VLC Media Player: Desktop Streaming Using VLC Media Player

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1. Open VLC media player (version 1.0.5.) on the Server side (i.e. On the Desktop you want to stream from).




2. Select the tab Media.




3. To setup VLC media player as server, select Open Capture Device. The default option for Capture mode would be DirectShow.




4. In order to stream your Desktop, click on the dropdown arrow besides Capture mode and select Desktop and change the Desired frame rate for the capture to 15 (Customize the frame rate according to your needs).




5. Now select Stream, by clicking on the small tab towards the left side of the Play tab in the bottom right hand corner.




6. After selecting Stream, a new window Stream Output should appear. Select Next for configuring the settings.




7. In the Stream Output window, under the section Destinations, select Display locally and Activate Transcoding.




8. Click on the dropdown arrow beside the New Destination tab and set it to UDP (default is File).




9. After selecting UDP from the dropdown, click on Add. Here, you have to specify the IP address of the destination machine (client machine) on which you are streaming the desktop to, and specify the Port no. as 1234.

Note: With UDP, we don't type IP address of the server i.e. we type the IP address of the receiving computer (or multicast).




10. You can also specify the video options by clicking on the icon , besides the Profile dropdown.




In this window, you can change the Bit rate, Frame Rate and Width/Height accordingly for better video quality.







When you have finished making changes in the above mentioned windows, click Save.

11. Click on the Next tab in the bottom right hand corner.




12. Click on the tab Stream.




13. After you select Stream in the previous screen, you would be seeing your own desktop in VLC player as shown below.




14. Steps to be performed on the Client side (on the desktop, the ip address you specified initially for streaming). Open VLC media player on the client machine. Click on Media from the top, and select Open Network Stream.




15. in this window, you have to specify the Protocol as UDP, by clicking on the dropdown arrow below Protocol, and specify the ip address of the machine (same IP address which you specified earlier, while configuring the VLC server) under the tab Address with the same Port number (1234).

Note: The protocol (UDP), ip address (ip address of the machine on which you want to stream the Desktop) and the Port (1234) remains the same as specified earlier during the set up.




16. Select Play on the bottom right hand corner of the window and you would be viewing the other (server) computer's desktop on this (client) computer using VLC video player.