Hi,
I'm trying to build a website that will allow user to upload video files and show them as a streaming video.
I'm a complete newbie in the streaming world so I don't know exactly how to do that, and I definitely don't want to reinvent the wheel.
Are there any free platforms that I can use for that? Do I need a streaming server, or is there a special kind of player I can use that does not require dedicated server?
Thanks!
You could try a couple of sites:
www.bitsontherun.com - not free, but has full API, and a great service
http://www.ustream.tv - free streaming services, heard good stuff. has an API too, but not sure if it will let you broadcast through it. It's more for live broadcasting, instead of transcoding and storage.
When it comes to playback, passing the names of files to a standard flash player (like JWPlayer) will be a good start, or you can investigate HTML5 video elements too.
If all else fails, there's always youtube too :)