Live video production advice

[LoadStar]

I work for a local university in the IT department. I've been asked to "broadcast" video from the commencement exercises to 5 or 6 different locations, all on campus. One of these locations is the "overflow seating" area.

I have nearly no budget, aside from spare parts. If there were something I absolutely needed, I might be able to get it, as long as it weren't very expensive.

1) What I've done in the past is used Windows Media Encoder and webcast it over the network. Given that WME is getting a bit long in the tooth, I might switch now to Expression Encoder. Is this the best course of action, or is there some better idea or technology out there for distributing video on campus? (note: does not have to be strictly webcasting - if there's some better idea out there other than webcasting, I'd love to hear)

2) If we stick with webcasting, given that the public will be watching this, the webcast must be absolutely rock solid, and must be of a sufficient quality that it is watchable on a large projected image. Any tips on accomplishing this?

3) Finally, after all is said and done, we will probably want to record it to DVD, so we must also record at a high enough quality to handle this as well. Any tips for doing this? (We're using Canon GL2 cameras, which use MiniDV tapes - and those are way too short to capture the entire commencement exercises.)

Any and all advice is gladly accepted! If there's somewhere out there that I should be looking for more assistance, please point me in that direction. Thanks!

[Neilium]

Slingbox is a good option for broadcasting over IP if you have the bandwidth. You can also stream it with VLC. They also make a sling catcher to view those broadcasts straight to video out into a tv.

I have worked for a station where we did live shots with a Slingbox and Verizon broadband card. It actually had pretty decent quality.

http://www.slingmedia.com/

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Hope it helps.

[viva-vegas]

I have tested ALL of the streaming video services. Have found Mogulus to be the best in terms of video quality and ease of use.

http://www.mogulus.com/

Locally CBS58 and JSOnline use it for streaming.

Even better is that it is FREE!

Good luck, post the link if you can!

Craig
MKE
http://www.wifirefeeds.com

[duncantuna]

I will try out Mogulus .. but I'd also suggest looking at ustream.tv .. not only does it have a low-power flash encoder, but you can use a high-quality flash encoder from Adobe (free download) that will greatly improve PQ.