I am looking for a way to add live video to a web site.
I dont know if it would come from the actual server where your web is, but you could still make it look like it was coming from your website, if you know what I mean. People could still click on your website and access live streaming, but it probably wouldnt actually reside there. Youd want a faster server than your web site produces, especially fast on the upload so that it could suck up the data from the computer which your camera is ctually hooked up to.
What we want to do is have a page on our web site that allows the end user to click and access a streaming, live video (provided there is any live video at the time). Does anyone have any idea how to do this or what software is needed?
Hi Dan,
its kind of funny that your asking this question, as I asked the forum this about a week ago;
but it probably didnt show up in the search ebgine when you searched.
Basically I have no idea, however I have been looking around, and I have a few more answers. It gets a little complicated when you want to determine what transfer protocol but Im assuming your going to want to use a specialized unicast media server, given that I would estimate your audience as maxing out at a few hundred right now.
In that case you would probably be interested in the following web site:
unicast In this case you need the window media encoder(which is free) and you would usually shop for a specialized media server set up with at least a t1 internet connection. You could also probably set up your own server if you had the equipment and know how, but thats way beyond my range right now. So you would be paying a high set up fee for the server host, like I have heard $500 but I cant confirm that because there is a lot I still dont know, and also approximately $100 a month ongoing fees.
It also seems to revolve around how many people you have that want to watch, if you want to get into the bigtime with thousands in your audience you are looking at what is called multicasting networks, which can be thousands of dollars for a few hours of broadcast. But if you have a big enough plan and a big enough bankroll even that can be a reality for you.
As I said though, I really dont know too much about it, but it seems pretty straightforward. What you need to do is check with your webhost, call them up and see if they have the ability to
Windows 2000 or 2003 server with Windows Media Services installed and running on port 80
High bandwidth upload connection - T1 + suggested.
The process is pretty self-explanatory from the site I linked you to, most of your tech questiuons could be answered by the web host people. But as far as I know, even though youd be broadcasting from a high speed server, you could still set it up so that your audience still visits your website at a certain time, that doesnt seem like it would be a problem at all.
Of course from a financial standpoint it makes sense to have your audience assembled before you broadcast. Like if you had an email mailing list which you could notify before each event. So if costs do become at $100 a month you would be able to meet them. Of course, if your content is "hot" enough there is a certain amount of risk you could be willing to take, but Ill let you do your own marketing as Im sure your pretty capable.
But there are a lot of other issues involved with live webcasting. Since this is something I am also looking into very seriously in the next months, I'll e-mail you later when I really knwo what Im doing and am not just like you...searching for answers. We have the lights and cameras and are starting to send video on you tube for the next couple of weeks, and we definitely are looking 100% seriously into live webcasting in the near future, so I will have more practical advice later.
God Bless
~NITRO
some funny/good shows to see when you dont want/have to do anything.