Real time video capturing

[Haopengyou]

Is it possible to connect a vcr up to a computer (through some kind of video capture device), then connect the computer to the internet so that someone in another city can watch the movie from the video tape in real time? i.e. as opposed to first capturing the movie to a file, rendering it into a vcd or dvd format and then transferring the file over the internet, having someone download it and then watching it like a common dvd?

[poisondeathray]

Is it possible to connect a vcr up to a computer (through some kind of video capture device), then connect the computer to the internet so that someone in another city can watch the movie from the video tape in real time? i.e. as opposed to first capturing the movie to a file, rendering it into a vcd or dvd format and then transferring the file over the internet, having someone download it and then watching it like a common dvd?

You can, but it's not practical in real life on a consumer basis, because of internet bandwith limitations. (unless you have a big company and lots of resources and $)

When you capture, it usually is uncompressed with high data rates. Even if you used real time hardware compression (you'd need a capture card, GPU assisted software, or a fast system), we are talking around 4-9Mbits/s (lower if you used higher compression, and lower quality)

Even if you had adequate bandwidth (upload and download on end user side), most applications do not handle streaming bitrates that high very well. Performance is not very good over HTTP or RTSP, and playback is usually choppy

DVD type format is possible with streaming flash now over a webpage (even menus and interactivity), Encore CS4 has this authoring capability, but the webpages have to be setup beforehand (uploaded to content server beforehand)

[edDV]

First check your isp upload limitations on bit rate and extra charges.

Two or more free programs can do this but the upload image will be small.

Windows Media Encoder
VideoLan

Baldrick has good tutorials for both. Start with small resolution, then try larger. Max users will be small (1 to 3) unless you contract an external streaming server to re-broadcast.

[Haopengyou]

Thanks! I will do some further research. I am not really looking to broadcast to a number of people. I am moving back to China and I am trying to find a way to get access to some good educational DVD's and VHS tapes that are not available in China.

It sounds to me like the most reasonable solution would be to make a flash out of it and then upload/download?