How to stream multiple files on demand in VLC

streamingvideovlc-media-player

Is there any way at all that I can set up VLC on a server PC in such a way that I can access a list of all my videos from another PC, and pick one to be streamed on demand?

I've been pointed at this streaming guide (pdf), but it's pretty useless. For a start, most of the menus in those screenshots don't match the actual current version VLC, and then it sort of assumes you already know what you're doing.

So far I managed to figure out how to stream a single file, which I must choose before watching on the server PC – pretty useless if you ask me! The impenetrable "UI" doesn't help either…

(P.S. The reason I'm going for streaming rather than the very simple to set up network drive is described in this question)

Best Answer

VideoLAN Manager is a small media manager designed to control multiple streams with only one instance of VLC. It allows multiple streaming and video on demand (VoD). This manager being a new feature, it can only be controlled by the telnet interface or the http interface.

Steps : http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/ch05.html

For Exanmple

vlm configuration files.

new channel1 broadcast enabled
setup channel1 input http://host.mydomain/movie.mpeg
setup channel1 output #rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.1.1,sap,name="Channel 1"}

new channel2 broadcast enabled
setup channel2 input rtp://@239.255.12.42
setup channel2 output #rtp{mux=ts,dst=239.255.1.2,sap,name="Channel 2"}

control channel1 play
control channel2 play

Video On Demand Basic example

First launch the vlc

% vlc --ttl 12 -vvv --color -I telnet --telnet-password videolan --rtsp-host 0.0.0.0:5554

Then you connect to the vlc telnet interface and create the vod object

new Test vod enabled
setup Test input my_video.mpg

You can access to the stream with:

% vlc rtsp://server:5554/Test
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