Many people like the idea of streaming content from their home pc to the smart phone. This can be a live stream from the cable box or video files on a local storage. Usually the phone does not recognize the format. A transcoder can solve this issue on the fly.
Their are many apps for Android or iPhone using the VLC Media Player as transcoding engine. It has a remote control interface and supports many video formats. Unfortunately Windows Phone does only support WMV3 for live streaming. This is one of the codecs VLC can not create. Thats why the most apps for Windows Phone use an own propretary server software.
The app “VLC Video Player” does not need an own server software beside VLC. It can convert the VLC video stream into a format supported by windows phone. A huge advantage is, that the server must not be a Windows system. VLC is available for Mac and Linux. Many people have the VLC Media Player installed already, because it can play almost any video file.