Distribution and transcoding setup questions...

[jclark]

I've been working to get an 'internet' camera setup and have the resulting video stream distributed.

The net environment consists of a 'media source side', a 'link' and a 'media distribution side'.

The camera can produce several types of streams, and further, can multicast an Mpeg-4 stream. In addition to the camera there is also the potential for a DVD to be in the system that would also need to be 'distributed'.

What I'd like to do is have VLC on the 'media source side' of my link pick up the multicast Mpeg-4 stream, using RTP, transcode it to something that looks like an MPeg-2 TS stream. The reason is that on the 'distribution' side of the link, I don't want to have the viewers have any need to 'talk' to the 'media source' side.

Currenly I'm doing this with expensive Mpeg-2 encoders to multicast, tunnel across the link, and thence to an expensive decoder, or an inexpensive vlc invocation that has only been given the local multicast stream address.

So, briefly, on one side of a link, there is a variety of 'media' formats, but on the 'distribution' side of the link, there are only multicast stream representations of the media being sourced on the 'media source' side of the link.

For some reason the myriad of parameters is not sinking in, and so I would like to see if someone can give me a hint on how to set this up.

Thanks
John Clark