Make VLC stream by default

Question

I have a media center that is connected to my stereo and I've successfully set up VLC so that I can stream video files via rtp but play the audio locally. I've also set up a remote control in my android device that controls VLC on the media center.

But so far the only way I can stream something from my media center is by entering a command on the command line on my media server. What I would like to happen is every time I play something with the remote control app it would automatically stream it. Is there any way to make VLC, or any other media player for linux, stream everything it is asked to play?

The OS on the media center is ubuntu 12.04.4 LTS without a X server and I want to receive the stream on a windows computer and possibly a mac, so I thought it would be best to use VLC, but I'm open for any suggestions.

Answer 1

After long headaches I've figured this out. If you run vlc as a daemon and pass no input file on startup you'll be able to control it with the remote.

The command I used is:

cvlc -vvv --daemon --extraintf=luahttp --http-password=1234 --network-caching=10000 --audio-desync=1200 --sout '#duplicate{dst=rtp{dst=<server-ip>,port=1234,sdp=rtsp://<server-ip>:8080/test.sdp},dst=display}'

This command will play media locally and stream it via rtsp. I delay the audio by 1200 ms because I'm watching the video on the stream but the audio is local and therefore they are out of sync unless I delay the audio afterwards. --extraintf=luahttp --http-password=1234 starts the web interface, which is used by the remote control, with password 1234. I use --network-caching=10000 to cache media in advance so it does not lag. You can watch the stream with the following command:

vlc --no-audio rtsp://<server-ip>:8080/test.sdp

Now I want to delay the audio only on the local output so I can also watch the stream with audio without starting vlc again with different options. That will be another question.