Streaming H.264 using Videolan

[publicENEMY]

I am trying to stream H.264 media using videolan. It was unsuccessfull. After researching the net, i found out that Videolan at current version (stable) cannot stream H.264 due to unable to encapsulate H.264 in MPEG TS. So i try encapsulate H.264 in other container, mkv and mp4. unfortunately, mkv does not support streaming (or so i thought) and Videolan does not support streaming in mp4.

My conclusion is, it is impossible to stream(server/client) H.264 in Videolan.


And no, transcoding is out of the question.

[Jean-Baptiste Kempf]

However, development versions of VLC should have that thing fixed.

[publicENEMY]

So are all my assumptions true?

Where can i get the development versions of VLC? I would appreciate if anyone would provide the binary here (formatted my linux box).

Thanks.

[Arite]

You can get nightly builds for 0.9.0 here:
http://nightlies.videolan.org/

For Linux either compile from source or use the appropriate repositories given on the VLC nightly builds index page (for Debian based OS's add to them to etc/apt/sources.list and use apt to install).

Arite.

[publicENEMY]

Damn. Ive been asking without looking first. I found the latest build here http://nightlies.videolan.org/build/win32/latest/.

Thanks and sorry


And by the way, I found a way to stream H.264. But with less satisfactory results. Here's how.

1. transcode the h.264 media with MPEG ts as the encapsulation method.
2. choose h.264 as the video codec.
3. outputs to a file.

the problem with these is the image is grainy even with equal or higher bitrates than the original and the aspect ratio is totally messed up.
i use apple quicktime hd trailer as sample media source. you can easily leech it here, http://www.demo-world.eu/trailers/quick ... ailers.php

Downloading latest vlc as of now. Will report back the results.

Thanks.

[publicENEMY]

in case anyone wondering, the latest version of videolan (nightlies) build are broken for streaming. not only h.264, icant even stream anything that can be stream previously.

Any success stories on h.264 streaming guys?

[slash24]

in case anyone wondering, the latest version of videolan (nightlies) build are broken for streaming. not only h.264, icant even stream anything that can be stream previously.

Any success stories on h.264 streaming guys?

I am trying to do exactly the same thing as you are, and was following this thread because of that. I have also tried to do it with the nightlies and have the same problem: no streaming possible at all....
If you (or anyone else) have a solution / workaround to stream H.264 I would be very gratefull if you post it here! I will do the same thing if I find anything!

[QuakeCH]

If you can read french -> http://blog.quakenet.ch/?p=6 , you should find the solution.

Just don't forget to add : --enable-x264 to configure line

[RCPDesigns]

I've been trying to do this and just bumped into this thread. It appears to me that this doesn't work because the SPS and PPS are not sent. I am not sure where they would fit into the MpegTS. I have download the nightlies and they crash for me no matter what I do.
Any idea how this will be fixed and when it will be available for a real release?

[jjrai]

Does anyone have a site that streams h.264 videos, so that I can see if a C# program I have is able to read a stream of 264 video? I am trying to test it with VLC, but am unsuccessful.

Thanks

[revolunet]

on apple hd trailers you can find some : http://images.apple.com/movies/wb/i_am_ ... _h.480.mov

[gborzi]

Hy there

...did anybody solve this issue?
It looks still broken in videolan 0.8.6f ...

Thanks

gb

[SENCO]

I can stream H.264 perfectly with 0.8.6f if I select MPEG TS as encapsulation method when transcoding.

I mean,
a) I take a xvid movie -> transcode to H.264 into MP4 file. Then I stream (HTTP) this file in a MPEG TS container -> DONT WORK (I receive "waiting for SPS/PPS" message in receiver)

b) I take a xvid movie -> transcode to H.264 into MPEG TS file. Then I stream (HTTP) this file in the same container -> IT WORKS.

I think VideoLAN put H.264 SPS/PPS information on each key frame only if the encapsulation target is MPEG TS at the time of transcoding. If I use MP4 as encapsulation, it puts it only at the beginning.

Best regards,

[SENCO]

I have detected that the frecuency between SPS/PPS packets is lower when destination is HTTP rather than File.

So if I transcode and save into a file and then I stream it, it's different than transcode and stream directly.

Is this a bug in VLC 0.8.6f ?

[publicENEMY]

i beleive encapsulation by transcoding is the way to go (as forwarded by SENCO), but the results from transcoding is extremely low image quality (do consider quality/bitrate ratio).

if anyone have found any progress on this matter, do post.

thank you guys.

[gborzi]

Dear SENCO, thank you for your hint, but the problem is still there.

I am starting from uncompressed full-frame AVIs just to keep everything simple.
I am trying to stream only files already transcoded and saved, I do not transcode and stream on the fly.

I have tried several options and using several source files to transcode to h264 using MPEG-TS as encapsulation method. The wiki section on codecs was very helpful.
If I read the transcoded file from the file system it reads almost OK; remaining issues are:
-- the video window appears after some seconds from the beginning of the reproduction, maybe this is related to keyframe issues?
-- VLC does not show neither the video length nor the current position in seconds.

Anyway, when I stream the same encoded file via VLC -> VLM -> VOD interface, in the same LAN or even on the same PC, only the audio stream is received ok. The messages windows is full of SPS/PPS messages, as usual.

Best regards

g.

[PureVirtual]

Hi, gborzi!

I'm looking for solucion of the "waiting for SPS/PPS" problem as well. In my case (http streaming from VLC to VLC) I use a temporary(?) workaround -- encapsulating h264 video in asf container (mux=asf) while streaming. It helps to start video playback immediately, although the first few seconds may be displayed with a strangely high brightness level.

Glad if it helps...

[gborzi]

Thank you very much, I will try this!

[vibes992000]

I'm able to successfully stream using H.264 by the Manual way i.e going into open capture device .. but streaming via H.264 fails when I try using VLM for streaming i.e Only Video comes no audio

for more details about my Successful H.264 implementation via manual way and failures via VLM way please refer to the link
viewtopic.php?f=11&t=47071

and for its live demonstrations you can visit http://www.ignouonline.ac.in/broadcast

[nodicetv]

Any success stories on h.264 streaming yet. Would really like to start using h264 more.

[vibes992000]

Any success stories on h.264 streaming yet. Would really like to start using h264 more.

Yes it seems that it is successfully launched on our broadcasting stations. We are webcasting and streaming using H.264 and capturing that using VideoLan Plugin.

[fenomeno83]

I use h264/aac with vlc and it works good!
I also use vlc encoding tand after stream to sopcast (that will stream original vlc data using p2p)..

example image:

here there are 2 videoguides (but in italian)
http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=y1bBfPFgzMs&fmt=18

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=Un8dpCYMttQ&fmt=18