The VideoLAN Forums

Hi,

We are running a setup where vlc is being used to transcode rtmp urls serving live content to mp3 files and also publishing to a sdp file (which is then picked up by Wowza).
Usually the rtmp url would redirect to some music after the live content was over and because of this we found that sometimes vlc would overwrite the file and truncate it to zero.
To avoid this, we used a --play-and-stop parameter.
However, this meant we had to monitor the timestamp of the file and kill the vlc process manually.

Now we have a different problem, sometimes the vlc process is being killed much too early. We actually have a timeout of 5 mins (ie we check file has not been modified in 5 mins) before killing vlc.
Even then, every once in a while we kill vlc before the live stream is over.

On looking at the vlc logs, it does not indicate any network issue or other error causing it to stop playing. (we already use -vvv).

Is there anything we are missing or doing wrong here?

Sorry but this is too vague. I don't think anyone is going to be able to help you.

Ok, perhaps I can try to rephrase it this way..

Is there any reason for vlc while transcoding and duplicating a rtmp stream to rtp and to file, to stop writing to the file for 5 mins even if the stream is going on. Is looking at the file timestamp a reliable way of figuring out the stream is actually over. We cannot use --play-and-exit due to the risk of vlc overwriting the file, and hence use --play-and-stop.

Alternatively is there any other way to get a signal from vlc when it has reached the end of --play-and-stop.