Typing multicast addresses and URLs is not very fun... and that's where a small program, the mini VideoLAN Channel Server (mini-VLCS), is very useful. The mini VideoLAN Channel Server associate URLs or multicast addresses to channels, like on a TV. Mini-VLCS is only available for Linux. You don't have to change anything to vls or the Web server. Mini-VLCS is independant from them, but is can be installed on the same machine as vls or the Web server. Download the latest version of mini-VLCS from the network download page. Install-it: % tar xvzf miniVLCS-version.tar.gz % cd miniVLCS-version % make It creates an executable program named vlcs. Edit the configuration file vlcs.conf. The syntax rules of this configuration file are the following : the first line corresponds to channel 0, the second line corresponds to channel 1, the third line to channel 2, and so on..., lines are considered raw data and sent directly to the client (for example, udp:@239.255.12.42), lines beginning by I: are "dummy" channel programs that tell VLC there is nothing in this channel (which should be the case of channel 0). For exemple, if you want channels 1 and 2 to be two multicasted streams and channels 3 and 4 to be two on-demand streams, your vlcs.conf file will look like this : I:nostream udp:@239.255.12.42 udp:@239.255.12.43 http://vod.videolan.org/test/video1.mpg http://vod.videolan.org/test/video2.mpg Start mini-VLCS : % ./vlcs For production, you should run the program in a screen, so that you can detach-it and reattach-it: % screen ./vlcs Launch VLC, click on the net button or select in the menu File / Network stream, select Channel Server, enter the DNS name or the IP address of the machine hosting mini-VLCS and click on OK. Then, you see a new section Network Channel on the interface. Select the channel of your choice and click on Go!.