Equipment Needed To Stream Live Video By Internet ?

[Bint Box]

Hi,

Would anyone please be able to advise me what equipment I need to stream live video from a satellite dish to the internet?

My very basic understanding is that I need a video capture card to get the signal from the satellite receiver, plus a PC connected to a router. After that, it's a fog to me and I have no idea about specifications of PC or the video capture card etc.

I have the satellite gear and the router but thought it would be preferable if I used an independent dedicated PC rather than use my current desktop PC.

I would be grateful for any advice on the make/model for a video capture card and for details of the specification needed for the PC and any software required (O/S for streaming PC, specific streaming software).

Rgds

 

[bremen1874]

Have you looked at Slingbox?

 

[visibleman]

Depending who you're attempting to stream to. If it's to watch whilst you're away then a slingbox is probably your best bet. If it's to stream to the 'world' then do realise the legalities of streaming Sky (any TV channel tbh) as it technically falls under rebroadcasting of a channel.
But you just need a capture card, something like a Blackmagic/Hauppauge/Compro, then sign up to a video streaming site like ustream/buzzin.tv/justin.tv, use software like Adobe Media Live Encoder (OSX/Windows; most streaming services support this), select input device (will be your capture card) and settings and that's it.
Shoutcast is also another method.

Edit - If it's 'freesat' channels you're after then you could use a DVB-S (SAT) tuner card which would replace the capture card and sky decoder. You can get DVB-S cards with CAM slots allowing you to use subscription cards but, from what i remember, Sky cards are linked to the sat decoder/receiver.

 

[Bint Box]

Have you looked at Slingbox?

I had initially looked at a slingbox as a lower cost option but I thought that a slingbox only allows one single connection from a remote location? I need to serve the video simultaneously to 2 or 3 remote locations, that is why I was looking at a dedicated PC/server and a video capture card.

Rgds

 

[Bint Box]

....But you just need a capture card, something like a Blackmagic/Hauppauge/Compro, then sign up to a video streaming site like ustream/buzzin.tv/justin.tv, use software like Adobe Media Live Encoder (OSX/Windows; most streaming services support this), select input device (will be your capture card) and settings and that's it.
Shoutcast is also another method.

Thx for the input.

Do I need to sign up to a streaming site? Can I not simply allow connections to my streaming PC/server directly if it is configured with the appropriate software/hardware.

It is not to "stream to the world", it is to allow 2 or 3 remote locations to the streaming, therefore, I hope to have some type of user access control in place. These are the reasons why I thought it could be better managed on a dedicated PC/server.


Rgds

 

[Bint Box]

.... If it's to stream to the 'world' then do realise the legalities of streaming Sky (any TV channel tbh) as it technically falls under rebroadcasting of a channel.
... If it's 'freesat' channels you're after then you could use a DVB-S (SAT) tuner card which would replace the capture card and sky decoder. You can get DVB-S cards with CAM slots allowing you to use subscription cards but, from what i remember, Sky cards are linked to the sat decoder/receiver.

It is nothing to do with Sky or Freesat or anything like that, it is simply a free to air satellite feed to be streamed to 2 or 3 remote locations that do not have a dish to access the broadcast.

 

[visibleman]

In which case, have a look at VLC which allows you to stream (File>Stream or press Ctrl+S to open the wizard) from a file or capture/tuner card and will also do transcoding on the fly.
Gets a bit more tricky if you need to switch channels remotely although i believe it is possible (have a look at the VLC forums).

Edit - for remotely controlling of channels have a look at remotetv. It's a separate app that controls VLC via command line; so changing a channels basically stops the current stream and recreates it using the new channel frequency.
Also VLC have a streaming page that might be of some use - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/streaming.html

 

[Bint Box]

In which case, have a look at VLC which allows you to stream (File>Stream or press Ctrl+S to open the wizard) from a file or capture/tuner card and will also do transcoding on the fly.
Gets a bit more tricky if you need to switch channels remotely although i believe it is possible (have a look at the VLC forums).

Will using VLC allow the remote locations to view the streaming in full screen mode or will it be in a small media player type window at their end?

I will be buying a dedicated PC to do the job anyway as there are no other suitable PC's available hence my focus towards a slightly more high end approach re dedicated server etc. There is a reasonable budget allocated for the hardware and software so I would like to get the most powerful option enabled withinn the budget.

 

[visibleman]

Will using VLC allow the remote locations to view the streaming in full screen mode or will it be in a small media player type window at their end?

VLC is like any other media player in that you can fullscreen a video, beit a stream or video file. And unless you resize the original feed resolution, then that'll stay the same as well ie: SD 720x576 at the server, remote locations will receive a 720x576 video stream. Obviously you need to transcode the feed to something a bit more bandwidth friendly, H264 etc, as that'll be your main issue unless the locations are on the internal network.

Personally i'd look at using a dedicated DVB-S tuner card rather than using a separate capture card and SAT decoder, just for ease. Although there are a few capture cards (Hauppauge PVR springs to mind) that have onboard H264 encoders which, if VLC supports it, would offload a lot of the processing.
Server-wise, you could possibly get away with something as low-powered as an Atom board, especially if you were to run Linux.

Obviously there are professional broadcasting systems that would do this (ie: feed it a video/audio signal and it outputs a transcoded stream via ethernet), but you'd need to look into this as it's well outside my field of knowledge and the costs are likely to outweigh any advantages given the small number of remote locations you want to 'broadcast' to.

 

[Bint Box]

.....there are professional broadcasting systems that would do this (ie: feed it a video/audio signal and it outputs a transcoded stream via ethernet)...

I think that this is probably what I will look at or the Hauppage video capture option.

Many thx for all of your help and for taking the time to reply, most appreciated.

Rgds