Streaming Video From Office

hi

does anyone know if and how we can setup streaming video from our real office to our SL office. we want to add it as a gimmick that people can view streaning video directly from our office inside SL

I have read a lot of stuff about it but not really found if it and be done and how it's done.

Please provide URL or the link if you know how.

Thanks in advance!

You would have to use an intermediate full streaming server, that can handle the bandwidth required to multicast the signal. Then you only need the url from the output port of the server to show it in SL, the results can be very variable due to the high overheads of the client.

You would need to search the internet for providers of those services and be prepared to open your wallet quite wide. Most are based on 'per viewer' rates, this is because of the bandwidth resources required for live streaming (i.e. live stream/small resolution say at 200kbps times the amount of simultanious viewers (say 10) would equal the constant bandwidth, times by the stream length over time = serious constant bandwidth = lots of USD$$$$$$).
If you run it off a 'standard' server from your office, with streaming software (not fixed length movie software, but multicasting/unicasting software) and a dedicated T1 connection, you may expect with the correctly set resolution, to be able to support 2-4 viewers.

Hi Mars,

thanks for your reply. I gather that streaming Video direct from the office is not possible as of yet.

I had hoped we could place a webcam but guess we will have to wait a while before this is an option.

Well a small webcam video shouldn't need too much bandwidth. You could probably get away with around 100-150kb/s (12.5-18.75KB/s), possibly lower. With a 1mb/s upload, you would get somewhere between 5-10 viewers.
The quality wont be amazing, but still better than it used to be on old 56k dial up modems, which managed webcam viewing and sending on a lot less bandwidth

Set it at 50kb/s and you can fit upto 15-16 viewers on the standard upload rate for business ADSL in the UK (800kb/s). So it is possible, just depends on your upload rate.

Set up a copy of darwin streaming server on a spare box (runs on linux/unix, windows and mac) and broadcast your video to it, then put the address of that server into your parcel settings.
link

You'll also need a way to connect your cam to the streaming server. Mac has some tools to do that built in afaik, MPEG4IP for linux and apparently VLC can also do it(link)

If a big pipe or an intermediate server aren't viable, it would be possible to have the computer running the webcam upload a static image to an FTP/HTTP server every couple of minutes and point the parcel's media URL to it then update it periodically in world.

thank you for that! i never thought of that at all...sometimes one never thinks of the most obvious.... http://forums.secondlife.com/images/icons/icon7.gif
Smile

LOL.. you could create a loop set of images, for when the boss checks in and thinks you are all there and busy .

If the images were small enough, you can swap the images (FTP restriants/rezzing etc) one per second according the LL's 'rules'. A sort of 'flipbook' version.

Could go one further and have a few frames stuck into the same texture and animate it in-world too.