IP Cams for Public Broadcast

[obxsurfinfo]

I have two oceanfront cameras that I use for surf reporting, and I broadcast my cameras across the internet to over 1,500 people per day. This means that simply providing a direct script link into the camera will overload the camera with over 20 viewers at a time. I currently use a hosting company that is charging my about $1000 per month in data transfer. This company provides me with a flash based stream that takes the strain off of the camera resources and puts it onto the hosting server. They then give me an embedded code to place into my site with an iframe and it works great.

My two cameras are the Axis 2120 (www.obxsurfinfo.com) and Axis 213ptz (www.obxsurfinfo.com/rodanthecam.php) can be found at these addresses.

I basically need to know how to get this rolling on my own to save money. What do I need to install on my hosting servers to replicate the image for this large amount of viewers? I hear flash works best.
Obviously I need a lot of bandwidth... I am transferring about 100 gigs per month with these two cameras. They actually have me setup so that the users can queue and wait for their own turn to operate the PTZ. Whatever I have now is great, but I can't handle a grand a month since I run a free service.

This is not your typical security camera setup and I am no coding specialist. I definitely need some direction.

Thanks,

Kevin

[Steve Foley]

I don't know about controlling the PTZ, but a bunch of companies are offering Virtual Servers. I've seen one that will give you 300GB of transfer per month for $39.99/month.

I've considered doing that with the Axis 207 series, and using a Darwin Streaming Server on the host. That would require the clients to use Quicktime to view the stream. It's doesn't put out a flash stream natively, but Darwing will simply replicate the MPEG4 stream it puts out.

Basically, your hosting company is transcoding either the MJPEG stream of the MPEG4 stream, and allowing multiple streams on the downstream side.

[obxsurfinfo]

Great info. If I knew what company would do it for 39.99 then I wouldn't be worried about doing it myself. Do you know what company offers that service? I found a service that seemed appropriate, but it turned out to be focused completely on PC cameras that connect USB and not at all for the IP/Network cameras. Their software had to be installed on a PC to connect the device.

[Steve Foley]

I was looking at Godaddy.com's virtual dedicated server. 500GB/month.

I never actually set one up. I was using Darwin under Windows for testing, but it seemed to work the same as the Linux version.

[Dwayne]

I offered my help to obxsurfinfo and that is what we have achived together:

obxsurfinfos main problem were the costs of a streaming service, and linking directly to the stream of the camera was not possible because there are too many users.

So obxsurfinfo set the cams up to upload single pictures to his webspace, and I provided him a flash applet, which keep refreshing the pictures.

Although it is no stream, he gets 3-5 pictures per second which is ok, for this kind of set up.

Check it out:http://www.obxsurfinfo.com

[Steve Foley]

Nicely done.

[Todd S]

Hmmm... dead already?
I was curious to see how it looked!

[Dwayne]

I am a bit surprised, kevins site was up for years.

if you are intrested I can set up the same solution for you to check out.

[rkorolev]

Hello!
Great plugin. But I'd like to know if there's a flash plugin to play directly mjpeg stream? I have tried ffmpeg/ffserver to stream out FLV, but with no luck (ffserver crashes everytime), and now stuck with "motion" as a proxy server, but it can output only mjpeg to web.

[securicorp]

I would have thought the solution was simple,

Axis cameras can stream in .asx format which means the stream can be sent to a Windows media server, the Windows server will re-compress (with good quality) at any bitrate you want then distribute.

This is the same way that normal audio & video is streamed to Windows Media Player on your computer, you can also embed the video in a webpage.

The Windows server can deliver 1000's of streams at once so number of visitors is not a problem. See http://www.liveaudiostreaming.com for an example as they do video too. You would be looking at a price of $1.80 per concurrent viewer, with 100 concurrent viewers, you can serve 1000's of viewers a day, or 100 max at any 1 second. This is based on sending full frame rate video at 30fps

You will find with a dedicated server package you will run out of bandwith very quick and overages are charged at a premium
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