IntroductionWhat is the VideoLAN project ?Overview
VideoLAN is a complete software solution for video streaming, developed
by students of the Ecole Centrale
Paris and developers from all over the world, under the
GNU General Public
License (GPL). VideoLAN is designed to stream MPEG videos on high
bandwidth networks.
The VideoLAN solution includes :the VideoLAN Server (VLS), which can stream MPEG-1,
MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files, DVDs, digital satellite channels, digital terrestial
television channels and live videos on the network in unicast or
multicast,the VideoLAN Client (VLC), which can be used as a server
to stream MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files and DVDs on the network in
unicast or multicast ; or used as a client to receive, decode and
display MPEG streams under multiple operating systems.Here is an illustration of the complete VideoLAN solution :
More details about the project can be found on the
VideoLAN Web site.
VideoLAN softwareVideoLAN Client
The VideoLAN Client (VLC) works on many platforms : Linux, Windows, Mac
OS X, BeOS, *BSD, Solaris, Familiar Linux, Yopy/Linupy and QNX. It can
read :
MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 / DivX files from a hard disk
or a CD-ROM drive,DVDs and VCDs,from a satellite card,MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 streams from the
network sent by VLS or VLC's stream output.VLC can also be used as a server to stream :MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 / DivX files,and DVDs,to :one machine (i.e. to one IP address) : this is called
unicast ;a dynamic group of machines that the clients can join or leave
(i.e. to a multicast IP address) : this is called
multicast.VLC doesn't work on Mac OS 9, and will
probably never do.VideoLAN Server
The VideoLAN Server (VLS) can stream :
an MPEG-1, MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 files stored on a hard drive or on a
CD,a DVD located in a local DVD drive or copied on a hard
disk,a satellite card or a digital terrestial television
card,an MPEG encoding card ;to :one machine (i.e. to one IP address) : this is called
unicast ;a dynamic group of machines that the clients can join or leave
(i.e. to a multicast IP address) : this is called
multicast.
A Pentium 100 MHz with 32 MB of memory should be enough to send one
stream on the network. When streaming a lot of videos stored on a
hard drive, the actual limitation is not the processor but the hard
drive and the network connection.
VLS works under Linux and Mac OS X.
How can I use VideoLAN ?The documentation
The user documentation of the VideoLAN project is composed of four documents :
the VideoLAN
Quickstart. This document will give you a quick overview of
of VLC, VLC's stream output, the Video On Demand
solution and the channel information service system.the VideoLAN
HOWTO. This document is the complete guide of the VideoLAN
streaming solution.the VLC user
guide. This document is the complete guide for VLC.the VLC FAQ. This
document contains Frequently Asked Questions of VLC users.The latest version of these documents can be found on the documentation page.User support
If you have problems using VideoLAN, and if you don't find the
answer to your problems in the documentation, please look at the
online archive of the
mailing-lists. There are two English-speaking mailing-lists for
the users :
vlc@videolan.org for the questions
on VLC,streaming@videolan.org for the questions
on VLS, mini-SAP-server and the network.
If you want to subscribe or unsubscribe to the mailing-lists,
please go to the
mailing-list page.
You can also talk with VideoLAN users and developers on IRC :
server irc.freenode.net, channel
#videolan.If you find a bug, please follow the instructions on the bug reporting
page.ConventionWindows usersSome features are currently only available using
the command line interface of VLC. To run such commands, use the Windows
command line tool.Unix usersUnix systems users : in this document, we adopt the following
conventions for the Unix commands :commands that should be typed as
root have a # prompt :# command_to_be_typed_as_rootcommands that should be typed as a regular user have a
% prompt :% command_to_be_typed_as_regular_user