Stream current timestamp/position

[rhegner]

I need an external application to be synchronized with a video being played. Therefore the external application needs to know the current timestamp/position in the file.

Is it possible using the streaming capabilities of VLC to set up a stream which does not contain actual audio and video data, but only the current timestamp/position?
This information should preferably be sent via UDP and preferably in a format which is easy to parse (ideal would be just a raw timestamp per UDP packet).

[rhegner]

What I tried so far is clicking together a stream output using the GUI with an UDP destination, RAW encapsulation and no video or audio codec, resulting in the following stream output string:

Code: Select all

:sout=#duplicate{dst=udp{dst=127.0.0.1:55438},dst=display} :sout-keep

But with these settings VLC does not seem to send anything.

This doesn't seem to work as well:

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:sout=#duplicate{dst=rtp{dst=127.0.0.1,port=5004,sap,name=test},dst=display} :sout-keep

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Not really so far.

[rhegner]

Thank you for your response!
Do you know if I can use the Network Sync feature for this purpose? Does it send UDP packets? I couldn't find any documentation describing how it actually works.

[Rémi Denis-Courmont]

Yeah it is supposed to work though it is largelly unmaintained and poorly documented.