Streaming to Multiple Computers on Your Network with Multicast on VLC

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Learn ways to stream audio and video to multiple computers using VLC and Multicast

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Last Updated: June 17, 2023

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Streaming on a Network Client

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Dealing with delay between playbacks

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Tips

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Warnings

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Things You'll Need

VideoLan media player (VLC) is an incredibly versatile media player available for Windows, Linux and other *Nix clones. It's also available for Mac, and gives you powerful options for advanced media controls and display. Using VLC makes it easy to stream audio and video using Multicast.

Things You Should Know

Open a Network Stream in VLC and select the file that you want to stream.
In VLC, go to the Destinations box and choose "HTTP" then add the other computers.
If you're experiencing sound issues, go to VLC and make sure the "Display Locally" box is unchecked.

Steps

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When installation is complete, open the program.
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Near the bottom of the screen, click the drop arrow next to "Play" and select "Stream."
Click on “Add".
Check that no other software uses the port 8080.

Method 1

Method 1 of 2:

Streaming on a Network Client

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Click "Play."

Method 2

Method 2 of 2:

Dealing with delay between playbacks

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If you listen to the same stream on computers in multiple rooms, they are all at different places in the stream, which results in an incredible, unpleasant cacophony. If you change to vlc streaming from one and listening to the stream on the others, the result will be that all the others are at different delays from the stream server. Here's what to do to address this issue:

Do not check the "display locally" box. It will stay silent, you will not hear anything, however, the stream is sent out.
Tighten the buffering/caching: Start with a 20ms caching and increment by 10 until the stream is free of cutting out. In the startup phase it will always cut out a lot, but the stream will stabilize after about 5 to 10 seconds and be smooth.
Open a second vlc client and listen to the stream as you do on all the others, same caching/buffering values.

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Tips

To change the default time for announcements, go to Settings, Preferences, Stream Output, SAP. Make sure "Control SAP Flow" is unchecked and then lower the interval to whatever you need.

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The multicast address is an IP address that falls within a certain range. Addresses from 224.0.0.0 to 239.255.255.255 are automatically recognized as multicast by your router (if it supports multicast at all). The range 239.0.0.0 through 239.255.255.255 are "administratively scoped", that is, not global addresses, so fine for using on your lan.

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With this set up, you can have an extensive playlist multicasting and continually looping that anyone on your network can join at any time. You could set up a wireless broadcast channel and stream TV (yes, you can stream from a TV tuner card with VLC!), movies, anything, to as many people as your network can handle. It intelligently broadcasts to only requesting clients, so your computer isn't getting information after you stop watching, which potentially reduces network load.

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Warnings

While this will work on 95% of home equipment and networks, this will not work on the internet you probably have at home (using IPv4). Even though home routers have supported this feature for a while, multicast was developed after the current widespread specifications had been standardized. There are, of course, options, but it's not going to work without using IPv6, the next version of Internet Protocol (which, for some reason, is available and used all over the world, but just isn't popular yet). If your home router DOESN'T support multicast, you should probably get a new router.

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