Streaming Video with UDP Unicasting using VLC

[dillonlim]

Prerequisites

You need to install VLC on both the server and client. Preferably the latest version which is 0.96 I believe. I've also briefly tested it with 0.86 and it seems to work fine.

Caveat

This is written and tested with AutoIt version 3.2.10.0 and x86 WinXP. I pretty sure it won't run correctly with 3.2.12.0 since there appears to have been changes with some of the includes. I'm fairly certain that it won't run correctly on Vista without some modifications. Likewise with x64 Windows OSes.

How to use it

Make sure you already have VLC installed on both the server and client.

On the server - Copy the sserver.au3 and server.ini to the system with the video files you want to stream. Edit the server.ini file to define the TCP port you want the server to listen for client connections. You'll also need to point to folder with the video files you want to stream.

On the client - Copy the sclient and client.ini to the system to receive the media stream. Edit the client.ini file to define the IP address of the server and port to connect on. The port number must be the same as the one defined in the server.ini.

Start sserver.au3 and it should list the available video files. Next start the client and the drop down box should show a list of video files similar to the server. If you add or remove files from the media directory, click the refresh button and the media list on the server should update. At the same time, it should also push an update to all connected sockets and the client should get an updated list as well. Select a video and click "START".

What's with the weak-ass encryption you're using?

I was testing the server at work and I realized that the network folks here use Vericept to sniff the network. If you telnet to the server at the listening port, it will send you a list of media in plain text. That didn't sit too well with me, so I used the built in encryption in AutoIt and scrambled stuff before sending just to make it a little more interesting for the network guys here.

I've only worked with AutoIt for a year or so, so you folks will have to excuse my brain-dead code and logic.

sserver.au3

sclient.au3