Media Server?

[quaium]

We need to set up a Media Server in the school and I'd like a little advice from people who have already set one up or are looking to set one up.

 

Basically what I'm looking to have is a server which holds all the media content which can then be accessed by our users via an interface which lists all the available videos and maybe even organises them in to categories. These can then be played simply by clicking on the link and streaming the video directly from the server without the need for any downloading.

 

I've looked at a few options such as Windows Media Services, Adobe Flash Media Interactive Server and Unreal Media Server but haven't been able to do what I want with them. The focus for these applications seems to be on streaming media over the Internet but all we want to do is stream the media locally.

 

Another important note is that we would like to be able to stream a number of different media formats like WMV, MOV, FLA, AVI etc. etc.

 

Any advice on this would be greatly appreciated...

[SYNACK]

Depending on your budget Clickview does exactly this:

ClickView - the digital video solution for schools and is in use in lots of schools. Includes a video library but does cost.

[TheScarfedOne]

There is also a free version of this called ClickView Lite. We just got approval for this - but you need to check to see if your county has a broadcast licence.

[DrPerceptron]

WMS will happily stream media over the LAN, it doesn't have to use a webpage to present the stream, though it certainly helps, you should be able to build a set of pages to present the videos in an easy format.

 

I've used WMS here to stream the BBC radio stations and we've also used it during college productions to show the students in the changing areas what's currently going on stage so that they don't miss their cues.

 

We don't use it as much as it should be used though - but that's down to no content to show.

[jumpinjamez]

we are using this and it appears to be working fine

 

TrilbyTV, A streaming media server for your school

[Brpilot99]

Hiyah ... this maybe to simple an answer ... but I store my video (mpeg) files in a folder on the server with subfolders for categories ....

The users have a shortcut pointing in that direction ... the user clicks on a video of his choise ...

media player starts on the local machine and plays the video ... we use this method for playing videos onto the whiteboards .......

 

Works a treat for what we want !!!

 

Cheers

[AyatollahPies]

Would media portal do the job?

 

It's free and I use it on a project machine at home as a media centre. Plays pretty much every format you can throw at it.

 

MEDIAPORTAL - free media center - Home

[quaium]

Thanks for the suggestions so far guys. I'll be taking a closer look at MEDIAPORTAL and TrilbyTV. As for Clickview we have looked in to that in the past but I think we dismissed it because it didn't let us use our own videos and we could only view what was available as part of the software subscription.

 

Keep the suggestions coming please...

[australiana]

"it didn't let us use our own videos and we could only view what was available as part of the software subscription."

 

Clickview does allow you to add your own material (eg VHS, DVDs -if they are not copyright protected, mpeg4s etc.). It also has a broadcast TV recorder or a much fancier version called 24/7 that records 6 channels all the time, out of which you pick what you want up to a week or more later.

 

We use the clickview exchange function fairly heavily. It has more than 2000 TV programs that have been uploaded by other schools