the permanent TODO

November 15, 2009

home brew VoD server using free software

Filed under: tech — {Francisco,François} Varas @ 9:15 pm

This is a short, quick-and-dirty howto that aims to show through example how to have a Video On Demand server at home.

I will, as far as I can, avoid all technical boring stuff. If you are really curious, GOOGLE it.

This allows to centralize all your mp3 and avi amongst others, to have one single storage/streaming unit, avoiding redundant mp3 copies or depending on YOUR laptop to see movies. Now mom will be able to see HouseMD using her PC.

So, what you will need:

  • A linux box, any flavor, pIII@800MHz + 512MbRAM, server oriented, as much storage as you can,  are far enough.
  • a little scripting skills (perl, python, ruby, bash, what so fucking ever)
  • install vlc
  • a VoD client (mplayer & vlc work out of the box)
  • a LAN, cabled or WiFied

I will assume you already completed the previous tasks. If you have any trouble, google it.

server side:

launch vlc as a regular user:
vlc –ttl 4 –color -I telnet –telnet-password videolan –rtsp-host 0.0.0.0:5554

client side:

You can use our favorite programming language, or netcat. Open a telnet connection to your VoD server and enter the password.

You will see something like this:

nc -t 192.168.0.13 4212

Password: ��videolan

Welcome, Master

>

In this prompt you can :

a) setup a file

<stream_name> is how the stream will be identifued in the rtsp path.

<file_name.avi> is the real name of your {avi,mp3} file in the filesystem.

new <stream_name> vod enabled
setup <stream_name> input “file:///home/user/<file_name.avi>”

b) load a setup file

use your favorite text editor and write a file containing the above information and name it vod-setup…

load /home/user/vod-setup

…to be continued

>Password: ��videola

12 Comments »

  1. nice todo ;) haven’t tried it but some day.

    Comment by alej0 — November 16, 2009 @ 5:18 pm

  2. Haha Or you can buy a nice Toucan 500 for 10 000€ that will do the SAME thing huhuh !

    Comment by zsuperben — November 16, 2009 @ 8:29 pm

  3. Comments test

    Comment by f varas — November 17, 2009 @ 9:07 am

  4. :D
    but vlc has better support :D

    Comment by {Francisco,François} Varas — November 17, 2009 @ 9:43 am

  5. BUENA PO GALO…. OJALA QUE PARA TU PRIXIMO VIAJE TE ACUERDES DE TUS AMIGOS… JIJI…. Y POR LA CHUCHA @#@ YO NO SOY BILINGUE ASI QUE LO NECESITO EN ESPAÑOL… CUIDATE MUCHO AMIGO

    Comment by NOLUX — November 17, 2009 @ 6:08 pm

  6. Y ME VENÍ a echar la shoría loco?

    Voy a hacer una version traducida al español pronto!!!
    el proximo viaje con tudo

    Comment by {Francisco,François} Varas — November 19, 2009 @ 3:14 pm

  7. [...] on python sockets. i needed to send automagic answers using a telnet connection to my VoD server in order to achieve a little less shocking home Vod experience for news users, beta testers, [...]

    Pingback by python socket « the permanent TODO — November 30, 2009 @ 9:52 am

  8. Hola exelente la explicacion, muy util funciona en linux, pero me gustaria saber en un cliente windows de q manera deberia ejecutar esos comandos, si alguien sabe le rogaria que me ayude.

    Comment by bruno — December 22, 2009 @ 11:17 pm

  9. bueno nada ya encontre la respuesta ;-) es esta
    telnet
    telnet

    Comment by bruno — December 22, 2009 @ 11:56 pm

  10. telnet (ip o host) (puerto)

    Comment by bruno — December 22, 2009 @ 11:59 pm

  11. Bruno: el ejemplo de socket en python
    http://casa.dragon-tortuga.net/blog/?p=39
    funciona como un cliente “telnet”

    Comment by {Francisco,François} Varas — December 24, 2009 @ 12:01 pm

  12. [...] you want to share all your music at home, avoiding annoying VoD servers. Here’s the [...]

    Pingback by mounting an NFS filesystem « the permanent TODO — January 25, 2010 @ 10:03 am

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