In my last place of employment, the company (now bankrupt) created live webcasting events... so this give me an appriciation for some of the variables involved. In this type of set-up usually there are a number of vendors involved (A camera crew company such as Crews Control, a hosted facility such as Verio or Level 3, a streaming media company in charge of the servers and sometimes a programming firm.) In the example, I will assume the stream is going to 100 people concurrently.
Shooting the Event.
This is probally the hardest part of creating a live event. Not only do the cameras need to work correctly, but also one needs the correct lighting, wiring (Composiate Video connected to a 3 camera switch for example) and the correct video imput cards (preferabally Ospry 2600? Video caputre cards faturing mulitple input and output streams.
Since this is taking place outside, one needs a satellite truck connection between the live event and the Server farm as well as a fiber connection between the composite video source and the satelite... on the other hand this step is not necessary if shooting in a hotel.
Streaming the Event
The easiest and cheepest way to stream a video to a naked player (without a faceplate or functionality) is using Windows Media Server in a Unicast setting.... However, if one has slides associated with the video or want the video to work on platforms other than Windows then an alternative is needed (Flash being the most compelling). Note: Some CF talkers will take issue with my first comment about Windows Media Server compared to Real and Quick Time. Second Note: Flash Slides are really more flexable than straight JPEGs... However to pull powerpoint sides really requires a lot of massaging and TLC. If one goes the graphic route, one gets into using quite a bit of _javascript_ in the script channel for changing into an HTML page or an graphical Ad.
This is where the hosted faciltiy comes into play. Streams can be send out at a number of bandwidths. For example if one streams at 300K then one uses 1/5th of a t-1 line to send out each stream. If one goes in the other direction and uses a 56k stream, the quality really is not very good, however one can have 20 users at a time per T-1 line. Given that most T-1's are burstable and being burstable is very expensive a good streaming company will negotate a very good rate with a hosted provider.
there is also the matter of placing the script event into the Script channel of the live stream... Older platforms required this item to be entered by hand!
I really have not gotten into the nuts and bolts of setting up IP addresses and configuring NAT for the streaming servers.... that's different depending on where the stream arrives from and your network set-up.
I have also not taked about how to use _javascript_ to accept events as well from the script channel (or in the case of Windows Media Player, VBScript!). That also depends on the platform selected.
Other Services
You probally want to document how many people have arrived at the site and how long they stayed. Many companies want to have contact information or even login/password information.
This is where a flash solution really shines with Flash remoting. One can add contact information or ads directly into a slide. Using a CFC one can integrate the two with a back-end database such as SQL Server 2000 or Postgree SQL. This way one can produce a report of the visitors dropping by the event.
As you can see the process of putting together a live event is not for the faint of heart. In fact there is a graveyard of many streaming and e-learning companies that could not pay of the costs of streaming live events. (it is very labor intensive and requires high paying talent to pull off well).
For your last question, if you live in the DC/NOVA area I can point you in the right direction... however the services are not cheep.
Jeremy Brodie
Edgewater Technology
web: http://www.edgewater.com
phone:(703) 815-2500
nasdaq symbol: EDGE
>This is a live cast of a fishing tournament using Flash. I had to click
>the speaker icon to hear what was going on.
>http://flw.flwoutdoors.com/flwlive/flashok.cfm
>
>Anyone think they could do this or know of some one that provides this
>type of service?
>
>Phillip B.
>
>
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