Video re-streaming server (video output format)

Question

I need to develop a video streaming server which would stream a live video to multiple users. It needs to support the following "video" sources for the re-stream server:

• web-camera
• surveillance camera (already supports MJPG stream)
• scanner

I understand that I would need a different driver for adding support to each video input device.

I also need to support the video-display in:

• web-browsers
  • Mozilla Firefox 3.6
  • Internet Explorer 8
• desktop applications developed in C++ / QT 4.6

My questions:

1. What would be a good video output format that can be used to support the required browsers/applications?
2. Is there a similar Open-Source, Commercial, etc. solution which I could use to make my work easier and faster?

Answer 1

I managed to complete the video re-streaming server and I've used the following:

1. MJPG format for video stream, as it is basically a standard which is natively supported in modern browsers, except in IE, but there are free ActiveX controls, allowing IE to properly display MJPG streams.
2. Solutions, libraries:
   • For the Web Camera I've used the TVideoGrabber from Datastead Software, it is a commercial solution, but it works great, and it can be used with a lot of environments (Visual Studio, Delphi, C++Builder).
   • For the Scanner, I used WIA 2.0 library.
   • Security Camera already supported MJPG, so I basically forwarded the stream from the camera as my server's output.

Answer 2

Unfortunately there is no good consensus on one format for streaming. I would investigate multi-stream (http streaming, RTP streaming, etc) solutions so you can support multiple clients (Firefox, IE, iOS Safari, Android, etc).

A couple of good streaming servers products are:

• Kaltura (open source and commercial)
• Wowza Media Server (commercial w/ free trial)

There are tons of other good options out there too.