Seeking general streaming advice?

[Mr Davo]

Hi Everyone,

I am in the process of organising a playlist of music videos for my works Christmas Party. This year I want to do something really special in the form of streaming the music videos from one (host) computer to several (guest) computers using VLC Media Player.

Here is a link to the method that I am using to Stream music videos -

http://www.evernote.com/shard/s278/sh/2 ... 9e4cb175b1

I have decided on the HTTP method of streaming because this appears to be relatively simple to setup, and effective for reaching multiple clients.

However immediately I have noticed a number of caveats -

1). Media doesn't always play at the same time on all clients. I would like all music videos to play in sync (ignoring potential network 'lag' issues), and to be controlled from the computer that is setup with VLC to Stream.

2). VLC gets stuck with the Playlist of music videos that I have created; it plays the first music video on each of the clients, but once the first music video comes to an end VLC stops playing altogether.

* In some instances it just stops, and provides no on screen messages
** In other instances it pops up a box which I have come to believe is related to missing codecs (even though the 'server' and all 'clients' have exactly the same codec packs installed).

I am looking for some tips on the optimum way to stream music videos (in a variety of formats, e.g.: avi, flv, mpg, mpeg). Ideally I need to setup several hours of music videos and just hit the 'play button', then walk away...with confidence that VLC will reliably stream for several hours (at least).

If I need to convert all the music videos to one format, e.g. mp4, I am willing to do so, but would appreciate some advice on the best format (and the best way to convert, e.g.: which conversion software to use).

Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. I figure that I have a couple of hours, over a couple of days to have a tinker...fingers crossed I get the streaming going before the party.

Thanks for your help.

Kind Regards,

Davo

[unidan]

Hi, are you using linux ? It might be easier to do this streaming at the pulseaudio level instead of the VLC level, as it might be able to fix latency and jitter.