How to Load Media in VLC

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Last updated: Jul 27, 2012 by KimberlyS (Unlicensed)
3 min read


Objective: Teach the various methods of streaming and loading videos into VLC. VLC is most likely the best media player to use, simply because of its versatility of formatted videos, whereas Media Player tends to be a bit more stubborn, so first preference would be to use VLC for most streaming uses.


STREAMING DETAIL PREFERENCES

  1. Once you install VLC and start the program you will notice the following window.


  1. Click Media } Streaming to open dialog window














  1. Select the file (EX.A) you want to play and click Stream (EX.B), also you can choose to have a subtitle file (EX.C)for your streaming, just check the box.
























  1. The following window pops up, In the Outputs section you have the option to choose between several different streaming methods. HTTP means  stream by using the HTTP protocol. In the text box called Address you can specify the network interface used by the server. If you leave it empty, VLC will listen on all the network interfaces on port 8080. It is also a good idea to check the option Play locally (EX.A) in order to display the stream on your screen. This allows you to watch and control the stream you are actually streaming.
  2. Now you have to select the Encapsulation method and the Audio/Video codecs. For encapsulation method choose MPEG-TS(EX.B). Selection of audio and video codecs depends on the quality you want to achieve. Of course you can experiment and leave those codecs providing you with the best results but for now you can leave the default settings.
  3. Time-To-Live ( TTL ) (EX.C) is the next thing you should pay attention to. This sets the numbers of routers your stream can go through. The default TTL value  is set to 1, meaning that your stream won't get across any router. You may want to increase it if you want to route your stream over the Local area network or the Internet.




Now click the Stream button.
The next step is to go to another computer with VLC media player already installed. Then in the toolbar select  Media} Advanced Open File …. Now in the "Open" window select the Network tab. From the drop down menu select the protocol which should be HTTP , enter the IP address and port of the streaming computer and click Play (EX.A)

Everything should work out fine and the result is shown below, notice the IP address are shown also.