How to reduce the network usage for some corporate live streaming within the company offices

VLC, also known as Videolan Player, is a famous swiss army knife. To reduce network usage (and associated costs) when privately live streaming to multiple offices of a same corporation, this tool can also be used a multicast streaming server.

How to use VLC to reduce the network usage of a live streaming event ?

To implement unicast-to-multicast within a company network to lower the network usage from live streaming, the following steps can be taken using VLC:
Identify the devices on the network that will be used to receive the live stream.

Install VLC media player on these devices.

On the device that will be sending the live stream (e.g. encoder), open VLC and go to "Media" > "Streaming" > "Capture Device" to set up the source of the live stream.

On the "Stream Output" tab, choose "RTP" as the "New destination" and enter the multicast IP address and port number to send the stream to.

On the receiving devices, open VLC and go to "Media" > "Open Network Stream" > "RTP/Unicast" and enter the multicast IP address and port number to join the multicast group.

Monitor the network usage to ensure that the implementation of unicast-to-multicast has reduced the overall network load from live streaming.

Please note that not all network devices support multicast, and some network infrastructures such as routers, switches, etc may require specific configuration in order to forward multicast packets, so it's recommended to have a network administrator help set it up. Also, it's a good practice to have sufficient bandwidth to support the live streaming and to prioritize the multicast traffic over other network traffic to ensure that it does not get congested.

Article written by
Sylvain Corvaisier

Independent streaming and iOS engineer

Last modified: December 4th, 2024