vlc -vvv http://<Address of the Server>/movie.mpg

You can also set up the stream using the VideoLAN Client and then connect to it on another machine (more difficult over the Internet). You won't be able to skip ahead in the video with this option.

At the source:
- Open VLC
- From the fiel menu -> Open FIle
- Type (or browse) to the file name
- Check the Stream Output box
- Select HTTP and enter 127.0.0.1. 1234 should work as a default port

At the destination:

- Open VLC

- File -> Open Network Stream
- Select HTTP/FTP/MMS and enter the address (remember to chnage the port number to the port selected above)

Or:

vlc -vvv http://server.example.org:1234

Hope this helps.

[REDBOLT]

i AM INTERESTED IN BEING ABLE TO PLAY A MUSIC VIDEO ON MY STSTEM AND HAVING
FRIENDS BE ABLE TO VIEW IT LIVE ON THERE MACHINES THROUGH THE INTERNET. DOES
THIS PROGRAM DO THIS? IF NOT CAN SOMEONE INFORM ON HOW I CAN ACCOMPLISH THIS.
IS THERE A SOFTWARE OUT THERE THAT DOES DO THIS?
I WOULD LIKE TO CALL IT INTERNET BROADCASTING. IS THIS THE SAME AS STREAMING
MEDIA?
HELP!!!!!!
THANK YOU FOR ANY HELP. SURELY THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO HAS THE BRAINS
AND WILLINGNESS TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION TO A LESS EDUCATED FORM OF BEGINER
WHO HAS THE DESIRE TO LEARN.
REDBOLT

[Murray]

First of all, please calm down. And please, please hit your capslock key again, it is just a matter of basic politeness.

i AM INTERESTED IN BEING ABLE TO PLAY A MUSIC VIDEO ON MY STSTEM AND HAVING FRIENDS BE ABLE TO VIEW IT LIVE ON THERE MACHINES THROUGH THE INTERNET. DOES THIS PROGRAM DO THIS?

It does. VLS and/or VLC might be used for such a purpose. They are not, anyway, the only or the simplest solution that you may find around.

I WOULD LIKE TO CALL IT INTERNET BROADCASTING. IS THIS THE SAME AS STREAMING MEDIA?

You can call it whatever you like. Even Bond, James Bond, though there might be copyright issues in this case.

Broadcasting (which means, sending the same stream / packets to the entire world) is not allowed on the Internet. Multicast (which means, sending the same stream to multiple users who subscribed to it) is generally impossible as well. The only streaming method you can always use over the Internet is unicast, which means that one client gets one stream. If you have N clients, you need to stream N times the same content. This may be very, very bandwidth consuming.

As it has already been suggested, http sharing might be the simplest solution. You install a web server, you put your files into a shared directory, your friends get them whenever they like. How to install / configure Apache is completely off topic here, I suggest you have a look at http://www.apache.org.

SURELY THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO HAS THE BRAINS AND WILLINGNESS TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION TO A LESS EDUCATED FORM OF BEGINER WHO HAS THE DESIRE TO LEARN.

Allow me to say that your attitude does not really encourage people to help you. I'm just in a particularly peaceful and helpful mood this morning (which is rather uncommon), but don't count on such lucky chances for future occasions, please.

--
Carlo

[admin@cogentdesign.com]

Folks,
You clearly have valuable technology here, which is rather poorly explained for those of us who use Windows as an OS. You may think that the documentation is sufficient to explain to the average user how the applications (VLC) works but it is not. If I understood more, I would be glad to write this up, but authors have been remiss in explaining even the fundamentals. Allow me to provide some examples.

(1) What on earth are the settings -->preferences for? Specifically how are they different from some of the settings under file--> open disk--> stream output --> settings?

(2) What is an MRL (media resource locator? Where is such a tag defined? Give me an example of a mrl? Yes, I know that the MRL will be created when I decide on an output method, but how is this defined, and who else uses such an approach?


(3) If I look at setting a stream output, do the output methods all run simoultaneously (which the menu appears to allow) or is compute resource distributed differently to the different methods.

(4) Where is the server referred to in the VLC documentation? How is it controlled?

(5)If I select an output method, am I supposed to enter the target address or the local address of the client on which the server (wherever this is ) running?

(6)What does SAP announce do?Where did this come fromand how important is this?

So OK, I chose what I thought were the right answers on my private wireless network in the small office where I work(I set the VLC client to stream the dvd, under UDP and provided a a target address of the device I was delivering the video to).
On the client I told it to receive the UDP stream from the VLC 'server' address. To be specific, the VLC 'server' [at 192.168.1.103] was told to stream to 192.168.1.101. The VLC client on the receiving end was told to use 192.168.1.103 as the server.

When I started VLC and told it to run, it played about 4 seconds of video which registered on the client machine - after which although the DVD continued to spin on the VLC 'server' machine, the video on the VLC client froze up. What was interesting was that after I had closed down the VLC 'server', the receiving machine started playing material which had clearly been delivered during the period that the receiver had been 'frozen'. It seemed the material was coming out of some buffer on the receiver.

Can someone answer the questions I posed and perhaps explain what this apparent buffering is due to?

I have VLC 0.6.2

Thanks. This has the potential to be a great product, but the lack of clarity in the documentation leaves a lot to be desired.

Regards, admin@cogentdesign.com

[BigBen]

(1) What on earth are the settings -->preferences for? Specifically how are they different from some of the settings under file--> open disk--> stream output --> settings?

In a general way, the Preferences box is used to set global settings, while settings that can be set at other places are specific for a playlist item. That is the case for stream output items in particular

(2) What is an MRL (media resource locator? Where is such a tag defined? Give me an example of a mrl? Yes, I know that the MRL will be created when I decide on an output method, but how is this defined, and who else uses such an approach?

In its most basic interpretation, a MRL is easily the address of a stream.

examples :

c:\videos\test.avi
http://www.myserver.com/test.avi
udp:@239.255.1.1

However, a MRL can also contain item specific settings. In fact, most VLC settings can be set on an item basis. For this, take the global setting name (e.g. --fullscreen) and remplace "--" by ":". To get a list of these settings, you can use vlc --longhelp

example : with

vlc --no-fullscreen /data/test.avi http://www.myserver.com/test.avi:fullscreen udp:@239.255.1.1:no-fullscreen

VLC will start, and add 3 MRLs to its playlist :

/data/test.avi
http://www.myserver.com/test.avi:fullscreen
udp:@239.255.1.1:no-fullscreen

/data/test.avi will be played using the default setting : --no-fullscreen, the second item will be played in fullscreen, the 3rd in no-fullscreen mode.

Another example is :

vlc --sout '#standard{url=239.255.1.1,access=udp,mux=ts}' /data/test1.avi:sout '#std{url=127.0.0.1,access=http,mux=avi} /data/test2.avi /data/test3.avi /data/test4.avi:sout '#display':fullscreen

We have 4 MRLs here :

/data/test1.avi:sout '#std{url=127.0.0.1,access=http,mux=avi}
/data/test2.avi
/data/test3.avi
/data/test4.avi:sout '#display':fullscreen

So, vlc will first stream test1.avi in http, then test2.avi and test3.avi using the default setting : udp multicast, and then display test4.avi in fullscreen.

(3) If I look at setting a stream output, do the output methods all run simoultaneously (which the menu appears to allow) or is compute resource distributed differently to the different methods.

When using the gui, the duplicate stream output module is used, that means than all the output are used at the same time.

For instance :

#duplicate{dst=display,dst=std{url=239.255.1.1,mux=ts,access=udp},dst=std{access=http,mux=avi,url=127.0.0.1} will :

- play the stream locally
- stream it using udp on the multicast address 239.255.1.1
- stream it using http

at the same time

(4) Where is the server referred to in the VLC documentation? How is it controlled?

Well, which point in the documentation are you referring to exactly ?

VLC comes with its own udp / rtp / mms server, used for streaming purpose, as well as with its own http server, used for the http interface, and for http streaming.

These servers can be set using the command line (that is what the "sout" syntax is for. The html pages used by the http interface can be changed too.

(5)If I select an output method, am I supposed to enter the target address or the local address of the client on which the server (wherever this is ) running?

That depends on the streaming method : for udp and rtp streaming, that are "push" streaming method, you have to enter the client address, to which the streamer has to send data.

That's why, when streaming over udp, using unicast, all you need is telling the client to listen to packets arriving an a given udp port : you don't need to give any server address : data is already arriving, sent by the server.

The situation is roughly the same with multicast : you need to give an address, but this is not the server address, but the multicast destination address. This allow the client to make the proper igmp request to its switch, saying it wants to receive the corresponding stream. As you see, requests are not handled by the server, bu by the network, so this is still push streaming.

For http / mms streaming, (ie pull streaming), giving an address is optional, and only has sense if the server has several network interfaces. Since the client is making requests to the server, the given address must be one of the server address : it is th address of the interface on which the server will liste to requests.

(6)What does SAP announce do?Where did this come fromand how important is this?

SAP is a for "Session Anouncement protocol". This is a standard announcement protocal used for multicast streaming.

It allows to annouce what channels are being streamed on a network.

A server sends packets containing the name of the channels it is streaming, on which multicast address. Clients are then listening to these annoucements, and adding the corresponding items to their playlist.

So OK, I chose what I thought were the right answers on my private wireless network in the small office where I work(I set the VLC client to stream the dvd, under UDP and provided a a target address of the device I was delivering the video to).
On the client I told it to receive the UDP stream from the VLC 'server' address. To be specific, the VLC 'server' [at 192.168.1.103] was told to stream to 192.168.1.101. The VLC client on the receiving end was told to use 192.168.1.103 as the server.

As I said before, you shouldn't give any address to the client : you should only tell it to listen to the proper udp port, since the server is already "pushing" data to the client.

for that, you should use the

vlc udp://:1234

syntax, or use the first choice in the network tab in the open stream box.

[Guest]

Broadcasting (which means, sending the same stream / packets to the entire world) is not allowed on the Internet. Multicast (which means, sending the same stream to multiple users who subscribed to it) is [g]generally impossible[/g] as well. The only streaming method you can always use over the Internet is unicast, which means that one client gets one stream. If you have N clients, you need to stream N times the same content. This may be very, very bandwidth consuming.

As it has already been suggested, http sharing might be the simplest solution. You install a web server, you put your files into a shared directory, your friends get them whenever they like. How to install / configure Apache is completely off topic here, I suggest you have a look at http://www.apache.org.

So what can vlc do finally as on the home page, I see it can do multicast and here you say quite the opposite !!

[adn]

on the Internet [...] Multicast [...] is [g]generally impossible[/g].

So what can vlc do finally as on the home page, I see it can do multicast and here you say quite the opposite !!

I hope it will be clearer with my quoting
Indeed, you have to subscribe to the MBone for example, to access multicast streams over the Internet. On the contrary, with vlc or vls, you are free to stream in multicast over a LAN, if your network allows it (routers...).

[Guest]

Thanx for the answer ...

Is there a hardware compatibility list for 'good' routers ?

[zorglub]

Hello,

Your network hardware need support for the IGMP protocol to be "good".

If these are routers, they also need to support multicast routing (PIM, DVMRP, ...)

[thevideomakersclub]

Hi all,

I live in Grant County, WA USA.

We have a fully Fiber to the Door Multicasting network called the Zipp Fiber optic Network.

a home user can get bandwidth up to 1 GigBit/Sec for only $1200.00/month

1 Mbit ports start around $35/month

If your looking for a good home to play with this program move to Grant County.

for more info check out http://www.gcpud.org/zipp

Have fun.

[wgstream]

Nice to see such posting.

what is uploading and downloading speed for your fiber at home ? If people host server at home like that, do you think that neigbourhood will have trouble for internet connection if the server has high traffic ? ISP provider can track who use high traffic, might charge different price or alternative way to protect other users ?

Hope to hear your comment,

[Krista]

First of all, please calm down. And please, please hit your capslock key again, it is just a matter of basic politeness.

i AM INTERESTED IN BEING ABLE TO PLAY A MUSIC VIDEO ON MY STSTEM AND HAVING FRIENDS BE ABLE TO VIEW IT LIVE ON THERE MACHINES THROUGH THE INTERNET. DOES THIS PROGRAM DO THIS?

It does. VLS and/or VLC might be used for such a purpose. They are not, anyway, the only or the simplest solution that you may find around.

I WOULD LIKE TO CALL IT INTERNET BROADCASTING. IS THIS THE SAME AS STREAMING MEDIA?

You can call it whatever you like. Even Bond, James Bond, though there might be copyright issues in this case.

Broadcasting (which means, sending the same stream / packets to the entire world) is not allowed on the Internet. Multicast (which means, sending the same stream to multiple users who subscribed to it) is generally impossible as well. The only streaming method you can always use over the Internet is unicast, which means that one client gets one stream. If you have N clients, you need to stream N times the same content. This may be very, very bandwidth consuming.

As it has already been suggested, http sharing might be the simplest solution. You install a web server, you put your files into a shared directory, your friends get them whenever they like. How to install / configure Apache is completely off topic here, I suggest you have a look at http://www.apache.org.

SURELY THERE IS SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO HAS THE BRAINS AND WILLINGNESS TO SHARE THIS INFORMATION TO A LESS EDUCATED FORM OF BEGINER WHO HAS THE DESIRE TO LEARN.

Allow me to say that your attitude does not really encourage people to help you. I'm just in a particularly peaceful and helpful mood this morning (which is rather uncommon), but don't count on such lucky chances for future occasions, please.

--
Carlo

Hi,

I have read your message. It's very informative. I tried to unicast a wedding DVD to a friend who lives in India. It didn't work out. I am looking for some more information, then I came across your message. In this you mentioned about Apache. I have installed Apache last year and it's working fine. I have installed it on my machine as a local server. As you said I have saved a file from the DVD in htdocs and accessed it like http://localhost/abc.vob. When I entered this URL I was able to download the file and was able to play the file.

If I want to access the same file from an other computer what URL should I use? If I want to give this link to my friend in India what URL should I give? My local host should be substituted by what?

Can you please help me? I would really appreciate your help.

Thank you.
Krista.