Quote:
Originally Posted by Luna842
What do we need to know to go about doing this? (Software, hardware, internet stuff, etc?)
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Whatever solution you come up with will need to scale. None of the solutions mentioned so far will work if more than a few people try to watch. How few depends on a variety of things, but using a personal computer on a typical cable internet connection 2 or 3 would definitely be pushing it.
For software,
Windows Media Encoder and
Windows Media Services are what many professionals and universities use.
For hardware you will need two computers: one that you can connect your AV to, and one that can act as the server. As mentioned above, a DV cam with firewire is probably a good way to go. A directional microphone can be a big help too.
For internet connectivity, the server needs as much upload capacity as possible... multicasting would be nice, but is not supported on the public internet, so you will need to have enough capacity to send the video to every single person. A good place for this is a university or a corporate sponsor where an IT department can work with you. At the site of the event, you will need a reliable internet connection to the server.
The computer that you have on site can certainly be a laptop, so long as it powerful enough to encode the video and push it to the server.
The server does not need to be exceptionally powerful, as you are more likely to be limited by upload capacity rather than the strict number of connections.
The software is well documented, and actually pretty easy to set up... the only tough part is getting access to the hardware and internet. Sorry if this sounds like a lot of work and a lot of expensive hardware, but remember... if something is worth doing, it's worth doing right.
~Phil