Suggestions for software w/integrated streaming media server

[six-ft-seven]

My video sources (IP encoders and cameras) are in the field. The office-to-field network segments are orders of magnitude slower than the network segments in the central office where the users/viewers are located.

Most of the low-cost IP camera software I have casually reviewed on the web seems to connect directly to video sources. This is fine where the video sources are located on the same speedy LAN as the viewers, such as in an office building, casino, etc. However, when the video sources are in the field or are otherwise only accessible via slow network links, the unicast stream can quickly break down after more than one unicast stream is active.

You are probably thinking, why don't you use multicast? Unfortunately, in my situation, there are network nodes that are not multicast-capable, so multicast is not a viable solution.

Therefore, I am looking at using a streaming media server, located at the central office, to distribute the streams. In this way, the point at which the stream "multiplies" is moved from the field to the office LAN, where a nice speedy gigabit Ethernet can easily handle the multiple streams, and there is only ever one stream being transported over the slow office-to-field segments.

It seems as though the "usual suspects" of streaming media servers are Windows and Flash. However, for either of them, I would have to do some custom coding, as neither have native support for network video sources, much less sources that are not encoded in their formats (WMV and FLV, respectively). Not good when your ecoders use a proprietary MPEG-4 codec...

Therefore, my questions (sorry it has taken so long to get to them ) are:

Is there any IP CCTV software that implements a streaming media server and could support the architecture that I described above?

If so, does said software use, under the hood, either of the two media servers I mentioned above (Windows and Flash), some other third-party streaming media server, or is it a custom implementation? If it is one of the last two choices, what video codec is used?

Does said software allow for viewing a stream from the streaming media server in its user interface (rich client) or only in a web browser?

[umedia]

http://www.umediaserver.net

[Dwayne]

If I do get you right, you want to collect the streams/data of all your cameras on central server from where it is broadcasted again to all possile viewers by a good bandwidth?

if so, you could easily use software like webcamXP or BlueIris.

Both softwares collect a bunch of camera streams depending on brand and technique and offer the cameras by jpg flash, or mpeg4 stream.

with some recoding of the premade websites you most likely find there what you need.

[securicorp]

Try BiKal EyeSoft IP Surveillance Software

It supports windows media streaming and can stream to IE browser or to Windows Media Player. The broadcast server is built in and allows you to customise the compression rate for your needs.

The software supports multiple IP cameras, analogue capture sources & IPTV streams.

Google BiKal IP, you can download a free trial and there are a few links there that are real time windows media streams too.