lenty of internet sites provide streaming audio and video for the replay of TV or radio shows or simply to show the output of a webcam. It’s not to difficult to do the same, as long as you have a copy of VLC Media Player, which is available for free from here. It’s a very useful program to have as it can be used to play back a wide range of video and other media files as well as streaming it to other computers.

 

   The simplest setup is if you want to take the output of a video capture card or a webcam and send it to a different PC on a home network. Both computers need to have VLC installed. The one with the capture device installed acts as a server while the other one plays back the network stream. This is ideal for monitoring a security camera or baby monitor. It’s also possible to set up a play list of files and stream them to several computers, effectively making your own network TV or radio station.

 

   The walkthrough demonstrates how to set up the server using the streaming/Transcoding Wizard. Following this and selecting RTP unicast is simplest because you stream to a single PC. You just need to know the IP address of the machine receiving it. The stream starts as soon as you complete the wizard.

 

   At the receiving computer, launch VLC Media Player and choose File > Open Network Stream. Select UDP/RTP and click OK. If you’ve addressed the stream correctly, VLC will open and play it. If you’ve opted to broadcast to a range of computers, you’ll need to select UDP/RTP multicast and enter the IP address of the server computer to identify the stream. Advanced options enable you to save streams by ticking Stream/Save and supplying a filename and location.