Video over lan?

[Eleron]

Does anyone know of a piece of software that will connect web cams over a LAN? Basically something like a local version of net meeting. We need to be able to host it on a local server and have control over the connecting of ?calls? through a central point. It does not have to be free software, though a free trial period would be nice. I need to be able to connect more than two net cams to the call. Off lan "calls" are not needed.

Am I looking for nonexistent software?

-E

 

[skatertech]

I'm not really sure if there is an app to do what you want, but have you tried RealProducer? You can have several machines stream content to one RealVideo server, and then access the content via RealPlayer.

 

[Eleron]

I'm not sure if thats exactly what i'm looking for because I want the people on both ends to be able to speak to and see one another.

-E

 

[lobadobadingdong]

You can do it. It costs money though, you can't just go buy a bunch of web cams, plug em in and conference them. Check this link I've used them before, the freeware won't do it, but the registered software will, you'll need to set up a conferencing server locally, if you use one on the internet it will lag something terrible, if it works at all. The ip of that server will be where all the conferencing takes place. It works ok, we used it as a cheap way of having a video security system at a place I worked at a couple of years ago in Waco, tx. The secretary could watch all the doors from here office and tell when the shipping guys got to the back etc. be warned this uses a lot of bandwidth and will slow anything less than 100base-t to a crawl.

 

[rayster]

If what you want is a directory of users and a way for them to establish netmeeting sessions with one another:
...you could set up an ILS server. The backbone of MS Netmeeting is an ILS server, a quasi-LDAP server that Netmeeting clients register with to annouce availability and link to a user's current IP so that the call can be established. The easiest way to do this is with MS Site Server which has the ILS functions built in and templates to deploy the directory to an intranet site. There is a free Linux implementation of ILS as well, don't know how well it works.
Of course, since Netmeeting doesn't need the server and will connect directly to an IP address, you could use the Netmeeting ActiveX control and write a web interface from scratch, hardcoding the user/machine IP addresses.
If what you want is a a list of cameras and the ability to remotely select and watch/control the camera feed:
...you could use Axis Camera Explorer (ACE) and Axis webcams. ACE allows to connect to and/or control a unlimited number of Axis webcams or video servers, watch video from the selected source, or capture the feed to a AVI file.

 

[Eleron]

Now we are getting some where. Those are options I can work with. If anyone else has more I'm still looking for as many solutions to this problem as I can.

Thanks

-E