Live Transcoding

[discofreakboot]

Hi,

I've been looking long and hard for a way to transcode my SHOUTcast stream in real time. I had been using VLC for a while and wondered if it had this capability.

Sure enough, when I open it up on my Mac, after a great deal of misfires and testing, I was able to get it to read and transcode my SHOUTcast stream to a lower bitrate.

Even better, I was able to get another SHOUTcast server to read VLC's output and stream it to my Asterisk server.

I decided it would be a good idea to move all this to one machine, so I installed VLC onto my Linux box, running Ubuntu 7.10. To my surprise, when I opened up the streaming wizard, I was not presented with the option to transcode the audio. Why is that? When can I look forward to seeing a transcode option under linux?

[yohann.martineau]

did you install vlc from your repository ? maybe some codecs are not available with the ubuntu-bundled package of VLC...

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html

[discofreakboot]

I learned shortly after I posted this that the wizard may have lacked the option, but going and doing it manually works fine. However I now have a new problem. When I try to transcode to MP3, it doesn't work. I can transcode to regular old mpeg, but MP3 is more universal for a live stream.

What can I do to make MP3 transcoding work?

[qzu]

i have the same problem

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=44655

btw, how do you stream in the mpeg format? via the command line?

thank you

[johansyd]

The output module is missing in Ubuntu:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+sour ... bug/127594

You have to find it somehow:

http://en.flossmanuals.net/VLC/StreamingIcecast

I am trying to, but haven't been able to do so.

Good luck!

[johansyd]

Maybe this will help:

http://musa.poperbu.net/index.php?optio ... =1&lang=en

try wget with sudo

[johansyd]

The repositories in Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy are pointing to the wrong adresses. So the shoutcast output plugin isn't probably set up in the vlc bundle that follows the Ubuntu cd. So you have to compile and configure the program manually through the command line.

Follow the tutorial in the previous post, but remember to set the right adresse for your repositories as specified here:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu

You have to go to the synaptick package manager that lies under System -> Administration and then Settings -> Rpositories and Third-Party Software. The:

http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ free non-free and the

http://medibuntu.sos-sts.com/repo/ free non-free (Source code)

are wrong. Hook them off and go through the installations as described in the links I have posted here. You have to pay attention to errors during the configuration process and do everything as specified. It migth be a bit tricky if you never have compiled and installed a program from source code before

[johansyd]

I found a couple of problems and some solutions.

First of all. You don't get shout support through installing vlc through the synaptic package manager on 7.10 Gutsy. It doesn't have support for sending to a shout server so you have to download the binaries and configure the third part support yourself.

I found a really good package here that doesn't have any issues:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/gutsy/+sou ... 0ubuntu5.1

If you have found a package else where you have to tar the package and navigate to modules/access_output/shout.c
open up the file in a text editor and find the line: #include <shout.h> change it to #include <shout/shout.h> and your good to go.

Once you have the package and have

tar xvfz vlc-0.8.6.release.c

...or what ever the package name is

you have to configure the application so it can access all the plugins on you system. Many of the plugins vlc uses may or may not be installed and since we are doing it without the synaptic package manager, you have to figure out which plugins you need and which you can avoid. You may have to install some of them if they aren't available on your system. Vlc is rather useless without them so it might be a good idea to have a look at it.

Anyway! change directories:

cd vlc-0.8.6.release.c

configure vlc:

./configure --enable-x11 --enable-xvideo --disable-gtk --enable-sdl --enable-ffmpeg --with-ffmpeg-mp3lame --enable-mad --enable-libdvbpsi --enable-a52 --enable-dts --enable-libmpeg2 --enable-dvdnav --enable-faad --enable-vorbis --enable-ogg --enable-theora --enable-faac --enable-mkv --enable-freetype --enable-fribidi --enable-speex --enable-flac --enable-live555 --enable-caca --enable-skins --enable-skins2 --enable-alsa --disable-kde --enable-qt --enable-wxwindows --enable-ncurses --enable-release --enable-shout

compile:

make

install:

make install

Check for shout output support:

vlc -l | grep shout

You will get something like this:

VLC media player 0.8.6a Janus
access_output_shout IceCAST output
playlist New winamp 5.2 shoutcast import
shout Shoutcast radio listings
shout Shoutcast TV listings


The listings may turn up two times if your doing it from the same folder as the one you installed vlc from.

(you may have to do this as root or with sudo depending on where you are installing it)

note that if you get errors, it is because there is a plugin you haven't installed. Open up System-Administration and Synaptic package manager and have a search for what ever is missing. Search for the whole name or part of the name or what ever or in worst case scenario install all of them. That will most likely help you out. Sometimes you might find support for something you need in not so lilky places, but all of the packages should be available if you have set your repositories right. (earlier post)