Topic: Any webcast experts in the house?

[Teen Wolf Blitzer]

Or any recomendations for any good forums related to it?  Here's the story.  Every year for NWSS (northwest string summit) we run an onsite radio station that broadcasts the main stage throughout the property.  Well the promoters this year told us to look into doing a webcast for next year.  At this point I would assume audio only and not camera involvement.  Just trying to get an idea on the investment needed to make it work.  I understand sites like tapers.org can offer that type of thing but I think I read there is a cap like 200 people at one time or something to that effect.  I would assume we'd need a lot of spaces for this festival.  And I do know there is highspeed at Horning's Hideout.  We saw it on our laptop.  Other than that I'm not sure the route to take.  Or maybe just bringing in a third party would be better in the long run?  Thanks for any advice!

[allan]

Maybe your local college radio station would be interested in hosting it, or at least give you info on what you need to do. My local station broadcast a good amount of live bluegrass, I do know that they can only do on campus broadcasts as they still have to use phones for any live remote type stuff from festivals.

[philR]

pretty sure tapers.org could handle the load.  email rennix and ask him.  or i can if you want?

[rastasean]

I know of people who use shoutcast for AUDIO but I imagine you could allow this for audio and video as well.
shoutcast.com
and there is also http://www.stickam.com/

Any idea how fast the net access is?

Good luck! I am also interested in this as well so everyone who knows anything about this, pitch in.

[rastasean]

I did a little more research for hosting providers. They aren't very cheap!
http://www.streamguys.com/
Its possible to do a single event stream for something like 200 people @ 128K that would be $400!!

http://www.viastreaming.com/
another option....

http://www.sleepyengineers.com

[kskreider]

Budget? 

A company that we work with have an entirely portable rig that is so simple that it is sick.  Sonic Foundry makes the hardware/software package called Mediasite ML440, or something like that.  It is basically a stripped down PC in a hard case.  it sits titled and one side is a LCD screen.  It has a capture card and all you have to do is hook up your camera, plug it in to a broadband connection, and go. 

The reason I ask about the budget is that I think that it runs about $15k without a camera.  It really is a plug-and-play set up if you have your host already set up though.

[keytohwy]

Apple's QuickTime Streaming Server.  Pretty sure that's what the 930 uses in DC...

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/streamingserver/

keytohwy