VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

The VideoLAN streaming solution includes:

* VLC media player (initially VideoLAN Client), which can be used as a server to stream MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 / DivX files, DVDs and live videos on the network in unicast or multicast; or used as a client to receive, decode and display MPEG streams under multiple operating systems,
* VLS (VideoLAN Server), which can stream MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 files, DVDs, digital satellite channels, digital terrestial television channels and live videos on the network in unicast or multicast. Most of the VLS functionality can now be found in the much better VLC program. Usage of VLC instead of VLS is advised.


http://www.videolan.org/