The VideoLAN Forums

Hi,

I have an external capturing device I'd like to stream in real time through the vlc. I have the source of its device driver, which writes its contents to a file. The format can be selected - Divx, Xvid, H263, uncomressed and others. I tried to stream the file 'on the fly' to no avail.

I found the place in the code where it takes the current frame and saves it to the file. I wondered how can I connect to it. Where and what do I need to do in the VLC code to be able to stream the device live?


thanks so much for ANY ideas!
best
Joel

What kind of device is that? What OS are you using?

Hi and thanks,

I'm using Windows, and the device is a capturer. the driver for that device is the important thing, becuase it records a video into a file, which I can play and watch very well, after it finished recording. To record the video, it open the file, and each frame encodes the frame and saves it into the file. It can encode in many formats - I found that divX and H263 are playable very well in VLC.

Now, I want to stream it. I can control the driver, since I have all of its sources. I tried to change the file opening permissions, so it will be opened in share mode, and then tried to stream the file, but it didn't work. So i wonder what are my other options

thanks again - for any idea -
Joel

Since you're on Windows, is the driver compatible to Microsoft DirectShow. If so, VideoLAN should be able to use it.

Hi and thanks again,

Direct show is one option, I guess... so how does vlc work with direct show? does it support live streams? where should I look?

if any other options, I would love to hear too

thanks very much
Lior

For more information on Microsoft DirectShow and VideoLAN, I suggest reading up the documentation.

Microsoft DirectShow software capture device supports live streams.

Start VideoLAN, select File, select Open Capture Device, select DirectShow tab, select Refresh list on video and audio device name.