How to use the VLC Media Player
with the Barix Exstreamer
The VLC Media Player is a nice tool to stream MP3 songs simultaneously to the Exstreamers
or Annuncicoms. The result will be you can hear the same song at the same time from many
Exstreamers i.e. in a football stadion .
It is a free software and can be downloaded from
http://www.videolan.org/streaming/
,
a english version is available too. The older version 0.8.6 had few little bugs, but no problem.
The following screen shot was made from VLC version 0.8.6, in the meantime the VLC design
and functionality has changed. The second page describes how to use VLC version 1.xx.
It´s easy to install, only the handling is a little bit tricky. Please see the picture below. Click on
the play button or “Datei” – “Stream ….” to get the window for the setup.
Sometimes it could happen that the setup for the encapsulation protocol is inverted and you
can´t select the “Raw” type, in this case you have to mark and unmark the RTP protocol then
it changes to not inverted. UDP Broadcast does (for any reason ?) not work simultaneously,
you have to use any Multicast address ( i.e. 224.0.0.1 ).
The setup in the Exstreamer (standard firmware) should be “Mode 4 – Streaming Receiver”
and you have to define a “UDP Streaming Listener Port” (in this example: 3030). Or you can
also use the UDP Priority port in any other mode.
The following description (and screen shot) was tested with VLC Media Player version 1.1.5 .
In the newer VLC Media player versions you have to copy the OPTION string manually.
To stream from a the new VLC version to a Barix Exstreamer execute the following steps .
–
First open VLC
–
select from VLC menu : MEDIA – Advanced Open File ...
–
there select your audio files (MP3) or your playlist file (m3u)
–
make sure the “Show more options” check box is marked
–
then copy the following string to “Edit Options”
for RTP Streaming (requires RTP Listen Port on Barix devices):
:sout=#duplicate{dst=rtp{dst=224.0.0.1,port-audio=4444}}
(generates a RTP multicast stream to port number 4444)
for RAW UDP Streaming :
:sout=#duplicate{dst=std{access=udp,mux=raw,dst=224.0.0.1:3030}}
(generates a RAW UDP multicast stream to port number 3030)
The target port number and/or target IP address at the end of the string is changable !
–
thereafter click on “Play”
–
ready, when your Exstreamer is properly configured then it should play now.
VLC listening a
n
audio stream from Barix Instreamer
The VLC media player also can listen an audio stream from the Barix encoder devices like the
Instreamer. Two modes/protocols are for that available, HTTP or RTP.
To listen a stream with VLC Media player click on
„Media“ and select „Open Network Stream“.
A new window will be opened.
In this new „Open Media“ window the network
URL must be defined (under tab „Network“).
For HTTP define in the network URL the
URL of the Instreamer Internet Radio stream.
There you have to define the protocol, the
Instreamer - IP address and the path for the
audio (per default „/xstream“), e.g:
http://192.168.10.174/xstream
When in the Instreamer setup a port number
different than 0 or 80 is defined for the
Internet Radio then the port number must
be additional defined in the URL e.g.:
http://192.168.10.174:8888/xstream
The HTTP mode works only with MP3 codec.
For RTP define in the network URL the
protocol and a listen port number, this must
be the same port number the Instreamer
uses for streaming (see URL in right picture).
The Instreamer supports different codecs
(MP3, PCM, G.711) and sampling rates, not
all are supported in VLC media player, but
the following were working in VLC version
2.05:
MP3 in all frequencies/bitrates
G.711 in 8 kHz mono
PCM 44.1 kHz mono big endian
PCM 44.1 kHz stereo big endian
The lowest latencies can be reached in this
mode with PCM codec, there below 100 ms
(in VLC setting „Caching“) are possible.
Doc V1.5 02.05.13/SG, © 2013 BARIX AG