Hello,
I am wondering if there is a way to install VLC media player onto the server so that media can be played on the site. Would this be possible/possible with a different but similar software?
Thank you.
Use player.js…for playing media no need to install software when u play through browser…
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Where do I find the “player.js” that you are talking about?
When you want to play media on a website, it’s the browser of the visitor that needs to play the media, not the server that hosts the media.
Modern browsers have the HTML <video> and <audio> elements that provide the most simple way of playing media in a browser. But there are many different projects, written in Javascript, that provide more control about how the media is played and how people can interact with it.
On the internet. Just Google it and you’ll find software you can use with instructions on how to integrate it into a website.
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This was a little lack of description on my part, so let me explain.
VLC Media Player lets you comprise a playlist of “streamed” music that can be automatically(live) updated on a blank .mp3 file (ex. “yourdomain.com:8080/stream.mp3”). Then at that point, if a user visits the site (.mp3 file) while VLC is mid-way through a song, it will start wherever the song is according to VLC. (It would be playing the same sound for any user that visits the website.
Thanks
OK, that’s indeed quite an important part to mention. VLC is not for the playback part, but for generating a live audio stream.
In any case, one thing is important to remember, with web hosting services (like we offer), it’s generally not possible to install custom server software. The idea of web hosting is that the server software is managed by the host. All you can do is supply website code that can be executed by the web server software that’s provided.
Other issues you may run into is that many hosting services use proxy buffering, meaning they won’t cleanly livestream the audio file and instead try to download the entire file first and then pass it on, which won’t work with your dynamically updated files. And most servers are “headless”, meaning they don’t have a desktop environment. You can only interact with the system on the command line. So unless VLC has a “headless” mode where you can control it through the command line, most hosting products won’t support it.
I guess you would need a (virtual) server where you can run a desktop environment to run this setup, and you can easily connect to using Remote Desktop to manage it.
But it does make me wonder if there isn’t a simpler setup to run a music livestream that’s easier to setup and use.
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Maybe you could consider adding an optional (very feature limited) desktop environment that can be installed through the “account settings” page (server doesn’t come with it automatically installed because the average user wouldn’t need it). Just a thought, and it would make me very happy 
. And yes, it would need security features to prevent malicious intentions, plus buying Windows or Linux. (Linux may be free, actually)
I’m sorry, but I can pretty much guarantee you that it will never happen. Linux servers typically do not have desktop environments. We could theoretically install it of course. But that’s just one of many obstacles. Because you would also need to:
- Be able to have VLC running continuously.
- Be able to bind VLC to a port on the server.
- Be able to expose the VLC port to the outside world (very bad idea) or be able to integrate it into the web server config.
- Make sure that the web server can properly handle the magic MP3 file and not try to buffer the whole thing first.
The amount of effort to make this work with a web hosting environment would be ridiculously difficult. I don’t know of any services or software that can do this, so I think it would take substantially more effort to build this than it would take to rebuild the entire hosting platform a few times over. At least for web hosting, we have existing tools like CloudLinux to handle a lot of nitty gritty system stuff.
And there are just not that many use cases where a desktop environment makes sense for a web hosting service. All management operations for a web hosting service are done much more easily through a web browser than a remote desktop environment. Your setup is one example of course. But if I personally wanted to setup an online radio station, I would want to manage it from my own computer using a desktop app or web interface, not through a remote desktop, because remote desktops are clunky and slow.
And the most important part is: more optimized solutions do exist. You don’t need to use a desktop media player to mangle an MP3 file. A quick Google search tells me that software like Subsonic and Ampache exist to actually setup online music streaming. And what’s more: Ampache is a PHP application, it’s even available in Softaculous which means that (on premium hosting), you can install Ampache within minutes on a web hosting service and start using it!
We still don’t allow media streaming on free hosting, which is why Ampache is not in our Softaculous catalogue.
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Okay. Thank you for this information! One more question, is premium hosting a reoccurring cost, or is it a one-time purchase?
Almost all hosting services are recurring costs, not one time fees. You’re essentially renting space on our servers, which means you need to pay for as long as you keep the space.
Providing hosting also incurs continuous costs from us for software licenses, support, maintenance, network connectivity, power, hardware upgrades/replacements, etc. It’s not like a physical object that’s manufactured once and then shipped to you.
“Lifetime hosting” offers do exist, but because providing hosting inherently incurs mostly recurring expenses, I would not trust such offers.
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Okay, thank you. I may consider premium hosting since the prices are reasonable. If I got premium hosting, would I be allowed to advertise something (during the live music stream) that people could buy to help fund the premium hosting? Same goes for if people pay me to advertise their stuff.
There are no restrictions on having advertisements on free or premium hosting. However, I’m not sure if music streaming sites are allowed on premium hosting either, you may want to check that with iFastNet.
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According to the ifastnet TOS,
You may not: “upload, post, email, transmit or otherwise make available any material that is of broadcast /
streaming types.”
So if you have any recommendations for other services (free or paid) then I would very much appreciate that. If not, that’s fine too, so thank you for the help!!! 
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