I might be converting www.hermitagehillsbaptist.com over to the drupal 4.7 platform and today I met with one of the church leaders and he told me that at some point in the future they would like to possibly have a live video feed for the sunday morning sermons. I know this is going to depend largely on their A/V team capabilities but is this something that Drupal should be able to handle.

Has anyone out there ever done any live video broadcasts from drupal?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Comments

esskay’s picture

Generally, video is streamed via products like Windows Media Server. They can reside on your own server, if you have sufficient bandwidth, or can be streamed through a hosted streaming plan available from many web hosts. You connect the video and audio output to a computer at your location, running an encoding program like Windows Media Encoder. This program creates a stream, and then sends it to the streaming media server. Users then connect to the streaming media server to view/listen to the program.

You can, of course, configure Drupal to link to the served content.

We have been doing services for some time now, and they work great.

crick’s picture

Thank you for your response. I am really wanting to convert their site to drupal for them as I feel like it will give them much greater flexibility in the years to come. The current content system they are using is one of those "turnkey" solutions provided by a host.

I want to make sure I understand what all would be involved in streaming a live feed from the church.

We would need to have a windows machine encode the feed and then send the stream to a windows streaming media server. Where the encoding machine would obviously be onsite. Would the streaming media server be onsite as well or is there such a thing as a streaming media host for the purpose of broadcasting a live feed?

I guess the main thing is that It can be done. This is something that won't be addressed at the current time, I just like to look into the future. I don't want them to have to change over to something different down the road.

I have no experience with any kind of windows media servers. I'm much more familiar with linux servers.

You mentioned that you have been doing services for some time now, do you work for a company that deals with live internet broadcasts? If so, I'd be happy to recommend your company to the church.

esskay’s picture

You're not set up to receive e-mails, so I can't send you my contact info. But if you want, drop me a note through the contact facility.

khoogheem’s picture

I have created a streaming video node for my Travel website to allow users to add streams of local TV stations. Right now it is written for 4.6, but seems to work fine.

If I can ever figure out the MacCVS application so I don't keep putting files in the wrong place on the cvs site I will thow it up there for users to start converting it to 4.7

Let me know if you have some interest in it.. I need to put a little more work it to it but I am willing to share.

I have posted a Drupal 4.6 version of my work at: http://web2.0resource.com/download/modules/webmedia

redpineseed’s picture

khoogheem, i'd be interested in looking at your demo and the code, even convert it to 4.7.

vako’s picture

This is a 5 year old post. I am surprised that we still don't have a solution for direct video broadcast.
If anyone has found a way to broadcast video in Drupal, please let me know.

Thanks!

WorldFallz’s picture

just because a five year old thread hasn't been updated recently, doesn't mean it's still a problem. It depends on what you mean by 'broadcast video', but there are several streaming modules available in the downloads area and you can basically embed whatever internet streaming technology you want (ie red5, wowza, etc). It's not really a drupal thing per say.

vako’s picture

I didn't say there still is a problem. What I meant was that we still don't have a live video streaming solution, which is very useful in many situations, like broadasting live a sports event, a church sermon, a school event, etc.
The modules that are currently available, let us embed videos that have been pre-recorded.

WorldFallz’s picture

if you can stream live to a web page you can use it in drupal-- ie with red5.

vako’s picture

Thank you. I read about Red5 and it seems to be a feasible solution. I will use it.