UDP Multicast

[Ed]

Need some direction. I have VLC set up on 2 high end machines (P4 3.2 512MB RAM, etc, etc) One streaming and one receiving. If I use UDP Unicast, the stream is received glitch free (streaming an HD broadcast from a Motorola 6xxx box.

If I try to stream the same program via Multicast, the receiving computer will receive about 2-3 seconds of the broadcast then will pause for a few minutes. 2-3 seconds more then another pause. The streaming server is a gigabit ethernet plugged into a gigabit port on my ethernet switch. The receiveing computer is running 100mb on the same switch. When the broadcast pauses, I can still see a lot of udp traffic when sniffing the ethernet port with Etherpeek. And ideas on what I can check? Running version 0.7.2 on both machines. Version 0.8 will crash the streaming server when used.

Thanks in advance.

[arend]

I have similar problems, streaming a unicast udp stream to the client works perfect, however, in multicast mode the picture is "scrambled" a little.
To isolate the problem i bypassed the switch by using a cross-wire utp cable directly from the server to the client. After doing that everything worked great. So in my case it's probably a switch that can't handle the fast amount of multicast udp traffic... (LinkSys Gigabit Workgoup Switch)

[vlanlan]

I donot know how you guys set up the server( streaming video) and the receiver, but make sure that the server's udp address is 239.20.30.40, and in the receiver fill in the same address in the multicast blank. Then you should get the picture and sound.

[markfm]

I actually regularly multicast over routers, use transcoding to cap the rate at 1 Mbps, no problem.

I've used 239.20.30.40 as a "typical" multicast address, but if you want finer control of multicast, the standard talking about what addresses are available is at:
http://www.iana.org/assignments/multicast-addresses

For instance, if you want to stream within your local LAN segment, the "right" address range to use is probably:
239.255.000.000-239.255.255.255 Site-Local Scope [Meyer,RFC2365]


Concerning problems Serving with 0.8 crashing the Server, that will hopefully disappear soon. There's a known problem, took time to chase down, being corrected.

[Guest]

markfm -- I actually regularly multicast over routers, use transcoding to cap the rate at 1 Mbps, no problem.

Can you detail your transcoding setup? I've done it a little, but some wider experience would be helpful. Thanks