Need to feed a network camera image to up to 100 viewers

I am trying to set up a "weather" camera for some people who work
inside, so they can see what the weather is doing outside. Obviously,
they do not have a window to look out! Anyway, I have tried using a
Axis 2100 camera and allow people on the intranet to access it. This
caused several problems on the network and basically caused the camera
to lock-up repeatedly. Then I tried to set up a "proxy" server and
have the images be fed to it so then the camera itself would only see
one user. This seems to work OK, but the number of people accessing
the camera has grown from 10 or 15 to more like 100. So now I need to
investigate yet another, better, alternative. Does anybody have any
idea what I can use to feed a camera image over a network to as many
as 100 people without totally crippling the network and still have a
descent image quality and refresh rate? Any feedback would be greatly
appreciated.

My cheapest thoughts are to simply use a 1 to 5 second image refresh on
the camera uploading to a robust web server. People can get the image
from the web server instread of the camera. There is probably no reason
you need real streaming video for this purpose.

Now, if your 'network' is all privately controlled LAN, you can use a
video server to multicast the video stream once to all machines
connected. This does not scale to Internet use though. You could also
multicast to a number of video streaming servers which could
individually handle the loads.
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Rick wrote:

I am trying to set up a "weather" camera for some people who work
inside, so they can see what the weather is doing outside. Obviously,
they do not have a window to look out! Anyway, I have tried using a
Axis 2100 camera and allow people on the intranet to access it. This
caused several problems on the network and basically caused the camera
to lock-up repeatedly. Then I tried to set up a "proxy" server and
have the images be fed to it so then the camera itself would only see
one user. This seems to work OK, but the number of people accessing
the camera has grown from 10 or 15 to more like 100. So now I need to
investigate yet another, better, alternative. Does anybody have any
idea what I can use to feed a camera image over a network to as many
as 100 people without totally crippling the network and still have a
descent image quality and refresh rate? Any feedback would be greatly
appreciated.

Rick wrote:

I am trying to set up a "weather" camera for some people who work
inside, so they can see what the weather is doing outside. Obviously,
they do not have a window to look out! Anyway, I have tried using a
Axis 2100 camera and allow people on the intranet to access it. This
caused several problems on the network and basically caused the camera
to lock-up repeatedly. Then I tried to set up a "proxy" server and
have the images be fed to it so then the camera itself would only see
one user. This seems to work OK, but the number of people accessing
the camera has grown from 10 or 15 to more like 100. So now I need to
investigate yet another, better, alternative. Does anybody have any
idea what I can use to feed a camera image over a network to as many
as 100 people without totally crippling the network and still have a
descent image quality and refresh rate? Any feedback would be greatly
appreciated.



My cheapest thoughts are to simply use a 1 to 5 second image refresh on
the camera uploading to a robust web server. People can get the image
from the web server instread of the camera. There is probably no reason
you need real streaming video for this purpose.

Now, if your 'network' is all privately controlled LAN, you can use a
video server to multicast the video stream once to all machines
connected. This does not scale to Internet use though. You could also
multicast to a number of video streaming servers which could
individually handle the loads.

.................................................. .................................................. ..
NOTE: I have modified my reply-to address to avoid
Unsolicited Commercial Email. To respond to me directly,
please remove the dotUCE in the reply-to address.
.................................................. .................................................. ..

"Rick" wrote in message
...
| I am trying to set up a "weather" camera for some people who work
| inside, so they can see what the weather is doing outside. Obviously,
| they do not have a window to look out! Anyway, I have tried using a
| Axis 2100 camera and allow people on the intranet to access it. This
| caused several problems on the network and basically caused the camera
| to lock-up repeatedly. Then I tried to set up a "proxy" server and
| have the images be fed to it so then the camera itself would only see
| one user. This seems to work OK, but the number of people accessing
| the camera has grown from 10 or 15 to more like 100. So now I need to
| investigate yet another, better, alternative. Does anybody have any
| idea what I can use to feed a camera image over a network to as many
| as 100 people without totally crippling the network and still have a
| descent image quality and refresh rate? Any feedback would be greatly
| appreciated.


Sounds like you will need to move to Windows Server 2003 (with it comes the
Windows Media Server (a.k.a. WMS))
With this you can easily reach +100 users with a live stream!
You will only need to push it once to WMS. WMS will do the rest for you!

I suggest that you have a look at the Microsoft.public.windowsmedia.server
newsgroup.
You can get it with news.microsoft.com set as newsserver.
Lot's of info about this on it!

Noël
http://webcam.kijk.info
(online from AM 9 till PM 9 CET)

In the interim, before you get yuor camera set up, i suggest you configure a
voice hotline where people can call to get the latest weather conditions.
It can work something like this.

Bob is manning the weather hotline telephone:
JaneHello weather hotline?
bobWeather hotline here. I am looking outside. It is raining outside.
JaneThank you. Click



"Rick" wrote in message
...
I am trying to set up a "weather" camera for some people who work
inside, so they can see what the weather is doing outside. Obviously,
they do not have a window to look out! Anyway, I have tried using a
Axis 2100 camera and allow people on the intranet to access it. This
caused several problems on the network and basically caused the camera
to lock-up repeatedly. Then I tried to set up a "proxy" server and
have the images be fed to it so then the camera itself would only see
one user. This seems to work OK, but the number of people accessing
the camera has grown from 10 or 15 to more like 100. So now I need to
investigate yet another, better, alternative. Does anybody have any
idea what I can use to feed a camera image over a network to as many
as 100 people without totally crippling the network and still have a
descent image quality and refresh rate? Any feedback would be greatly
appreciated.