VideoLAN ok for large installation?

[timmliem2001]

I'm reseaching various systems for use in a larger scale installation. Here is the basic requirements:

1) This installation will be in a daycare

2) It will have 35 cameras (IP type, Axis 205 most likley)

3) Will need to serve real-time streams over Internet to possibly hundreds of viewers at once (daycare center will have 200+ children, and most likley, both parents work and have Internet access, plus grandparents, etc.).

4) Outbound Internet connection will be a 1.5 T1 line. (Might get two lines if needed)

I have looked at Windows Media Server, but am put off a little with the encoding aspects of the source.

My questions are:

1) Is VideoLAN suitable for this type of installation?

2) Does VideoLAN actually have to "encode" the MJPEG from Axis cams, or does it just rebroadcast them? (I am hoping to get by the 20 concurrent connection limit of Axis cams, without having to encode the image, etc.)

Any other suggestions are welcome. I have searched the forums for "Axis", and will learn from those posts for Axis-specific setup questions. I'm also in the process of reading all of the user guides, etc. but wanted to ask these generic questions before getting too deep into it, if VideoLAN is not a good solution to these requirements.

Thanks in advance, Tim

[zorglub]

Hello,

VideoLAN *should* support all you want.

However, it has not been extensively tested with many users.

You should not need to transcode the video. Should you want to do it, you would not need a transcode per connected user, but one per input stream (35 in your case).

Don't hesitate to ask, should you have any specific questions.

[broquea]

VLC doesn't need to make 20 connections to each camera. You'd have one connection per camera to the VLC server. Using RTSP/M-Jpeg on the camera, and max resolution, you might push 1.2mbit/connection between VLC and the camera. Since that isn't external to your network, no worries, just have a 100mbit switch.

I'm not certain how the HTTP stream output method works since when I tried connecting, my browser thought it was a binary file. However MMS is an option that I've been using so that someone can click on a specific camera link on a site, which launches a Windows Media Player connection to the VLC server and not the cameras. You can control the bitrate on both the re-encode via VLC, as well as setting a cap for MMS connections. Although a T1 might eventually become saturated. I'm barely seeing any difference in my traffic from the VLC server when I make a connection to the MMS stream, however I haven't started stress testing. When I do I should have better bandwidth statistics.

I haven't played much with the other outputs yet since MMS is the primary focus of my project. However VLC does connect to either RTSP or M-jpeg streams on the camera for certain. I had to update the firmware to the latest rev on my 210 because it came with 4.11 which didn't have RTSP support, and does now since upgrading to rev 4.20. If you make any progress with rebroadcasting M-Jpeg, that would be a fun read. If you already have the camera (sounds like it was decided if you are considering 30 of the same hardware), definately take the time to muck around and try things.

[broquea]

Actually do have an update on the bandwidth statistics.

A single connection using WMP to VLC producing an MMS stream, using:

#transcode{vcodec=WMV1,vb=256,scale=1}

and no throttling/cappping, after 10 minutes connected I'm using 215kbit/s. I expecting it will ramp up a little more since that is only 2 5-minute mrtg samples.