+++ /dev/null
-HTTP interface
---------------
-
-I. Presentation
-###############
-
- 1. VLC has a little HTTP server
- -------------------------------
-
- You can launch the HTTP interface with :
-
- vlc -I http --http-src /directory/ --http-host host:port
-
- The HTTP interface will listen at host:port and will reproduce the
-structure of /directory at http://host:ip/
-
-While exporting /director, some files are a bit special :
-
- * files beginning with '.' : they won't be exported.
- * file '.access' : It will be opened and http interface expect to find
- at the first line a login/password (written as login:password). This
- login/password will be used to protect all files in this directory.
- Be careful that only files in this directory will be protected,
- particularly sub-directory won't be protected.
- * file <dir>/index.html will be exported as <dir> and <dir>/ and not as
- index.html.
-
-Examples:
- Sources URL
- directory/index.html -> http://host:port/
- directory/help.html -> http://host:port/help.html
- directory/help.gif -> http://host:port/help.gif
- directory/.access -> "Not exported"
- directory/dir2/essai.html -> http://host:port/dir2/essai.html
-
- The mime type is set looking at file extension and it cannot be
-specified/modified for specific file. Unknown extensions will have
-"application/octet-stream" as the mime type.
-
- You should avoid exported big files. Actually, each file is first
-loaded in memory before being sent to a client, so be careful ...
-
-
- 2. VLC macro in .html/.htm pages
- --------------------------------
-
- a. Presentation
- ---------------
-
- Each type, a .html/.htm page is requested, it is parsed by the vlc
-before sent. This parser search for special vlc macro, and then execute
-them or substitute them.
- Moreover, when receiving URL arguments (by a GET method), they could be
-interpreted.
-
- b. Syntax
- ---------
- A vlc macro have to respect :
- <vlc id="macro-name" param1="macro-parameters1" param2="macro-parameters2" />
-
- "id" is the only mandatory field, param1 and param2 may or may not be
-present and depends on the value of "id".
-
- You should take care that you _have to_ respect this syntax, VLC won't
-like invalid syntax. (It could easily leads to segfaults)
-
- For examples :
- Correct:
- <vlc id="value" param1="version" /> is correct
- Invalid:
- <vlc id="value" param1="version" > <- invalid tag ending
- <vlc id=value param1="version" /> <- missing "" around value
-
- c. Valid macro list
- -------------------
-
- For now the following macro are valid :
-
- Macro | Parameter 1 | Parameter 2
- ----------------------------------------------
- control | Optional |
- get | Yes | Yes
- set | Yes | Yes
- rpn | Yes |
- if | Optional |
- else | |
- end | |
- value | Optional |
- foreach | Yes | Yes
-
- 3. RPN, Stacks and locale variables
- ------------------------------
-
- To provide powerful macro, you have access to
-
- a. RPN evaluator
- ----------------
- See II.
-
- b. Stacks
- ---------
- The stacks is a place where you can push numbers and strings, and then
-pop them backs. It's used with the little RPN evaluator.
-
- c. Locales variables
- --------------------
- You can dynamically create new variables and changes their values.
- Some locales variables are predefined
- - url_value : parameter of the url
- - url_param : 1 if url_value isn't empty else 0
- - version : the VLC version
- - copyright : the VLC copyright
- - stream_position : current position of the VLC in the stream (percentage)
- - stream_time : current position of the VLC in the stream (in seconds)
- - stream_length : total length of the current stream (in seconds)
- - volume : current volume level
- - stream_state : current state of the VLC (playing, paused, stop)
-
- Variables could have fields, just use . to access them.
- Ex: var.field, var.field.subfield, ...
- A field could in fact be a set, so use [] to access a particular element.
- Ex: var.field[2], var.field[3].subfield[12]
-
- Remarks: you cannot create (yet) such variables with fields.
-
- 4. Remarks:
- -----------
- The stacks, and locales variables context is reseted before a page is
-executed.
-
-II. RPN evaluator
-#################
-
- RPN means Reverse Polish Notation.
-
- 1.introduction
- --------------
-
- RPN could be strange but it's a fast and easy way to write expressions.
-It also avoid the use of ( and ).
-
- Instead of writing ( 1 + 2 ) * 5 you just use 1 2 + 5 *
- The idea beyond it is :
- - if it is a number or a string (using '') push it on the stack
- - if it is an operator (like +), pop the arguments from the stack,
- execute the operators and then push the result onto the stack.
- The result of the RPN sequence is the value at the top of the stack.
-
-
-Ex: instead of writing (1+2)*5 you enter 1 2 + 5 *
-
-stack: Word processed
- <empty> 1 1 is pushed on the stack
- 1 2 2 same things
- 1 | 2 + + : remove 1 and 2 and write 3 on the stack
- 3 5 5 is pushed on the stack
- 3 | 5 * * : remove 3 and 5 and write 15
- 15 <- result
-
-
- 2. Operators.
- -------------
-
- Notation : ST(1) means the first stack element, ST(2) the second one ...
- and op the operator.
-
-You have access to :
-
- * standard arithmetics operators:
- +, -, *, /, % : push the result of ST(1) op ST(2)
- * standard binary operators:
- ! : push !ST(1)
- ^, &, | : push the result of ST(1) op ST(2)
- * test:
- =, <, <=, >, >= : do ST(1) op ST(2) and push -1 if true else 0
- * string:
- strcat : push the result of 'ST(1)ST(2)'
- strcmp : compare ST(1) and ST(2), push -1, 0, or 1
- strncmp : compare the ST(3) first characters of ST(1) and ST(2),
- push -1, 0, or 1
- strlen : push the length of ST(1)
- strsub : extract substring of ST(1) from character number ST(2)
- to character number ST(3)
- * stack manipulation
- dup : duplicate ST(1) on the stack
- drop : remove ST(1)
- swap : swap ST(1) and ST(2)
- flush : empty the stack
- * variables manipulation:
- store : store ST(2) in a locale variable named ST(1)
- value : push the value of the local variable named ST(1)
- url_extract : push the value of the ST(1) part of the url parameters.
-
-III. Macros
-###########
-
- 1. Macro "control"
- ------------------
- When asking for a page, you can pass arguments to it through the url.
-(eg using a <form>)
- Ex: http://host:port/page.html?var=value&var2=value2&...
-
- The "control" macro warm a page to parse such arguments and give control
-on which one will be authorized.
-
-param1 of this macro say which command are allowed, if empty then all
-commands will work.
-
-Url commands are :
-
- | Name | arguments |
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- | play | item(integer)| Play the specified item
- | stop | | Stop
- | pause | | Pause
- | next | | Go to the next playlist element
- | previous | | Got to the previous playlist element
- | fullscreen | | toggle fullscreen
- | volume | value(string)| set volume level (absolute or relative)
- | seek | seek_value | c.f. notes
- | add | mrl(string) | Add a mrl to the playlist (with its options)
- | delete | item(integer)| Deletes an (list of) element of the playlist
- | keep | item(integer)| Deletes all but (list of) element of the playlist
- | sort | type,order | c.f. notes
- | empty | | Empty the playlist
- | close | id(hexa) | Close a specific connection
- | shutdown | | Quit vlc
-
-For example, you can restrict the execution of the shutdown command to
-protected pages (through a .access) using the control macro in all pages
-unprotected.
-
-Notes:
- Seek: The seek command is used to seek in current playing stream. the
-seek_value argument is a string which represents a relative or absolute
-position in the stream: a percentage, or a time.
-For examples "+12min 42sec", "01:13:43", "-12%", "42%", or
-"1 hour 12 minutes" are valid argument values.
- Sort: sorts the playlist by type (string), and with the order (integer).
-If order is "0", it is normal order. Otherwise it is reverse order. The
-type can be "title", "group", "author".
-
-
- 2. Macro "get"
- --------------
-
- This macro will be replaced by the value of the configuration variable
-which name is stored in param1 and the type is given by param2.
-
- - param1 should be a existing name of a configuration variable
- - param2 should be the correct type of this variable. You have
- - int
- - float
- - string
-
-Example:
- <vlc id="get" param1="sout" param2="string" />
-will be replaced in the output page by the value of sout.
-
- 3. Macro "set"
- --------------
-
- This macro allow to set the value of a configuration variable.
- The name is given by param1 and the type by param2 (like for get).
-The value is retrieve from the url using the name in param1.
-
- So if player.html contain <vlc id="set" param1="sout" param2="string" />
-and then you can call http://host:ip/player.html?sout=sout_value to
-set sout to the value "sout_value"
-
- If the url doesn't contain sout, then nothing is done.
-
- 4. Macro "rpn"
- -------------
- This macro allows you to interpret RPN commands.
- See II.
-
-
- 5. Macro "if" "else" "end"
- --------------------------
- It allows to control the parsing of the html page.
-
- -> if param1 isn't empty, it is first executed with the RPN evaluator.
- -> if the first element from the stack isn't 0 the test value is true
-else false.
-
-ex:
- <vlc id="if" param1="1 2 =" />
- <!-- Never reached -->
- <vlc id="else" />
- <p> Test succeed 1 isn't equal to 2 <p>
- <vlc id="end" />
-
- You can also just use "if" and "end".
-
- 6. Macro "value"
- ----------------
- ->if param1 isn't empty, it is first executed with the RPN evaluator.
- ->the macro is replaced with the value of the first element of the stack.
-
- Remarks: if it's in fact a locale variable name, the value of this
-variable will be displayed (instead of it name).
-
- 7. Macro "foreach" "end"
- ------------------------
-
- param1 : name of the variable used for the loop
- param2 : name of the set to be build:
- - "integer" : take the first element from the stack to construct
- a set of integer. The stack element should be a string like:
- first:last[:step][,first2:last2[:step2][,...]
- Ex: 1:5:2,6:8:1 will be expanded into 1,3,5,6,7,8
-
- - "directory" : take the first element of the stack as the base
- directory and construct a set of filename and directly in it.
- Each element has the following fields:
- - name : file/directory name
- - type : "directory" or "file" or "unknown"
- - size : size of the file
- - date
-
- - "playlist" :
- Fields:
- - current : 1 if currently selected else 0
- - index : the index value (to be used for example for the
- "delete" control command.
- - name : the name of the item (it is equal to uri most of the time).
- - uri : the URI of the item
- - group : the group number
-
- - "informations" : Create informations for the current playing
- stream.
- Fields:
- - name : Category name
- - value : Category value
- - info : a new set so you can parse it with another foreach.
- Sub fields :
- - name : Info name
- - value Info value
- - "hosts" : Create the list of host we are listening.
- Fields:
- - id : opaque id
- - host:
- - ip :
- - port:
-
- - "urls" : Create the list of urls currently available
- Fields:
- - id :
- - stream: 1 if it's a stream else 0.
- - url :
- - mime :
- - protected: 1 if protected else 0.
- - used :
- - "connections" : Create the list of current connections.
- Fields:
- - id : opaque id, used by "control" macro (with close command)
- - ip :
- - url:
- - status: HTTP error code.
-
- - the name of a foreach variable if it's a set of set of value.
- Ex :
- <vlc id="foreach" param1="cat" param2="informations" />
- <p> <vlc id="value" param1="cat.name" />
- <ul>
- <vlc id="foreach" param1="info" param2="cat.info" />
- <li>
- <vlc id="value" param1="info.name" /> :
- <vlc id="value" param1="info.value" />
- </li>
- <vlc id="end" />
- </ul>
- <vlc id="end" />
-
-IV. Conclusion
-##############
-
- Have a look at share/http directory of the VLC sources...
-
- Any remarks, suggestions, ... -> fenrir@via.ecp.fr
-
+++ /dev/null
-<!doctype linuxdoc system>
-<linuxdoc><article>
-<titlepag>
- <title>VLC HOWTO</title>
- <author>Originally written by Henri Fallon, maintained by Johan Bilien<tt><htmlurl url="mailto:jobi@videolan.org" name="<jobi@videolan.org>"></tt></author>
- <date>v0.0.9, 16 april 2002</date>
-
- <abstract>
- This document describes how to use the vlc (VideoLAN client) to read DVDs and mpeg files, locally or from a network.
- </abstract>
-</titlepag>
-
-<toc>
-
-<sect>
- <heading>Introduction</heading>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>What is VideoLAN ?</heading>
- <p>
- VideoLAN is a project of sudents of the École Centrale Paris which aims
- at broadcasting video on the campus, and providing the students with an MPEG-2
- software-only decoder. VideoLAN is an OpenSource project which will thus
- allow anyone to watch DVD movies under Linux, BeOS, MacOS X, Windows
- and most UNIX systems. Recent additions allow to read .avi files,
- and MPEG-4/DivX-encoded movies.
- </p>
- <p>
- You may want to look at the port section on our website :
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/" name="http://www.videolan.org/">.
- </p>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>What is the VideoLAN project ?</heading>
- <p>
-
- VideoLAN is a complete software solution for video streaming, developed
- by students at the <htmlurl url="http://www.ecp.fr/" name="Ecole Centrale
- Paris"> and contributors from all over the world, under the <htmlurl
- url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html" name="General Public License
- (GPL)">. It has been designed for streaming MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 videos on
- local area networks (LAN), but it can be extended to metropolitan or
- wide area networks (MAN, WAN), thanks to the multicast technology.
-
- The VideoLAN solution includes a server, which can stream video from
- various sources (file, DVD, satellite and MPEG 2 encoder), a client, which can
- receive, decode and display MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 streams and, if necessary,
- a channel server which tells automatically to the client the parameters
- needed to receive the stream.
-
- Here is an illustration of the complete VideoLAN solution :
-
- <verb>
-
- DVD --->- Unicast/Broadcast/Multicast
- \ ---
- File --->-- -------- / \ --------
- |->-| Server |=====>====| LAN |---->-----| Client |
- Satellite ->-- | (VLS) | \ / | (VLC) |
- / -------- --- --------
- MPEG2 -->- ^
- encoder |
- v
- ----------------
- | Channel Server |
- | (VLCS) |
- ----------------
- </verb>
-
- More details about the project can be found on the
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/" name="VideoLAN Web site">.
-
- </p>
- </sect1>
- <sect1>
- <heading>The documentation of the project</heading>
- <p>
- There are four main documents :
-<itemize>
-<item>the <htmlurl
-url="http://www.videolan.org/doc/videolan-quickstart/videolan-quickstart.html"
-name="VideoLAN Quickstart">,
-<item>the <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/network/doc/videolan-howto.html"
-name="VideoLAN HOWTO">,
-<item>the <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/vls/doc/vls-guide.html"
-name="VideoLAN Server user guide">,
-<item>this VLC Howto.
-</itemize>
-
-The up-to-date version of these documents can be found on the <htmlurl
-url="http://www.videolan.org/doc/" name="VideoLAN Web Site">.
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Translated versions of this document</heading>
- <p>
- No translation is currently available.
- </p>
-
- <p>
- The English version is maintained by Henri Fallon,
- Johan Bilien, and the VideoLAN team. It can be found at:
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/doc/index.html"
- name="http://www.videolan.org/doc/index.html">.
- </p>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Requirements</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Operating system</heading>
- <p>
- VLC works under the following systems :
- </p>
- <p>
- <itemize>
- <item> Linux (all distributions, including iPAQ Familiar Linux)
- <item> Windows (all 32bit versions)
- <item> Mac OS X
- <item> FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD, BSD/OS
- <item> BeOS
- <item> QNX RTOS
- <item> Solaris
- </itemize>
- </p>
- <p>
- Please note that the Linux, Windows and MacOS X versions are generally the most
- up-to-date ones.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Software requirements</heading>
- <p>
- Depending on the outputs and inputs you are using, you may need
- additional libraries. Please see <ref id="modules" name="description">.
- </p>
- <p>
- For playing encrypted DVDs, you will need libdvdcss, which you can find
- on this page :
- <htmlurl name="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/download.html"
- url="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/download.html">.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Hardware requirements</heading>
- <p>
- The hardware power needed depends a lot of the type of stream.
- For reading a DVD, a CPU working at around 450 MHz is required.
- </p>
- <p>
- VLC can benefits from hardware acceleration from modern video cards
- for YUV transformation and window rescaling. it also uses MMX, MMX EXT,
- SSE, 3Dnow! optimizations if available.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Disclaimer</heading>
- <p>
- This documentation is given "as is", and any comment and improvement
- are welcome.
- </p>
-
- <p>
-
- In this HOWTO, we consider you already have a little knowledge
- about Linux, and you know how to use a DVD. If not, good howtos
- can be found on the <htmlurl url="http://www.tldp.org/" name="Linux
- Documentation Projet">.
-
- </p>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Legal</heading>
- <p>
-
- Copyright (©) 2002 by the VideoLAN project.
-
- Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
- under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version
- 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation ;
- with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no
- Back-Cover Texts. The text of the license can be found on <htmlurl
- url="http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html">.
-
- </p>
- </sect1>
-</sect>
-
-<sect>
- <heading>Quick start</heading>
-
- <p> This section will help you get, install and use vlc without giving you
- much details.
- </p>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Get and install vlc from binary packages</heading>
- <p>
- The first thing to do is to get an archive, on our web site
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/download.html" name="http://www.videolan.org/download.html">
- </p>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>Which package to chose ?</heading>
- <p>
- There are different packages because vlc has "plugins" which provide
- features but also enlarge the executable and require external libraries.
- </p>
- <p>
- SDL is a lib which allows you to have an accelerated video output.
- You will need libsdl > 1.1.6
- </p>
- <p>
- If you're using the enlightened sound daemon, you may want to try
- the esd-aware vlc.
- </p>
- <p>
- Generally, when you don't know what a module name is, you don't
- need/use it :-)
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>Debian package</heading>
- <p>
- Just use dpkg :
- <verb>
- dpkg -i vlc-x.x.x.deb
- </verb>
- </p>
- <p>
- Depending on the package you have downloaded, you may have dependency
- problems. You have to solve them, by installing the required libraries.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>RPM package</heading>
- <p>
- Install vlc just as you would install any RPM package :
- <verb>
- rpm -i vlc-x.x.x.rpm
- </verb>
- </p>
- <p>
- You may have to install external libraries to meet dependencies, depending on
- the package you downloaded (gnome, gtk, esd, ...).
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>BeOS users</heading>
- <p>
- Double-click on the archive. It should open your favorite archive extracter.
- You can then execute the vlc from there, or extract the archive to a
- directory and run it from there.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>Mac OS X users</heading>
- <p>
- Double-click on the archive, and copy the vlc file to your Applications
- folder.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Windows users</heading>
- <p>
- Launch the installer by double-clicking on it, and follow the installation
- instructions. Please note that in most cases you will need administrator
- rights to install it under Windows NT, 2000 and XP.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Get libdvdcss</heading>
- <p>
- In order to read CSSsrambled DVDs, you will need libdvdcss.
- You can find binary
- packages for your distribution here : <htmlurl
- name="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/download.html"
- url="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/download.html">
- </p>
- <p>
- For Windows, BeOS and Mac OS X users, libdvdcss is statically linked in the
- Windows binary, so you don't have to install it.
- </p>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Use the vlc for DVD reading</heading>
- <p>
- Launch the application simply by typing vlc in a terminal (or by
- double-clicking on its icon in a graphical shell). You should see
- the graphical interface appear.
- </p>
-
- <p>
- For reading a DVD (or a VCD), click on the "Disc" button. The new window
- you must then enter the path to your DVD or VCD drive :
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>Linux users</heading>
- <p>
- Usually, your dvd device is /dev/hd? (if you have an ide drive).
- For instance, if you DVD player is master on the second IDE device,
- it will be /dev/hdc.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is very useful to create a symlink to this file, called /dev/dvd.
- To do this, as root, type (if your dvd device is /dev/hdc for example) :
- <verb>
- ln -s /dev/hdc /dev/dvd
- </verb>
- Also make sure you have read AND write permission to the device
- (otherwise dvd decryption won't work).
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Windows users</heading>
- <p>
- The path to your DVD drive usually is D:\ or E:\. You may have a look
- in "My Computer" and look to which letter your DVD drive is assigned.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>BeOS users</heading>
- <p>
- Under BeOS, the dvd device looks like
- "/dev/disk/ide/atapi/1/slave/0/raw" for example, if your dvd device is
- slave on your first (not sure) ide device.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Other OS</heading>
- <p>
- To do ...
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Use the vlc for network streaming</heading>
- <p>
- This is the vlc original usage.
- </p>
-
- <p>
- Launch the vlc as you would have for DVD reading. Then click on the
- "Network" button.
- </p>
- <sect2>
- <heading>If using a VideoLAN Channel Server</heading>
- <p>
- The only thing you have to do is to check the "Channel server" box
- and to enter the IP address and port
- of this channel
- server. Ask your administrator if you don't have it. Then click on OK.
- </p>
- <p>
- You will see a new "Channel" field in the interface. You may now
- enter the selected channel and click on OK. After a few seconds,
- if a program is being sent in this channel, you should see the program
- start.
- </p>
- <p>
- If nothing appears and you are sure that a program is streamed in
- this channel, you may try once again, because a problem of communication
- with the channel server could have occurred (if you launched vlc from
- a terminal, you should see "Network error: no answer from vlcs").
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Without VideoLAN Channel Server</heading>
- <p>
- Simply clicking on the network button, then on ok should be
- sufficient in most cases.
- </p>
- <p>
- After clicking on OK, and if a program is being sent, you should see
- a window open with your program.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-</sect>
-
-<sect>
- <heading>The graphical interface</heading>
- <p>
- Please note that the gnome, gtk and win32 interfaces are currently the most
- advanced. The following descriptions refer to them.
- </p>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Opening a stream</heading>
- <p>
- For opening streams through the graphical interface, click on either
- "File" for opening a file stored on your hard drive, "Disc" for
- opening a DVD or a VCD, "Network" for reading a stream from a vls
- or through http input, or "Satellite" for reading directly
- from a satellite card.
- </p>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Basic stream control</heading>
- <p>
- You have at your disposal all the classical control of a video player.
- For example when playing local streams, you can do pauses, speed up or
- slow down the stream ... Just use the corresponding buttons.
- </p>
- <sect1>
- <heading>DVD and VCD navigation</heading>
- <p>
- When reading a DVD or a VCD, you can change chapter and title either
- by using the
- right-click menu or by using the dedicated bar that appears when reading
- from a disc.
- </p>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Programs, audio and subtitles</heading>
- <p>
- When reading a multiprogram stream, you can change the current program
- by selecting it in the "View/Programs" submenu, or using the "right click"
- menu from the video output window.
- </p>
- <p>
- In DVDs, if different angles are availables, they will be treated as
- different programs.
- </p>
- <p>
- At any time you can change the audio/subtitles channel using either the
- "setting" menu from the interface or using the "right click" menu from
- the video output window.
- </p>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Preferences window</heading>
- <p>
- By choosing "Preferences" in the "Settings" menu, you will open
- the preferences window. This window is generated dynamically according
- to the modules that were compiled.
- </p>
- <p>
- In every tab, you may click on "Save" to store your settings in your
- ~/.videolan/vlcrc file.
- </p>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Interface tab</heading>
- <p>
- In that tab, you can select which interface you would like to use on next
- start. Click on the choosen interface, click on "Select" then on "Save".
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Audio tab</heading>
- <p>
- In this tab, you can select the audio output you would like to use on
- next start. You may also specify some other settings such as the output
- level, the audio frequency, ...
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Video tab</heading>
- <p>
- In this tab, you can select which video output will be used on next start,
- and add a video filter module. You may also specify some video settings,
- such as the window size or if you would like fullscreen display.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Input tab</heading>
- <p>
- In this tab, you can enter the input method with options (for example
- <tt>udp:@239.255.255.42</tt>) that will be used on next start. You can
- also add some settings, such as the channel server address ...
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Decoders tab</heading>
- <p>
- In this tab, you can select which decoder you want to use for MPEG audio
- and AC3 streams.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>CPU tab</heading>
- <p>
- In this tab, you may disable the use of some CPU extensions such as
- MMX or SSE.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Playlist tab</heading>
- <p>
- In this tab, you can select some playlist options, such as looping the
- playlist.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Miscellanous tab</heading>
- <p>
- In this tab, you can select which memcpy version you want to use. Some
- of them uses MMX 3Dnow! extensions.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-</sect>
-<sect>
- <heading>Command line options</heading>
- <p>
- Many options are only available through command line. They are detailed here.
- </p>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Opening streams</heading>
- <p>
- The following commands start vlc and add a first element to the playlist.
- </p>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Opening a file</heading>
- <p>
- Simply start vlc with <tt>vlc my_file.mpg</tt>.
- </p>
- <p>
- You may tell vlc what input to use, for example add <tt>--input ts</tt>
- when playing a ts MPEG, although vlc should be able to recognize the type
- of MPEG.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Opening a DVD or VCD</heading>
- <p>
- Simply start vlc with <tt>vlc dvd:DVDDRIVE</tt> or <tt> vlc vcd:CDROMDRIVE
- </tt>, where DVDDRIVE/CDROMDRIVE is the complete
- path to your dvd/cdrom drive.
- </p>
- <p>
- You may add <tt>-t X -T Y</tt> to start directly from the Xth chapter, Yth
- title.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Start a network stream</heading>
- <p>
- To receive an UDP stream (being sent from a VLS), start vlc with
- <tt> vlc udpstream:[@<bind address>[:<server port>]] </tt>.
- </p>
- <p>
- Please note that bind address refers to the destination address, for
- example your broadcast address. If the stream is being broadcasted,
- <verb> vlc udpstream:</verb> should be sufficient. If the stream
- is multicasted, you must specify the multicast address, for example
- <verb> vlc udpstream:@239.255.255.42 </verb>
- <p>
- To receive a http stream, start vlc with <tt>vlc <your URL></tt>.
-
-
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Modules selection</heading>
- <p>
- The vlc tries to select the most appropriate interface, input and output
- modules, among the ones available on the system, according to
- the stream he is given to read. However, you may wish to force
- the use of a specific module with the following options:
-
- <p> <verb>--intf <interface module></verb>
- allows you to select the interface module </p>
-
- <p> <verb>--vout <video output module></verb>
- allows you to select the video output.</p>
-
- <p> <verb>--aout <audio output module></verb>
- allows you to select the audio output.</p>
-
- <p> <verb>--filter <video filter module></verb>
- allows you to add a video filter module.</p>
-
- <p> <verb>--mpeg-adec <MPEG audio decoder module></verb>
- allows you to select the audio MPEG decoder.</p>
-
- <p> <verb>--ac3-adec <AC3 audio decoder module></verb>
- allows you to select the audio AC3 decoder.</p>
-
- </sect1>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Other options</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Help options:</heading>
-
- <p> <verb>--help</verb>
- gives you all the available options.</p>
- <p> <verb>--longhelp</verb>
- gives you a more detailled version of the available options.</p>
- <p> <verb>--version</verb>
- gives you information about the current version.</p>
- <p> <verb>--list</verb>
- gives you the list of all available plugins.</p>
- <p> <verb>-vvvv (X times)</verb>
- set the level of warning messages.</p>
- <p> <verb>--stats</verb>
- gives statistic outputs.</p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>Audio options:</heading>
-
-
- <p> <verb>--noaudio</verb>
- disables the audio output</p>
- <p> <verb>--mono</verb>
- forces the vlc to treat the stream in mono audio.</p>
- <p> <verb>--volume <integer></verb>
- set the level of audio output.</p>
- <p> <verb>--rate <integer></verb>
- set the audio output frequency (Hz)</p>
- <p> <verb>--desync <integer></verb>
- compensates desynchronization of audio (ms)</p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>Video options:</heading>
-
- <p> <verb>--novideo</verb>
- disables the video output</p>
- <p> <verb>--width <integer></verb>
- <verb>--height <integer></verb>
- set the video window dimensions.</p>
- <p> <verb>--grayscale</verb>
- turns video output into grayscale mode.</p>
- <p> <verb>--fullscreen</verb>
- set fullscreen video.</p>
- <p> <verb>--nooverlay</verb>
- disables hardware acceleration for the video output</p>
- <p> <verb>--spumargin <integer></verb>
- force subtitles position.</p>
-
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Input options:</heading>
-
-
- <p> <verb>--network-channel</verb>
- Start with channel server enabled.</p>
- <p> <verb>--channel-server <string></verb>
- Specify the channel server address.</p>
- <p> <verb>--channel-port <integer></verb>
- Specify the channel server port.</p>
- <p> <verb>--iface <string></verb>
- Select the network interface to use.</p>
- <p> <verb>--input-program <integer></verb>
- Select the program to use (for streams with
- several programs, as those coming from satellite).</p>
- <p> <verb>--audio-type <integer></verb>
- Select the audio channel to use.</p>
- <p> <verb>--subtitle-channel <integer></verb>
- Select the subtitle.</p>
- <p> <verb>--audio_channel <integer></verb>
- Select the channel number.</p>
- <p> <verb>--dvd <string></verb>
- Specify the default dvd device.</p>
- <p> <verb>--vcd <string></verb>
- Specify the default vcd device.</p>
- <p> <verb>-4, --ipv4</verb>
- Force IPv4.</p>
- <p> <verb>-6, --ipv6</verb>
- Force IPv6.</p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>CPU options</heading>
- <p> <verb>--nommx</verb>
- disable the use of mmx CPU extensions.</p>
- <p> <verb>--no3dn</verb>
- disable the use of 3D Now! CPU extensions.</p>
- <p> <verb>--nommxext</verb>
- disable the use of mmx ext CPU extensions.</p>
- <p> <verb>--noaltivec</verb>
- disable the use of AltiVec CPU extensions.</p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-<sect>
- <heading>Building the vlc from sources</heading>
- <p>
- You can choose either to take the latest release, or a CVS source. Note that
- CVS snapshots may be broken, although we do our best to prevent this from
- happening.
- </p>
- <p>
- From here, you have to be a little experienced, even more if you want to use
- the cvs.
- </p>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Getting an archive</heading>
- <p>
- You have guessed it, the first thing to do is to get the source.
- Until there, everyone should understand :)
- </p>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Web site</heading>
- <p>
- Source packages can be found in the "tarballs" section of the download page :
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/download.html" name="http://www.videolan.org/dowload.html">.
- </p>
- <p>
- CVS snapshots are available from the address :
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/packages/snapshots/"
- name="http://www.videolan.org/packages/snapshots/">.
- </p>
- <p>
- Then untar the archive :
- <verb>
- tar xzf vlc-x-x-x.tar.gz
- </verb>
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Directly from CVS</heading>
- <p> <label id="cvs">
- First log in as user anonymous with an empty password :
- <verb>
- cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.videolan.org:/var/cvs/videolan login
- </verb>
- Then retrieve the repository :
- <verb>
- cvs -d :pserver:anonymous@anoncvs.videolan.org:/var/cvs/videolan -z3 checkout vlc
- </verb>
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>libdvdcss</heading>
- <p>
- To compile vlc with dvd support, you need to get and install libdvdcss.
- </p>
- <p>
- It is available for download here :
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/download.html"
- name="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/download.html">
-
- Decompress the tarball in a directory of your choice and build it :
- <verb>
- tar -xvzf libdvdcss-x.x.x.tar.gz
- cd libdvdcss-x.x.x
- ./configure
- make
- [as root] make install
- </verb>
-
- You can also find binaries packages for many distributions.
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Building the program</heading>
- <p><label id="compile">
- Go into the vlc directory and run the configure script :
- <verb>
- ./configure
- </verb>
- If you want to enable options, you may add "--enable-option"
- to the previous line.
- For example, to build with the xvideo extension, and alsa support,
- you should type :
- <verb>
- ./configure --enable-xvideo --enable-alsa
- </verb>
- To get the list of the available options, and know if they are
- enabled by default,
- you can try :
- <verb>
- ./configure --help
- </verb>
- </p>
- <p>
- Also have a look on the <ref id="modules" name="following modules
- descriptions">.
- </p>
- <p>
- A very typical installation, on a XFree 4.1 system, recent video card, with
- gnome, is :
- <verb>
- ./configure --enable-esd --enable-gnome
- </verb>
- <p>
- </sect1>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Plugins, builtins ...</heading>
- <p>
- The configure script should create a Makefile.opts file, which you can edit and modify.
- Indeed you can chose to have features (as esd support, for example) built as plugins
- or inside the program.
- </p>
- <p>
- If you build a feature as a plugin, it can lead to a little loss of performance.
- It you build it inside the code, it'll enlarge a bit the size of the executable.
- </p>
- <p>
- When you're done with Makefile.opts (which also works if you leave it
- untouched), just
- type:
- <verb>
- make
- </verb>
- It should compile without any error. If there are, please check you
- have the required libraries
- installed on your system, as the configure script can't check them all.
- </p>
- <p>
- When you're done with it, as root, type :
- <verb>
- make install
- </verb>
- if you wish to have vlc fully installed on your system. If you prefer
- to keep in in the
- current directory, you may skip the "make install". You'll then have
- to cd into the vlc
- directory and type "./vlc" instead of just typing vlc.
- </p>
- </sect1>
-</sect>
-
-<sect>
- <heading>Modules description</heading>
- <p>
- <label id="modules">
- Here is a description of nearly all the available modules for the
- vlc. If you wish to compile one which is stated disabled by default,
- you have to launch the configure script with
- <verb> ./configure --enable-module_name </verb>. See <ref
- name="compilation instructions" id="compile">.
- <sect1>
- <heading>Video outputs</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>x11</heading>
- <p>default :enabled </p>
- <p>
- This is the basic x11 video output. It only requires a
- working X11 server. You will need xlibs headers to compile it
- (xlibs-dev package on Debian systems).
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>xvideo</heading>
- <p>default : enabled</p>
- <p>
- It requires an xvideo compliant graphic card (it is the case for
- nearly all the modern card). It uses hardware acceleration for
- yuv transformation and for rescaling.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>sdl</heading>
- <p>default : enabled</p>
- <p>
- This video output uses sdl libraries. You need at least version 1.1.6 of
- this libraries.
- </p>
- <p>
- You may indicate the path to the sdl-config program with the
- <verb> --with-sdl-config-path=PATH </verb> option given to the <verb>
- configure</verb> script.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>directx</heading>
- <p>default: enabled on win32</p>
- <p>
- This video output uses Microsoft Direct X libraries. It is recommended
- for the win32 port.
- </p>
- <p>
- You may indicate the path to directx libraries and headers with
- the <verb>--with-directx=PATH</verb> option.
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>fb</heading>
- <p>default: enabled on Linux</p>
- <p>
- This is the frame buffer video output. It requires that your kernel
- was compiled with frame buffer support.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>glide</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This video output uses Glide libraries (hardware acceleration for
- 3Dfx cards).
- </p>
- <p>
- You may indicate the path to the library with the
- <verb>--with-glide=PATH</verb> compilation option.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>mga</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- It provides hardware acceleration for Matrox cards on Linux.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>ggi</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>aa</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This video output uses the aalib library to display video
- through ASCII art. It requires aalib headers (aalib1-dev under Debian)
- to compile.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Video filters modules</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>deinterlace</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This filter deinterlaces video. It is useful with streams coming
- from a satellite broadcast.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>wall</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This filter allows you to have the video cut in pieces in several
- windows, which you can order as you wish. It can be used to generate
- image walls with several sources. Start it with
- <verb> --filter wall:XxY</verb> in order to have the video cut in X rows
- and Y columns
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>distort</heading>
- <p>default: enable</p>
- <p>
- This filter adds a distortion effect to the video. Who said it
- was useless ;-) ?
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>transform</heading>
- <p>default: enable</p>
- <p>
- This filter rotates the video window of 90 degrees.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>invert</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This filter inverses colors.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Sound outputs</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>dsp</heading>
- <p>default: enabled on Linux</p>
- <p>
- This is the Linux /dev/dsp output. It requires that your kernel
- was compiled with support for your sound card.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>alsa</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the sound output for Advanced Linux Sound Architecture.
- It requires that you installed the alsa drivers and libraries.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>esd</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This sound output has Enlightened Sound Daemon support
- (usually used with Gnome).
- You must have the daemon and its libraries installed.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>arts</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This sound output has aRts (KDE's sound server) support.
- You must have the daemon and its libraries installed.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>waveout</heading>
- <p>default: enabled on win32</p>
- <p>
- This is the Wave output, which is used by the win32 port.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Input modules</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>dvd</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the DVD input module. It will need libdvdcss, which can
- be found <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/"
- name="http://www.videolan.org/libdvdcss/">.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>dvdread</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is an alternative to the previous one, it uses libdvdread
- (which also needs libdvdcss).
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>vcd</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the VideoCD input.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>http</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the http input. You can use it for Video On Demand.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>satellite</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is an input module that allows to read directly from a
- Hauppauge WinTV Nova card under Linux. It requires drivers 0.9.4
- available from
- <htmlurl url="http://www.linuxtv.org/" name="linuxtv.org">.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>avi</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This input module allows to read .avi files.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>Interface modules</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>gtk</heading>
- <p>default: enabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the GTK+ interface. It needs gtk libraries (libgtk1.2 package
- on Debian) and headers files if you are compiling it (libgtk1.2-dev
- package on Debian). Note that it can be used under Windows.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>gnome</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the Gnome interface. It needs gnome libraries (libgnome32 under
- Debian) and headers (libgnome-dev) if you wish to compile it.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>intfwin</heading>
- <p>default: enabled on win32</p>
- <p>
- This is the Windows native interface. It requires Borland C++ builder
- to compile. You may use <verb>--with-bc-builder=PATH</verb> option
- to specify the path to this application.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>qt</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the QT libraries interface module. You will need the libraries
- (libqt2 package on Debian) and headers (libqt-dev) if you wish to
- compile it.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>kde</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is the KDE interface module. You will need the libraries
- (kdelib package on Debian) and headers (kde-devel) if you wish to
- compile it.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>rc</heading>
- <p>default: enable</p>
- <p>
- This is the Remote Control interface module. With this one, vlc
- is controled by sending him commands, such as play, stop, ... so
- that you may control vlc through a script.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>ncurses</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is a text interface, using ncurses library. You will need
- ncurses headers if you want to compile it (libncurses5-dev on Debian).
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>lirc</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This interface module allows you to control vlc through a remote.
- A lircrc example is provided to help you configure it to your remote
- (see doc/lirc/example.lircrc).
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Codec modules</heading>
- <p> The following modules add codec support. </p>
- <sect2>
- <heading>a52</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is a better AC3/A52 decoder than the built-in one, based on
- liba52 :
- <htmlurl url="http://liba52.sf.net/" name="liba52">.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>ffmpeg</heading>
- <p>default: disabled</p>
- <p>
- This is a free MPEG-4/DivX/OpenDivX codec :
- <htmlurl url="http://ffmpeg.sf.net/" name="ffmpeg">.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
- <sect1>
- <heading>OS support modules</heading>
- <p> The following modules add support or different OSs. </p>
- <sect2>
- <heading>macosx</heading>
- <p>default: enabled on MacOS X</p>
- <p>
- This is the MacOS X support module, including a native interface.
- </p>
- </sect2>
-
- <sect2>
- <heading>qnx</heading>
- <p>default: enabled on qnx</p>
- <p>
- This is the QNX RTOS support module.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
-<sect>
- <heading>Specific use of the vlc</heading>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Use the vlc as a viever and decoder for the Hauppauge WinTV
- Nova card</heading>
- <sect2>
- <heading>What is required ?</heading>
- <p>
- At the present time, the satellite input only works under Linux.
- It requires that drivers version 0.9.4 of the card, drivers
- that are being developped by the <htmlurl name="linuxtv.org"
- url="http://www.linuxtv.org/">.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Building the vlc with satellite support</heading>
- <p>
- Get the sources, either from our last .tar.gz release,
- or best from the cvs (see <ref name="cvs instructions"
- id="cvs">).
- </p>
- <p>
- Move to the vlc directory, then launch
- <verb>
- ./configure --enable-satellite
- </verb>
- You may add other compilation options, see <ref
- name="compilation instructions" id="compile">.
- Then launch the compilation with
- <verb>
- make
- </verb>
- You may install it with (as root)
- <verb>
- make install
- </verb>
- or run it from the current directory.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Running it from the command line</heading>
- <p>
- Run the vlc with
- <verb>
- vlc satellite:<frequency(Hz)>,<polarization(0 for V,
- 1 for H)<,
- >FEC (1 for 1/2, 2 for 2/3 ...)>,<symbol rate (kbytes/sec)>
- </verb>
- You then have to select your program, either with the command line option
- <verb>
- --input_program <program_number (also called service ID)>
- </verb>
- or by choosing it in the view/programs menu.
- </sect2>
- <sect2>
- <heading>Running it from the GTK/Gnome interface</heading>
- <p>
- Click on the "Sat" icon. In the opening box, you may enter
- your transponder settings, then click on "Ok".
- </p>
- <p>
- After a few seconds, the word satellite should appear under the command
- buttons. You may now choose your program from the View/Programs menu.
- </p>
- </sect2>
- </sect1>
- <sect1>
- <heading>Use the vlc to create image walls.</heading>
- <p>
- The idea is to use several video sources, each one displaying a part
- of the whole image, to get a bigger result.
- </p>
- <p>
- Vlc and the VideoLAN solution can provide a good way to create
- such displays : a vls broadcasts a stream in several vlc each
- display a part of image.
- </p>
- <p>
- For this, you should use the wall filter : start vlc with
- <verb>
- vlc udp: --filter wall:<number of rows>x<number of columns>
- :<number of the part to diplay>
- </verb>
- </p>
- </sect1>
-
-</sect>
-<sect>
- <heading>Get more help</heading>
- <p>
- First of all, it something seems to go wrong, read and try to
- understand the error messages. You can have detailed messages by
- choosing messages in the view menu, in GTK, Gnome and Win32 interfaces.
- </p>
- <p>
- There is a FAQ page on our website :
- <htmlurl url="http://www.videolan.org/doc/" name="http://www.videolan.org/doc/">.
- If you think one question should be in the FAQ, please contact
- <htmlurl url="mailto:videolan@videolan.org" name="videolan@videolan.org">
- </p>
- <p>
- Finally, there's a users mailing list (English-speaking). To subscribe, send a mail to
- <htmlurl url="mailto:listar@videlan.org" name="listar@videlan.org"> containing
- "subscribe vlc" as message body.
- </p>
-</sect>
-</article></linuxdoc>
+++ /dev/null
-<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
-<html> <head>
- <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
- <meta name="Description" content="Web streaming">
- <meta name="Keywords" content="MPEG, Web, streaming, VideoLAN">
- <meta name="Author"
- content="Christophe Massiot, massiot@via.ecp.fr">
- <link rev="made" href="mailto:massiot@via.ecp.fr">
- <title>How to setup VLC for web streaming (X11 only)</title>
- <style type="text/css">
- <!--
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- -->
- </style>
-</head>
-
-<body bgcolor="#E8E8E8">
-
- <h1> How to set up VLC for web streaming (X11 only) </h1>
-
- <h2> Abstract </h2>
-
-VLC is a separate application which can either read a plain file or a TS
-network stream. Using XSwallow, it is possible to incorporate VLC video
-output window right into the window of a browser. With additional
-tricks, it is also possible to launch a VLMS (VideoLAN MiniServer) on the
-server-side, and have the client read a live network stream. This document,
-intended for expert users only, describes the ways to do it.
-
-
- <h2> Installing and configuring XSwallow for plain MPEG files </h2>
-
-XSwallow is a software which allows any X11 window to be "swallowed"
-(technically, just reparented, so that it has no effet on performance
-anyhow) into the window of a netscape-compatible browser (Navigator,
-Mozilla, Konqueror, Galeon, Opera...). This is indeed a trick in the X11
-windowing model, and don't even expect to port this behaviour to any
-non-X11-based operating system, even supported by VLC (MS Windows,
-MacOS X, BeOS, QNX, ...). <p>
-
-Download it here : <a href="http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/docs/XSwallow.html">
-http://www.csn.ul.ie/~caolan/docs/XSwallow.html</a>. Compilation is really
-straightforward, it basically boils down to some :
-<pre> make -f makefile.linux </pre> <p>
-
-Place the resulting xswallow.so in a directory scanned by your browser
-for plug-ins (for instance, /usr/lib/netscape/plugins, this scan path
-can with some browsers be read in $NPX_PLUGIN_PATH) and xswallow.conf
-in the directory indicated by the environment variable $MOZILLA_HOME. If
-it is currently unset, <b>set it</b> with for instance :
-<pre> export MOZILLA_HOME=/etc </pre> <p>
-
-Of course your mileage may vary. The last step is to customize xswallow.conf
-so that it launches VLC to handle MPEG files. Comment out all lines you
-don't need, and add :
-<pre>
-video/mpeg; mpeg,mpg,vob; vlc -I dummy -V xvideo %s; VLC (XVideo output); VideoLAN
-</pre> <p>
-
-Notes :
-<ul>
- <li> This assumes vlc is in your $PATH, if it is not the case, adapt it.
- <li> If nothing shows up, it might be because VLC cannot find its plug-ins.
- Please check that they are in an appropriate place (such as
- /usr/lib/videolan/vlc). You can try to add -vvvvv to the arguments to
- see where it fails.
- <li> The third field on the line is the actual name of the window to
- swallow. This is currently annoying, you will have to guess the
- name of the video output window, ie. changing the version number
- and the output plug-in (to SDL for instance if you use SDL). At
- present there is no way to force VLC to use a definite name, but
- it will be added by 0.2.90.
- <li> When the window is first spawned, it will appear on screen and
- then be quicky reparented, making some flickering. The usual
- workaround is to make the window appear at offset +10000+10000
- using the --geometry switch, but it is not currently supported
- by VLC. The will be addressed by 0.2.90 too.
- <li> If your window manager isn't configured for automatic placement
- of new windows, it may ask you to manually place the window before
- XSwallow can swallow it. This is annoying, too. The only workaround
- is to disable the functionality (for instance with twm, add
- RandomPlacement in .twmrc). It will be addressed at the same time
- with --geometry.
- <li> XSwallow will first download the file, and then launch VLC. There
- is no way to begin reading the stream before it is complete, à la
- QuickTime plug-in. This will be addressed in a future version of
- VLC (0.4). If you want to do live streaming, proceed to the next
- chapter.
-</ul> <p>
-
-From now on, if you have your browser reload its plug-in list, it will
-display VideoLAN as application handler for video/mpeg. You should now
-try and see what it yields.
-
-
- <h2> Tricks for live web streaming using VLMS </h2>
-
-With a little trick, it is possible to stream a video using VLC and VLMS,
-and make it appear in a Web browser (without having a local copy of the
-file). This will only work if there is no firewall (nor masquerading)
-between the server and the client. It requires to have a CGI support
-built into the Web server. <p>
-
-Here is the sketch :
-<ul>
- <li> The client requests a specific page, say video.html. This page
- contains an image tag to a file vlc.ts, AND launches a VLMS
- through a CGI script.
- <li> The client receives the vlc.ts file which contains the address
- of the VLMS server, and through a special mime-type in XSwallow
- spawns a VLC.
- <li> As soon as VLC begins to receive the stream, it is swallowed by
- XSwallow and appears in the browser's window.
-</ul>
-
- <h3> Configuring the Web server </h3>
-
-In this section I will only give configuration directives for Apache.
-You need to add a new MIME type for TS stream in httpd.conf :
-<pre> AddType video/x-mpeg-ts .ts </pre> <p>
-
-And relaunch your Web server (apachectl reload). Next, create the vlc.html
-page. You need two specific lines, one to load vlc.ts, the other to start
-the VLMS server ; for instance in PHP (adapt it for Perl, Java, or whatever) :
-<pre>
-<img src="vlc.ts">
-<?php system("/var/www/cgi-bin/stream.sh $REMOTE_ADDR mystream.mpg > /dev/null 2>&1 &"); ?>
-</pre> <p>
-
-Where stream.sh is a simple shell script :
-<pre>
-#!/bin/sh
-vlms -d $1 -a mpeg $2
-</pre> <p>
-
-VLMS starts streaming mystream.mpg to $REMOTE_ADDR (the IP address fetched
-by the server, this is why you cannot do it through firewalls) on port 1234.
-
-Notes :
-<ul>
- <li> The -a mpeg option may surprise you ; the VLMS doesn't preparse the
- stream and thus cannot know which audio channel to send. If you had
- an AC3 audio track, you could have put -a ac3. You can also
- activate subtitles with -s.
- <li> VLMS only reads MPEG-1 files from version 0.2 on. If you have an
- older version, you may want to upgrade.
- <li> It is possible that, due to the client latency, the client misses
- the first frames of the stream. I have no ideal workaround for this.
- <li> Some streams (especially MPEG-1) only have one sequence header at the
- beginning of the stream. Since the client risks missing it, it may
- be completely unable to decode the stream _at all_. If you only get
- a blank screen, please try with another stream, such as one test
- stream on <a href="ftp://ftp.videolan.org/pub/videolan/streams">
- ftp://ftp.videolan.org/pub/videolan/streams</a> before issuing
- a bug report.
- <li> You should be careful that the stream.sh script is indeed launched
- in the background. If your CGI program waits for it, it doesn't
- hang up the connection until it finishes, and Web browsers wait
- for the connection to be closed before launching plug-ins. In
- that case you have nothing on screen, not even a <em> Click to
- abort swallow </em> message.
-</ul> <p>
-
-Finally, create the vlc.ts file. It just contains the address of the server,
-so that VLC can bind on it (you can't retrieve that from XSwallow). For
-instance :
-<pre> streaming.idealx.com </pre> <p>
-
- <h3> Configuring XSwallow </h3>
-
-You need to add an entry video/x-mpeg-ts in you xswallow.conf :
-<pre> video/x-mpeg-ts; ts; video-streaming.sh %s; VLC (XVideo output); VideoLAN </pre> <p>
-
-The same provisions as before apply here. The video-streaming.sh file is a
-simple shell script which retrieves the server's name and spawns VLC :
-<pre>
-#!/bin/sh
-SERVER=$( cat $@ )
-vlc -I dummy -V xvideo ts://$SERVER
-</pre> <p>
-
-Here you go. This is quite a hack, but it will hold until the next major
-release of VLC.
-
-
- <h2> Acknowledgements </h2>
-
-This page has been written by <a href="mailto:massiot@via.ecp.fr">
-Christophe Massiot</a> for <a href="http://www.idealx.com/"> IDEALX
-S.A.S</a>. <br>
-<em> $Id$ </em>
-
-</body>
-
-</html>
-
projects / vlc / commitdiff