Broadcast online video and audio

Question

how can i broadcast my own through internet by means of webcam, pc and internet?

i.e. i want to create some kind of groups, create a schedule and teach how to solve MATH exercises to the people from the groups according to the schedule. Also online chat needs to be availabe while streaming the video so that the group users could communicate with each other.

i'm using php/mysql/html/css/jquery

what kind of technology should I use to realise the above mentioned issue?

Answer 1

there are a few components to this.

in order to get the video stream from your own computer to the server, you will need some form of webcam capture app, there are a lot of options here. Flash can do it which would be my preferred option as Its universal, theres quicktime on a mac, VLC can also do this.

next you will need a streaming server, i personally like Red5 as well as FMS.

Lastly you will need a player. Currently the best option for this is Flash as the streaming capacity for html5 is still badly supported and sketchy when it is supported. You can get a free embeddable player here for non commercial use: http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/

then you just need to connect the dots and wire everything up. So make sure you are broadcasting to your media server, then make sure your media server is broadcasting on the correct ports, and lastly make sure your flash video player is configured to listen to the right server/port number..

basically you->media server->webpage->viewers

Ive made it sound a bit easier than it is. There may be problems with firewalls, camera devices, software support/platform support but that is the general method to get it all working.

there are also some services which do all of this for you however I've never used them so I can't comment and generally if it's free, don't expect it to be reliable.

Hope that helps.

EDIT You can also bypass the media server bit this is not a good choice as you will have to have a very fast/dedicated internet connection (very expensive) if you want more than a couple of people to view the stream.