other stream sources - page twelve

Streaming from a different machine.
One of the really neat and powerful things about an icecast streaming server is the source client can be anywhere, on any machine. You can be half way around the world and stream to your icecast server with the appropriate source client.


Using VLC as a stream source from a windows machine
VLC is a terrific open source, cross platform, media player, that plays almost any media format. It can be installed on linux or windows as well as numerous other operating systems. VLC can do a lot other really neat things too, besides playing just about anything. You can use vlc to download youtube videos, convert media files to different format, and as a stream source client. If you don't have it installed you can get it at; http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

To stream a vlc playlist [randomly and continuosly] to your icecast server;
On your pc with your music library [in any vlc playable format] install vlc and start it. From within VLC
    click on; tools| preferences, tick show settings, all, select playlist, tick; play files randomly forever and auto start, then save.
    click on; view | playlist. Highlight playlist if its not highlighted. In the big white area right click, select add folder and navigate to your music folder, click select folder. You should now have a [blue] folder in the big white area under title.
    right click on the folder, click on stream. In the pop up box, click on next. In destinations, change new destination to IceCast, click add. Set the following;
        address:       yourserversIPaddress [in my example, withiun my home network its 192.168.1.21 ]
        mount point:   anything you want, but should end in .ogg [I'll use newstream.ogg]
        login:pass:    source:     [critical, must be exactly  source:harpchahal]
        tick activate transcoding, change profile to audio - vorbis (ogg). Click next then stream

VLC is a great program. We will now use it to download a youtube video and convert it to ogg theora. When doing this the first time, to eliminate all variables, download and convert the same video as I do. From your web browser, search youtube for " beverly hillbillies season 1 episode 1 ". Play the video in your browser and copy the link. It should be http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uofJowqrk4M. Once you've copied the link you can close your browser, or just stop the video from playing. If you've still got vlc streaming, stop the stream.

In VLC click on media | open network stream, and paste the beverely hillbillies link into the space for network URL. Click the black downward pointin V next to the play button and click on convert. In the destination file box type in c:\temp\beverlyhillbillieses1e1.ogv
Change the profile to ' Video - Theora + Vorbis (OGG). Click start. The convert box will dissappear, but in the vlc main window you will see the blue played status bar progress as its being converted to ogv and downloaded. When complete, close vlc.