In windows. to setup so you can have any program run using a specific file as input, you first add a shortcut to the program to your “Sendto” folder and then in explorer you can select and right click on any file. In the context menu that pops up, move the mouse over “send to” and click on the the program name you want to run against that file. .Ergo If you add a shortcut to “Streamvideo.bat” to your “sendto” folder you can then “send” any video file “to” it and it will start streaming. Once it is streaming, you can open the stream on WIIMC.

As far as I have figured out you cannot start or manipulate the streaming video from WIIMC. You can pause it and jump back or forward from the VLC server window on the PC,and the WIIMC will pickup that adjusted stream but if you stop the streaming connection is lost. Right now it simply gives you a way to start your HD files playing on the PC and then watch them on the WII.

I think there is more potential in VLC since I see references to keeping the Stream open, and to Video on Demand but I have not worked on them. I have spent my time getting the new avc/aac.flv files from Hulu, PBS and YouTube to work as now posted below. All my code is in the posts so if you can figure out how to make VLC work better, please post.

Here is the “StreamVideo.bat” post copied over from VLC so the whole instruction is here on WIIMC.

---

The following Bat file may be used to transcode and stream videos from your PC to WIIMC.
(Remove the (x86) if you are not on a 64 bit system)!!

If you put a shortcut to the StreamVideo.bat in your Sendto directory, you can then Right Click on any video file and send it to the bat and it will stream the video!

On the WII you must manually edit the SD Cardappswiimconlinemedia.xml file and add the following…
where xxx.xxx.x.xxx is your PC Server URL.

…just before the final line.

To play a file, start the VLC stream using the “Send to” “streamvideo.bat”, then on WIIMC select “Online Media/PC Streams/VLC stream” and your video will play on the WII ! Be sure to start the stream first before opening it in WIIMC or WIIMC will Error out..

Note you must have the following installed on your system for this feature to work, and you must modify the two statements in the bat to point at them. I have them installed in C:ProgramsMediaInfo and C:ProgramsFFMPEG subdirectories as used in the bat.

MediaInfo.exe (Command line version) from
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mediainfo/MediaInfo_CLI_0.7.33_Windows_i386.zipon 32 bit systems or
http://downloads.sourceforge.net/mediainfo/MediaInfo_CLI_0.7.33_Windows_x64.zip on 64 bit systems
and FFMPEG.exe from http://www.videohelp.com/download/FFmpeg-0.5.1-svn-22140.7z

StreamVideo.bat
============================================================
@echo off
: If you have problems on your system just change
: @echo off to @echo on to view execution in the command window.

: This bat is used to stream video with VLC using http
: A corresponding player using http must be started on each client. ie: VLC http:\@server-url:8081
: Or on WIIMC by adding the following to the end of the SD Cardappswiimconlinemedia.xml file
:
:
:

if “%~x1″==”.ts” goto :playit
if “%~x1″==”.avi” goto :playit
if “%~x1″==”.mpg” goto :playit
if “%~x1″==”.mp4″ goto :playit
if “%~x1″==”.mkv” goto :playit
if “%~x1″==”.flv” goto :playit

echo invalid filetype – cannot stream

goto :exit

:playit

: Check if another instance is running.
if not exist C:tempVLCFlag.txt goto :doit
echo previous stream is active – close it first
goto :exit

:doit
: Set running flag
echo VLC is Running > C:tempVLCflag.txt

: there is a bug in VLC which prevents .ts from playing if subs are present.
: use VLC option to ignore subs for .ts
if “%~x1″==”.ts” goto :nosubs

: there is a bug in VLC that prevents .flv with AVC from converting

if NOT “%~x1” == “.flv” goto :normal

: Check .flv files for AVC video streams.
C:ProgramsMediaInfo_CLIMediaInfo.exe –Inform=Video;%%Format%% %1 > C:TEMPmedia.txt
: Read MI Value string back in
set /p format= < C:TEMPmedia.txt
if .%format% == .AVC goto :avcflv

:normal

: This transcodes all files to MPEG-2 video with AC3 audio on-the-fly as they are streamed.
: must use fps=30, channels=6, scale=.5, width=640, acodec=a52, samplerate=48000
“C:Program Files (x86)VideoLANVLCvlc.exe” -vvv %1 –sout #transcode{venc=ffmpeg,vcodec=mp2v,vb=4000,scale=.5,width=640,fps=30,acodec=a52,ab=384,channels=6,samplerate=48000,soverlay}:std{access=http,mux=ts,dst=:8081} –sub-autodetect-fuzzy=4

goto :exit

:nosubs

“C:Program Files (x86)VideoLANVLCvlc.exe” -vvv %1 –sout #transcode{venc=ffmpeg,vcodec=mp2v,vb=4000,scale=.5,width=640,fps=30,acodec=a52,ab=384,channels=6,samplerate=48000}:std{access=http,mux=ts,dst=:8081} –no-sub-autodetect-file

goto :exit

:avcflv

if exist C:TEMPVideo.mp4 erase C:TEMPVideo.mp4 > nul

echo.
echo THE AUDIO WILL FIRST TRANSCODE TO AC3… PLEASE WAIT A MINUTE or TWO…

: There is a bug that prevents VLC from streaming AAC and audio is lost
: so must use ffmpeg to preconvert avc/aac.flv to avc/ac3.mp4
: This only takes about 1 minute for each 30 minutes of video
: Need to use a 2 in front of redirect to stop ffmpeg output from displaying.

“C:ProgramsFFMPEGffmpeg.exe” -i %1 -vcodec copy -acodec ac3 -ar 48000 -ab 128kb -ac 2 -f mp4 “C:TEMPvideo.mp4” 2> C:TEMPffmpeg.txt

: Transcode the .mp4 file to MPEG-2 and just copy the ac3 audio
“C:Program Files (x86)VideoLANVLCvlc.exe” -vvv “C:TEMPvideo.mp4” –sout #transcode{venc=ffmpeg,vcodec=mp2v,vb=4000,scale=.5,width=640,fps=30,soverlay}:std{access=http,mux=ts,dst=:8081} –sub-autodetect-fuzzy=4

:exit

: Clean-up
if exist C:TEMPmedia.txt erase C:TEMPmedia.txt > nul
if exist C:TEMPVideo.mp4 erase C:TEMPVideo.mp4 > nul

: Remove Running Flag after first warning.
if exist C:tempVLCFlag.txt erase C:tempVLCFlag.txt

:================================================================================

Dixes: That’s not enough info for me to help you. You need to get the bat output to see what parts don’t work. Does VLC open? Does the time counter run? Can you open a VLC client on your PC and get the stream there? If you can then its a WII connectivity problem and you need to get SMB working first to ensure the WII can talk to the PC.

I used the VLC 1.2.0.99 beta but if yours worked before it should work now. There is only one version of VLC for both 32 and 64 bit systems but on 64 bit systems it will install to Program Files (X86) as used in the bat.

Madis, I don’t know what you mean by cannot install ffmpeg. Its just an exe that you download and copy to a programs folder. The only command window is StreamVideo and if it closes early it has hit a bad statement. I don’t believe there are any in the one I posted. You need to insert pause statements in the bat to find the last statement that displays without closing. The next statement is bad. Try streaming a divx which will not use ffmpeg to verify streaming works first, then go back to your avc/aac video and work on the problem. Be sure you used 22140 from the link I posted, which fixes an ffmpeg bug that impacts AAC transcoding.

PS: I see on checking the bat in the VLC command in section :avcflv that it has :dst 8080..it should be 8081, but I don’t think that’s your problem.