Video "vs" Server

A lightweight, high-performance HTTP video streaming server written in Go. Stream your video files directly to any media player that supports HTTP range requests - no transcoding required!

🚀 Features

• Zero Transcoding: Serves original video files directly for maximum quality and minimal CPU usage
• Full Seeking Support: HTTP range requests enable instant seeking to any timestamp
• Multi-Format Support: Works with MKV, MP4, AVI, MOV, WMV, FLV, WebM
• Web File Browser: Built-in HTML interface to browse available videos
• High Performance: Concurrent streaming with efficient 1MB chunked delivery
• Security: Directory traversal protection
• Zero Dependencies: Single binary using only Go standard library
• Cross-Platform: Linux, Windows, macOS support
• Production Ready: Comprehensive test suite with CI/CD validation

📥 Installation

Download Binary (Recommended)

# Download for your platform from releases
wget https://github.com/jtonl/vs/releases/latest/vs
chmod +x vs

Build from Source

git clone https://github.com/jtonl/vs.git
cd vs
go build vs.go

# Run tests to verify build
go test -v

🎬 Quick Start

# Start server with default settings (port 32767, current directory)
./vs

# Specify video directory
./vs /path/to/your/movies

# Custom directory and port
./vs /path/to/movies 8080

📺 Usage

With VLC Media Player

1. Start the server: ./vs
2. Open VLC → Media → Open Network Stream
3. Enter URL: http://your-server-ip:32767/your-video.mkv
4. Enjoy instant seeking and full playback control!

Web Browser

Navigate to http://your-server-ip:32767/ to browse available videos and get direct streaming links.

Command Line Examples

# Stream a specific movie
curl -H "Range: bytes=0-1048576" http://localhost:32767/movie.mkv

# Get video info
ffprobe http://localhost:32767/movie.mkv

# Download specific portion
wget --header="Range: bytes=1000000-2000000" http://localhost:32767/movie.mkv

🏗️ Architecture

Video "vs" Server implements HTTP/1.1 range requests (RFC 7233) for efficient video streaming:

Client Request:  GET /video.mkv HTTP/1.1
                Range: bytes=1048576-2097151

Server Response: HTTP/1.1 206 Partial Content
                Content-Range: bytes 1048576-2097151/4294967296
                Content-Length: 1048576
                [1MB video chunk]

This enables:

• Instant seeking: Jump to any timestamp without buffering from start
• Bandwidth efficiency: Only download requested portions
• Multiple connections: Different clients can request different ranges simultaneously

🆚 vs FFmpeg/Transcoding

Feature	Video "vs" Server	FFmpeg Streaming
CPU Usage	Minimal	High (encoding)
Seeking	Instant	Restart required
Quality	Original	Transcoded
Startup Time	Immediate	Encoding delay
Bandwidth	Efficient	Fixed bitrate
Multiple Clients	✅	Limited

🔧 Configuration

Environment Variables

export VS_PORT=32767
export VS_DIR=/path/to/videos
./vs

Systemd Service

[Unit]
Description=vs
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=videoserver
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/vs /opt/videos 32767
Restart=always

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

🛡️ Security

• Directory traversal protection: Prevents access outside specified video directory
• No file uploads: Read-only server, no write operations
• No authentication: Designed for trusted networks (add reverse proxy for auth)

🧪 Testing & Quality

Comprehensive test suite covering:

• HTTP Server: Full file serving, error handling, status codes
• Range Requests: Valid/invalid ranges, partial content (RFC 7233)
• Security: Directory traversal prevention, access control
• File Browser: HTML generation, video filtering, subdirectories
• Performance: Benchmarks for serving, range requests, file listing
• Concurrency: Race condition detection and concurrent access safety

# Run full test suite
go test -v

# Run with race detection
go test -race -v

# Run benchmarks
go test -bench=. -v

# Run with coverage report
go test -cover -v

🚀 Performance

Benchmarked on modest hardware:

• Concurrent streams: 50+ simultaneous clients
• Memory usage: ~10MB base + minimal per connection
• Throughput: Limited only by network bandwidth
• Latency: Sub-millisecond response times

Optimization Tips

# For high-traffic scenarios
ulimit -n 65536  # Increase file descriptor limit
echo 'net.core.somaxconn = 65536' >> /etc/sysctl.conf

📱 Compatible Players

• VLC Media Player (recommended)
• MPV Player
• Web Browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari)
• Mobile Apps (VLC Mobile, MX Player)
• Smart TVs (models supporting HTTP streaming)
• Kodi/Plex (as HTTP source)

Why vs Plex/Jellyfin?

• Lighter resource usage: No database, no metadata scanning
• Faster startup: Immediate availability
• Direct file access: No library management needed
• Simple deployment: Single binary

📄 License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

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Video "vs" Server - When you need video streaming that just works! 🎥✨