Does anyone know of a fairly stable video stream encoder running on Windows that will encode to h.264/AAC and work with a Quicktime/Darwin streaming encoder? I have devices that can bring the video/audio in as a DV "signal" over firewire but I would want to cut this to quarter size and encode for streaming. In the past I've used QT Broadcaster but now I don't have a Mac available to do this task. I think VLC might do this and is my next stop but thought I should ask about other software that can do this. Several years ago I looked at Wirecast but there was a bug in the QT streaming as well as a few other issues, maybe they have been fixed but maybe not.

Also are there any "decent"* USB devices that can take analog standard definition video and provide them to the encoder? Hopefully something I can buy (in store) at Bestbuy or Walmart, etc. It opens up choices in computers since some do not have (can not have) a firewire card installed.

* Note that decent is referring to standard definition from a composite video source, there is only so much I can expect from something that might be carried in a big box store. Timeframe is of course short which pushes me to make due with what I can grab instead of buying and building something good with an Osprey card (or similar quality). Not looking for Olympics quality here, just a demonstration of what can be done if the resources (time, money, and people) are presented. Decent specifically is about the quality I can get from an old Dazzle firewire converter but something that connects USB 2.0, so obvious to anyone that owns/owned one of these Dazzle devices, not great but passable.