Remote VLC Channel Changer

Introduction

Remote Channel Administrator is a software remote control for VideoLan. In case you are streaming TV across your network using VideoLan, this program takes care of connecting remotely to the VideoLan server (via VLC's Telnet interface) and changing the channel.

Change Log

Version 1.1a:

adds support for VLC running on Linux (I've only tested with VLC running on Ubuntu 9.04). v4l2 streams can now also be controlled by the application.

IMPORTANT

I will change the application to a web application running on the same machine as VLC. Please check RemoteCAdmWeb wiki page.

Overview

I've spent many days trying to get everything working as I wanted. I know VideoLan is a powerful beast - and I'm far from understanding all the possibilities it has when transcoding, etc. This application works on my setup: a single PC, streaming from a TV Tuner on cable. It takes out the pain of connecting remotely with TightVNC and changing the channels on the server.

Application is basic as it is meant for advanced users:

Configuration file remotecadm.conf has to be edited before starting up the application! Please check the Configuration section below.
Log file remotecadm.log is the only source for information on errors. There's now GUI feedback for errors. I didn't have time to add proper notifications, but once configured, there should be no errors generated (as long as VLC is reachable).
Application is client only (no 'server' part component). Meaning that you need to have VideoLan started remotely (using TightVNC or equivalent) with the extended telnet interface active.
I don't guarantee anything with this application. I've been using it for 2 weeks now, so I've decided to polish it a bit and and offer it for download.

The goal is to have an application that is able to manage VLC, and is designed in such a way that is very easy to add new commands. As I don't yet know where this project will be going, I've only added what I strictly needed, channel navigation.

Requirements

Sun JRE/JDK at least version 1.6
Videolan 1.0.3 (at this moment VideoLan v1.1.0 is under development, I didn't try it).
Videolan server (the one doing streaming / transcoding) has to be started and have the telnet interface also configured. Plus, you may need to open firewall tunnels to the machine doing the streaming (one for the streaming port and one for VLC telnet interface).

Installation & Configuration

First step is to download the archive (use the Downloads tab on top of the page) then read the installation guide below (it gives on overview on how the installation should be ran):

Installation and Running

The character-set of the file must be UTF-8. The configuration file is split into various sections: