[Discuss] Streaming video from MIT classrooms for BLU meetings?

[John Abreau]

In the past we've had discussions about providing streaming video of BLU
meetings,
but none of us were sure how to go about setting it up. However, at last
month's
BLU meeting, someone pointed out that MIT's classrooms now have built-in
cameras which should make the process feasible.

I contacted MIT's Sloan School tech support about the classroom's built-in
cameras,
and they said we could use the self-service IP video conferencing function
of the room
to provide streaming video via an outside service, but they cannot provide
any support
for us, so we need to figure out the details on our own.

Is anyone familiar with how to use their video conferencing, and what we
would need
to set up for the outside service? Ideally I'd like to install something on
one of the
BLU servers using an open-source engine that can both stream the live video
and simultaneously capture it to a file that we could later edit and upload
to YouTube.


Here are the technical details their tech support folks provided:

> I'm sorry, but we can’t accomodate your request for video streaming
> and recording using the Sloan School’s in-house services.   The reason
> is partly our service model, and partly technology driven.  On the
> service side,  the recording service is only available to the MITSloan
> community for academic uses or for events by official MIT Sloan groups.
> On the technical side, the camera and microphone outputs are only
> routed into the Sloan School’s classroom recording and video
> conferencing systems, so there is no way to direct the output to a
> laptop, or even to the in-room computers, for capture in YouTube or
> any other software client.
>
> You are welcome, however, to use the self-service IP video conferencing
> function of the room.  The rooms use Cisco C-series codecs, which operate
> on the h.323 standard, and connect via TCP/IP.  If you have access to a
> service that you can call and stream to using h.323 you may be able to
> provide a live stream to your group.  This is a self-service function of
the
> room however, and we will not be able to provide you with additional
> assistance.  Simply select the video conferencing function and dial the
> IP address or FQDN using the dialer pad.


-- 
John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0xD5C7B5D9
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