How to build a server to broadcast real time video?

Question

I need to build a system to broadcast videos, just like Youtube. But the video is real-time video, which means the video are captured, converted and broadcast immediately. Is there any open source software can do this?

I really need some practical guides including the requirements (hardware and software).

Thanks in advance~

Answer 1

Panda - an open source solution for video uploading, encoding and streaming. There are other similar question like these in SO.

1. Streaming webcam video in Flash using MP4 encoding
2. Streaming video from a live webcam
3. Video Streaming & Flash Embedding

and lots more

Answer 2

Red5 is probably the more well known open source streaming server capable of live streaming. That said, the prices of commercial live streaming servers has fallen dramatically. It's been a while since I tinkered with Red5, but I found it an overly "immature" project.

• Adobe Flash Media Server: This server set the standard. Used to be prohibitively expensive, but is cheap these days
• Wowza: Java based, so it runs on just about anything. Their support forum has tutorials and people there who will help

Both Adobe and Wowza allow limited servers (10 streams) for free.

I just recently whipped up a demonstration setup with Wowza and QuickTime Broadcaster. Everything went really well. I was impressed with Wowza.

If Open Source is really, really important to you, then another server you might want to check out is the Darwin Streaming Server, although that is not Flash video oriented.

Answer 3

Red5 is free but it doesn't support HD yet