[streaming] Re: unclas - VLS/VLC problems

[Jean-Paul Saman]

Bennett, Ian MR 3 wrote:
> Tristan,
> 	Firstly, I must apologise as I have had Email issues over the last
> week. Anyone sending me Email from outside the network would have received
> bounce messages saying something along the lines of the alias "Ian.Bennett3"
> no longer exists.
> 	I'm not sure if you received my last two Emails so I will recap as I
> have tried a few other tests.


> 	In Summary.........My test network consists of a Linux box (RH8)
> running VLS and a number of XP, Win2K and one Linux VLC clients. I have the
> mini-sapserver running on the VLS box to serve the content. I have only one
> stream at this stage which is on a continuous loop. From this main segment,
> I have a router that connects to other routers so I can experiment with
> multicast routing; specifically multicast boundaries using "scope".
> 	I have VLS running as a daemon (vlsd) so have the console logging
> disabled and syslog enabled as recommended in the doco. The name of the log
> file is supposed to be vls.log but I can't find it anywhere. Any clues?? Is
> there something else in Linux's syslogd I need to setup to receive this???

Did you enable systemlog in vls.cfg? Like this:

# Application wide settings
BEGIN "Vls"
   LogFile       = ""             	# log file
   ScreenLog     = "enable"              # log to the console
   SystemLog     = "disable"             # log to the systemlog
END

All messages should appear in the system log file /var/log/messages and 
not in vls.log. When vls is run as daemon it detaches itself from the 
current session and closes inherited stdout-, stdin-, stderr- file 
descriptors. It does read the configuraton files vls.cfg!

> 	One (XP) VLC client is on the same segment as my VLS box. It "sees"
> the SAP and the multicast stream. If I put an XP box on the next segment out
> (with a router in the way), it sees nothing; no stream or SAP. If I put a
> W2K box on the same segment SAP and stream work fine.

Your router is not configured to route the multicast stream. Maybe it 
does not come with a multicasting router daemon OR the TTL of the 
multicast stream is 1.
TTL=1 is the default in VLS for multicast, we do not want to polute a 
network unintentionally. Check the multicast TTL setting in VLS!

> 	I have a Linux VLC box one segment further out and stream works but
> no SAP. I have enabled this and it appears to be initializing OK (see
> attached) but nothing appears in the playlist. If I "open" a network stream
> and enter the multicast address, all is OK. I have confirmed that SAP
> multicasts are present on the segment.

What is the multicast address? .. oh saw them in the attached logs, 
looks alright to me. A bug in the playlist??

What happens if you type the multicast address in through the gui or on 
the commandline, does that improve the situation?

> 	Another "funny" that affects all clients is that when the stream is
> selected, all I get is audio until the content "loops". Then I get video and
> audio. As the XP, W2K and Linux clients behave the same way, I'm thinking
> there is something wrong with my stream....but what?? Is there a particular
> mpeg "format" that VLS/VLC requires to start the video mid-way through a
> broadcast??

NO special format needed, but check your routers they might not support 
multicast streaming by default. It should be possible to enable that on 
the routers.

> What is the format?? Is there any software available that will
> allow me to convert to the correct format?? What about converting from AVI
> or ShockWave formats to MPEG?? (I have a few things I would like to
> convert).

Could you view the stream locally without problems, either:
- streamed from VLS to local VLC?
= viewed directly from VLC through file input?

> 	A problem that appears to be Windows (XP and W2K) specific is after
> about four or five loops of the stream, I lose audio and video and I see
> "main error: failed allocating a new buffer (decoder stuck?)" errors.
> 	I have attached the output of the "messages (verbose)" windows for
> all Windows boxes. The XP_vlc_msgs.rtf is the XP box "on-segment". The
> w2k_vlc_msg.rtf is the Win 2000 box "off-segment" and the xpos_vlc_msg.rtf
> is the XP box "off-segment".

Could you try this setup without DirectX YUV Overlays enabled in vlc and 
see if the problem persists? It looks to me that there is a (still) a 
memory leak related to DirectX. But I'm not a DirectX expert.

> 	The vlc_msg_linux.txt is the output that appears in the terminal
> window that vlc is launched from. This file relates to the SAP problem
> mentioned above.

Sorry have no clue about this one!

> 	If there is any more info you require or if there is anything you
> want me to try, let me know. I have time and equipment for about two weeks.
> 

Grtz,
Jean-Paul Saman.

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