1. Introduction

1.1 What is the VideoLAN project ?

VideoLAN is a complete software solution for video streaming, developed by students at the Ecole Centrale Paris and contributors from all over the world, under the General Public License (GPL). It has been designed for streaming MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 videos on local area networks (LAN), but it can be extended to metropolitan or wide area networks (MAN, WAN), thanks to the multicast technology.

The VideoLAN solution includes a server, which can stream video from various sources (file, DVD, satellite and MPEG 2 encoder), a client, which can receive, decode and display MPEG 1 and MPEG 2 streams and, if necessary, a channel server which tells automatically to the client the parameters needed to receive the stream.

Here is an illustration of the complete VideoLAN solution :

        DVD --->-                 Unicast/Broadcast/Multicast
                  \                           ---
        File --->--     --------            /     \            --------
                   |->-| Server |=====>====|  LAN  |---->-----| Client |
     Satellite ->--    | (VLS)  |           \     /           | (VLC)  |
                  /     --------              ---              --------
       MPEG2 -->-                              ^
      encoder                                  |
                                               v
                                        ----------------
                                       | Channel Server |
                                       |    (VLCS)      |
                                        ----------------

1.2 Legal notice

Copyright (©) 2002 by the VideoLAN project.

Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation ; with no Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover Texts. The text of the license can be found on http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html.

1.3 The documentation of the project

There are four main documents :

• the VideoLAN Quickstart,
• the VideoLAN HOWTO,
• this VideoLAN Server user guide,
• the VLC HOWTO.

The up-to-date version of these documents can be found on the VideoLAN Web site.

1.4 What is the VideoLAN server (vls) ?

The VideoLAN Server (vls) can read videos from :

• an MPEG 1 or MPEG 2 file stored on a hard drive or on a CD,
• a DVD located in a local DVD drive or copied on a hard drive,
• a satellite card,
• an MPEG encoding card ;

and stream it on the network in MPEG2-TS format to :

• one machine (i.e. to one IP address) : this is called unicast ;
• all the machines of a subnet (i.e. to a broadcast IP address) : this is called broadcast ;
• a dynamic group of machines that the clients can join or leave (i.e. to a multicast IP address) : this is called multicast.

1.5 Requirements

Operating System

The VideoLAN Server is supposed to work under any Unix-like operating system. A Windows port exists since version 0.3.3, but at the moment it can only stream files stored an a disk (Video, DVB and DVD inputs are not supported yet)

Software requirements

You will need libdvdread if you want to stream DVDs with vls, and libdvdcss for reading encrypted DVDs.

DVB support requires libdvbpsi and the DVB drivers installed.

Hardware requirements

Vls is a very light software and needs few ressources. A Pentium 100 MHz with 32 MB of memory should be enough for broadcasting one stream (then it takes about 50% of CPU time). On my Pentium III 800 MHz, I can broadcast more than 5 streams and vls eats less than 1% of CPU ! When broadcasting a lot of streams stored on a hard disk, the actual limitation is not the processor but the disk (especially when using IDE disks).

1.6 Contact us

If you have any questions about the VideoLAN Server, you can contact us at the mailing-list vls@videolan.org