How to Use Vlc to Stream Music
VideoLAN's VLC is a free media player application that supports playback for a robust assortment of audio and video formats. While it can open files in popular formats like MP3, MP4, WMA, WMV, RealAudio and RealVideo, it can also read more specialized formats like MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX, AES3 and Raw Dirac. The software is also compatible with numerous operating systems, including Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and even Linux. But the media player can do more than read multimedia containers; in addition to performing file conversions, it can also implement network streaming. When used as a streaming server, VLC can stream music to other computers within a network.
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Things You'll Need
- 2 computers with Internet connectivity
- VideoLAN's VLC
- Audio files (eg MP3, AAC, OGG, or WMA)
Instructions
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Download and install VLC on two machines--one that will stream the music, and another that will receive the music stream. The free application can be obtained from CNET's Download.com, or directly from the software developer (see Resources for link).
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Add music to VLC on the streaming computer. Go to "Media," and click on "Advanced Open File." In the "Open Media" window, click the "Add" button in the "File" tab. In the file selection dialog box, navigate to the saved location of your music's audio file and double-click on the filename. If you prefer, create a playlist by selecting multiple audio files and double-clicking the selection. The audio file(s) will populate in the "File Selection" field. Click the drop-down button next to the "Play" button, and select "Stream."
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Stream music from your computer. In the "Stream Output" window, click the "Destinations" tab and check the "Display locally" box. Select "UDP" from the "New destination" drop-down menu and click the "Add" button. In the UDP tab, enter the IP address of the computer you want to stream the music to. Leave the "Port" as 1234. Click the "Stream" button, the music will begin playing on the computer.
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Receive streamed music on your computer. Open VLC and go to "Media," then "Open network stream." Select "UDP" from the "Protocol" drop-down menu and click the "Play" button. The computer will receive the music stream.
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Tips & Warnings
The VLC music stream is not limited to the two computers sharing the audio. Any user can remotely control and access the VLC music stream through a web browser. In order to enable this, open VLC on the streaming computer and go to "View," "Add Interface" and select "Web Interface." Next, open a browser and enter the streaming computer's IP address followed by ":8080" (without the quotes). The URL should look something like this: http://1.234.567.890:8080/. Once the web interface is activated, any user can access the audio stream with the IP-specific URL.
References
Resources
- Photo Credit headphones image by Nevena Kozekova from Fotolia.com
