Ariba VLC Plugin - Overlay-based Videostreaming using Ariba and MCPO Application Layer Multicast

NOTE! This text is currently under development. Please do not rely on completeness or even correctness of the following content.

User Guide

What is the VLC-MCPO plugin?

The vlc-mcpo plugin is an (not yet) open source streaming module for the vlc-mediaplayer (​http://www.videolan.org). It comes with a sender and a receiver module. And is able to handle any kind of stream, vlc can deal with.

The plugin uses the mcpo multicast protocol, which is part of the ariba framework.

Ariba provides a virtual overlay net. [...]

For more information about ariba or the SpoVNet project, please refer to: ​http://www.ariba-underlay.org/, ​http://www.spovnet.de/

Setting up / installing

The ariba framework is currently only available on linux and therefor the plugin is linux-only at the moment.

A quick and simple way for testing but also useing the plugin are the precompiled libraries. In this section we describe how to set up an ubuntu 10.04 for this purpose. This should be adoptable to other linux distributions in an easy manner. Instructions how to compile the plugin will be provided in the Developers Guide below.

For running the vlc-mcpo plugin a number of packages have to be installed:

sudo apt-get install vlc
sudo apt-get install libboost-system1.40.0
sudo apt-get install libboost-thread1.40.0
sudo apt-get install libboost-regex1.40.0
sudo apt-get install liblog4cxx10
sudo apt-get install libdb4.7

Please download the tar-ball containing the required libraries: 32bit linux: [ coming soon ] 64bit linux: [ coming soon ]

Unpack the archive to $HOME. (If you choose another location, you have to adjust the path in the running script.)

Now you can link the running-script to $HOME/bin or /usr/bin via:
cd $HOME/bin
ln -s $HOME/vlc-mcpo/run.sh vlc-mcpo

Or just run from where it is.

(Note: If you just created the $HOME/bin folder, you have to start a new bash.) (Note: The following instructions assume you created one of links described above.)

A first test:

Now it's time for a first simple test.

Run two instanced of the modified vlc-players:
° LANG=en_US.UTF-8 vlc-mcpo & LANG=en_US.UTF-8 vlc-mcpo &
(Note: "LANG=en_US.UTF-8" sets the language of these two vlc-instances on English for easier following the instructions below.)

Two vlc-windows should open, let's call them [S] and [R].

° On [R] please click: Media > Open Network Stream...
° Then choose: Protocol: »MCPO« (Note: If you can only see protocols like: HTTP, HTTPS, UDP, etc but no MCPO then the plugin wasn't load into your vlc. Please refer to the trouble shooting section in this case.)
° The address field should now look like this: 1234:localhost:5000
° Press »play«.

° Continuing on [S], click: Meda > Streaming...
° Add a video file. (For a first test we recommend the test-video [coming soon], or at least a video you're successfully able to stream via UDP. Just eliminate sources of error not connected to the vlc-mcpo plugin.)
° Press »Stream«.
° Press »Next«.
° Choose »MCPO« and press »Add«.
° Now you can see: Source: Port: 5000; Destination: Address: localhost, Port: 1234
° Disable transcoding and press »Stream«.
° After a few seconds you should see the video in [R].

Usage

In this section we describe the parameters of the mcpo-vlc plugin and some usage scenarios which demonstrate the strength of the mcpo approach.

Mcpo-vlc uses a spontaneous virtual network (SpoVNet) for distributing the video content. Each SpoVNet have to consist of 0-1 senders and 0-N receivers. The connection procedure does not depend on the role (sender/receiver) one instance has. This can confuse a little in the beginning, as on most streaming protocols the role defines whether one instance is client or server.

Parameters

The mcpo-vlc plugin takes three connection parameters. source-port:destination-address:destination-port (e.g. 1234:localhost:5000)

The source-port provides an entry point for other instances to the SpoVNet our instance is in (or will be in). To access this entry point destination address and destination port must be set on the ip-address (or domain name) and source-port of an instance in the targeted SpoVNet.

An instance which has not connected to such an entry point makes up a SpoVNet with only itself in it.

Creating a SpoVNet

At first we need an initial SpoVNet, consisting of a single mcpo-vlc instance. This instance can either be server or client but must be accessible from (at least) the second instance. On the first instance we have to set the source-port. (Destination-address and -port can be set but as long as there is no other instance listening there, setting this parameters has no effect.)

On the second instance, destination-address and -port must be set adequate. It can also set the source-port to act as an entry point later.

A third instance can either use the first instance or the second as an entry point.

Et cetera.

Note: In the current implementation the sender begins the transmission immediately when it's ready. Using the sender as initial node may result in missing the beginning of the transmission.

Examples / Scenarios

Trouble shooting

Developer Guide