How to tell how much data is left in receive buffer/cache?

[jjulianf]

When I stream a video from a VLC server to VLC client on another machine using http, I can choose the size of the client cache (in milliseconds).

I used a 1000ms cache for the receiving side. Then I noticed, when the bandwidth of the connection is lower than the needed video bitrate (used a bandwidth simulation), the video did not stop immediately but continued playing for about 1 second. The exact amount of time that I used for the receiving cache.

When I am caching 1000ms and then having a low bandwidth for about 500ms (video is not stopping), there should be 500ms of video data left in that cache.

Now I am wondering: Is there any way to check, how much milliseconds the video is behind the actual stream? So is there a way to check, how much data is left in that cache?

[jjulianf]

Does anyone have experience with this issue or can provide a concrete solution for achieving this?