Creating a streaming server using VLC

Many times many of us want to share some song, video etc and we end up mailing it. Instead of mailing it there is a cool way of doing it by streaming it.
VLC has inbuilt streaming server capabilities.
So, lets get started.

1. Looking around : First choose a port through which you wish to stream the media. It can be any port that is not currently being used by other program.
For this example I have chosen 8475. Now all you need is to open up this port in your firewall. I have done this example in Fedora hence I go to Administration >> Firewall >> Other Ports >> Add
and add the tcp port 8475 and click apply.

2. Tempting the mind

1. Open VLC
2. Click Media >> Streaming
Then click Add and select the media you wish to stream.
3. Click Stream
4. Click Next
5. From new destination select HTTP and click add. Give the address as your IP address and port as the port opened by you.
In this example I have selected to stream a mp3 and so I have selected the profile as Audio-MP3. You can choose according to your wish. Now it should look like this.





Click stream and you are done streaming.

Some misc notes.
1. The streaming media will not play in your own machine if the display locally is not selected.
2. You can change the quality of the stream by changing various settings in the transcoding options. Lower quality streaming will save bandwidth.

Now once this is done simply ask your friend/friends to Open vlc or any other player that supports network playing and play the URL.
In VLC it will be Media >> Open Network stream >> Select protocol as HTTP >> the address as Follwing URL.
http://[Your IP address]:[The port you opened]
Eg: http://59.93.244.245:8475

So done.