network stream caching to disk
Hello,
i'm using VLC quite extensively for watching clips from YouTube and other http based streaming servers. It is generally working very well and especially on less powerful machines or at Linux platform (where is mostly used un-accelerated decoding an scaling in browser). It is whole another experience, than playback in regular web browser.
What i love to be added, is better stream caching. It will be very handy for smoothing of dropouts in network bandwidth or server disconnections after timeout when pausing stream playback. Especially during watching of longer clips, movies etc. There is already cache at network access module, but it seems, that playback won't start until this cache is completely filled. So increasing value results in long responses during start and seeking.. and its main purpose isn't handling of minutes or hours of streamed material.
Thinking about optional use of intermediate temp file, where will be continuously "dumped" incoming stream before decoding in player until stream reach its end or user stops it.
There is for sure lot of further questions about its implementation like.. How long will be this cache vaild, how to cap total size of cache to some limit chosen by user, what about handling of live streams with unknown length. What i described is just general idea and i think even basic implementation of this (one temp file per playlist item, validity during one vlc player session, restriction for streams with known length, checking of size limit before start of stream playback and optionally deletion of oldest file to fit this size limit) will be helpful.
Thanks,
Michal