How To Use VLC and Register RTSP (RealMedia) for Internet Explorer
Let me start off by saying I hate Real Player and discourage it’s use. Having said that an alternative is using VLC Media Player or Video LAN Player (same). It was once said that VLC could play a database file if you opened it up, so it definitely supports a simple RTSP Real Time Streaming Protocol URL. However for the end user it’s a little complicated, so to make it easier we can register RTSP:// with Internet Explorer and anytime the user comes across an RTSP link; it’ll just work!
To register the RTSP protocol with Internet Explorer you need to register it with the operating system. This is easily achieved thru a registry edit, however this article explains it all http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/Aa767914.aspx. So once you register the RTSP with the .reg file below just close Internet Explorer and open it back up. VLC will prompt you with a warning, if at this point it doesn’t show video; open TCP port 554 in your firewall outbound. If you do not have outbound restrictions, like in the case of 99% of home users; it either a bad feed or upgrade your VLC to the latest version.
Firefox will also see the registry change and when a user clicks the link; Firefox will prompt them with an application dialog box then open it in VLC Player. Just check the box to always open without prompting and it’ll work every time!
This fix will be valid for all users of the computer. I’m pretty sure you can register it under HKEY_CURRENT_USER on XP and above; to make the change for only that users.
RTSP registry edit file:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\RTSP] @="URL:Real Time Streaming Protocol" "URL Protocol"="" [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\RTSP\shell] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\RTSP\shell\open] [HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\RTSP\shell\open\command] @="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\VideoLAN\\VLC\\vlc.exe -vvv %1"
Copy the text above into a file of RTSP.reg and double click it to merge it into the registry.
Note: You may have to change the path where your VLC lives.