VLC 0.84t2 Runs OK under Administrator, Not with other admin

[winmac96]

Hello HD Streaming Wizards,

I am setting up my PMG5 Dual 2GHz 1GB into a streaming server over a local subnet with four Fedora Core 2 (running VLC 0.8.1) clients and two Win2K (running VLC 0.8.4test2).

The VLC in the PMG5 (also 0.8.4t2) runs GREAT under Administrator login but will not start under my generic login with Admin privilege. When I try to execute VLC from either the Applications menu or the dock, nothing shows up. Is this a privilege issue or a conflict issue??

I have OSX Server 10.3.9 running QTSS in the background for other clients. I am using VLC on the Win2K and is able to play the streams from the OSX QTSS. I have a GigE interface into a GigE switch. I don't go through a router since I only want to stream locally via UDP/RTP/RTSP.

One more newbie question, I have been experimenting with different transport/video formats and can't pinpoint the best one to use in VLC nor QTSS to stream to other VLC clients.

Last, seems like VLC 0.8.1 on the Fedora Core clients does not like QTSS via RTSP. The VLC 0.8.4t2 on the W2K works just fine with QTSS.

Any advise is welcome,

"Rick Hunter"

[fkuehne]

Well, to fix your QTSS problems on Fedora, I recommend you to update to VLC 0.8.2 or 0.8.4 (once it is out and the binary packages are updated). As far as I remember, these RTSP-problems where solved with 0.8.2 or 0.8.4.

The best format to stream on a network when using multicast is certainly MPEG4 Video & Audio encapsulated in MPEG TS. This requires fast CPUs on all computers. Using H.264 as video codec would be even better, but most PCs are to slow to transcode to this format on the fly (even the fastest Dual Xeon can only do 576*384 at 1000 mbit/s in real time), so you would have to encode them separately.

Concerning your account-problem: did you install VLC with your admin-account or with the other one? Are sure that your sure other account may execute VLC? (are the correct file permissions set? does the reparation of permissions with Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilities help?) Do you have a folder called "VLC" and org.videolan.vlc.plist in the preferences-folder of the other account? Does it work if you delete them?

[winmac96]

Hello again and thanks for the quick PING.

Well, to fix your QTSS problems on Fedora, I recommend you to update to VLC 0.8.2 or 0.8.4 (once it is out and the binary packages are updated).

<RH> I will be waiting for the Fedora/Linux binary install since I am not proficient at "make"ing binary from source. Is this soon? Or can a forum member post one?

As far as I remember, these RTSP-problems where solved with 0.8.2 or 0.8.4. <RH> Perhaps you're right on this one.

The best format to stream on a network when using multicast is certainly MPEG4 Video & Audio encapsulated in MPEG TS. This requires fast CPUs on all computers. Using H.264 as video codec would be even better, but most PCs are to slow to transcode to this format on the fly (even the fastest Dual Xeon can only do 576*384 at 1000 mbit/s in real time), so you would have to encode them separately.

<RH> If the HD movie is transcoded from QT7 Pro into H264 video, AAC audio, into MPEG TS encapsulation in advance. Then use VLC or QTSS to stream this encoded movie to other VLC clients in the subnet. Is this scenario then ideal per your recommendation? The Fedora boxes have a P4 Xeon 3.2 GHz w/ 1 GB RAM and GigE ports. The Win2K boxes have AMD 1.7 GHz XPs 512MB RAM and they are decoding the QTSS streams just fine.

Concerning your account-problem: did you install VLC with your admin-account or with the other one? Are sure that your sure other account may execute VLC? (are the correct file permissions set? does the reparation of permissions with Disk Utility in /Applications/Utilities help?) Do you have a folder called "VLC" and org.videolan.vlc.plist in the preferences-folder of the other account? Does it work if you delete them?

<RH> My local login do have "Read & Write" access to the VLC executable and a VLC folder exists in the Preference folder. After I deleted the VLC folder and re-ran VLC everything worked fine and seems to be running better than before (rev 0.8.2).

Thanks!!! You guys are great!

"Rick Hunter"

[fkuehne]

Yup, H.264/M4A/MPEG TS should be the best available solution at the moment. All your clients seem to be fast enough to handle such a stream.
You probably want to stream the files through multicast on your subnet, because the streamer only needs to send it once to reach all clients, thus this saves a lot of CPU power and network traffic.

A Fedora binary is usually available a few days after our releases. Since no-one in the team uses Fedora, we rely on external contributors. http://rpm.livna.org/ usually creates good and stable packages.