Bill,

You would need three minimum components to get the job done. An asset management server for managing media and publishing,
a streaming server, and a web front end. Here are some to look into:

STREAMING SERVERS

Wowza Streaming Server
http://www.wowzamedia.com/

mod_h264
http://h264.code-shop.com/trac

Red5
http://www.red5.org/

Mammoth
http://mammothserver.org/

Darwin Streaming Server (Quicktime)
http://dss.macosforge.org/

WEB FRONT END

MediaCore CMS
http://mediacore.com/

ASSET MANAGEMENT/MEDIA DEPLOYMENT

Final Cut Server<http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=final+cut+server&aq=f> for a review/approval worflow and publishing video to your streaming serve if you can get your hands on it, along with Transmogrifier http://transmogrifier.sourceforge.net for enhanced publishing workflows

Another option is  TACTIC: http://www.southpawtech.com which I haven't used but you can attach scripts which can be used to publish files


For the video format/codec I would recommend H264 delivered via HTTP Adaptive Streaming. This will allow mobile streaming to smart phones and tablets and you could always wrap H264 video in Flash if necessary (FlowPlayer/JWPlayer) for the desktop. You could use Flash on the desktop to protect the stream or a token based authentication mechanism along with user based access controls.

To handle a large amount of users or concurrent streams you would need to implement a load balancing server calls the video from the streaming server with the least load.
A cache server wouldn't be a bad idea either for popular videos. Another option is to use a CDN like AmazonS3 or Akamai on a case by case scenario. Say you are streaming a specific event and expect a heavy number of views for example.

Hope this helps!

Juan Madrigal

Web Developer
Web and Emerging Technologies
University of Miami
Richter Library


On 7/7/11 5:05 PM, "William Helman" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:

We are in the information gathering stage of a project to look at offering
streaming video course reserves for online/distance multimedia classes the
University of Baltimore offers.  Think Netflix streaming for obsucure films
not on Netflix (such as digitized films from special collections, or
instructor personal copies).  I was wondering if anyone out there has any
experience with this sort of thing?


We currently use Slingbox (http://www.slingmedia.com/), but this will not
scale to what our faculty have in mind.  The most pressing needs (besides
system tools to help maintain fair use), are one that is reliable outside of
library hours and one that lets us upload our own content.


Our partner from campus IT is investigating http://www.kaltura.org/, anyone
have experience with it?


Thanks, and sorry for the cross post.



  -Bill Helman



Integrated Digital Services Librarian - University of Baltimore Langsdale
Library

[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> - ph. 410 837 4209 - http://whelman.com