The VideoLAN Forums

Dear all

i am planning to setup a streaming video server with the following requirements.
I got more than 200 machines in my network. I got a collection of VCDs and DVDs
which i want to share across the network.I came to know from your site that inorder to
stream a MPEG4 , it requies 0.5 to 4 MB speed through network interface, 3 to 4 MB for
a MPEG 2 and 8 to 9 MB for a DVD. So for a 100 MBPS network , ican play at the maximum
50 MPEG4 or 25 MPEG2 or 10 DVD Tiltles.
IN unicast , if my guess is right, 20 users can access 20 MPEG2 videos from the
server. So please let me know , how many users can access a Multicast video from the
server with 100 MBPS network card., ie, how many clients can access a single video streamed from the vlc server? I am using an IBM Server with 3 GHz intel processor and
2 GB of RAM.

what difference this will make if i switch the entire or part of the network using Gigabit ethernet.


Please advise me.


Thanks

Sridhar

Multicast allows you to have virtually unlimited number of connected users. The idea of multicasting is like a TV station broadcasting over the air - it simply broadcasts regardless of number of viewers. In this case you will have a permanent load in your network (which is equal of streming out of 1 stream) even if no one watches you stream, but in other hand that load would be nothing compared to the scenario when you serve each client individually. I would recommend you to take a closer look to the multicast options in the VLC.

Note from moderator: Please choose the correct forum to ask your question. Your problem isn't Mac OS X specific. That's why I have moved it to the general discussion forum.