Greetings, I might be putting together a prototype audio-oriented webcasting server for small town meetings and the like. The general idea is to allow community groups and really local governments to find an extremely low-cost way to live stream and archive slightly "enhanced" events. I need your help to put together a laundry list of linux tools that help make the case that this is a quick and cost-effective platform. Option one - Use a laptop/desktop, connect the microphone system into the line-in and use a browser-based production console applet tied to a remote webcasting server to input information about the meeting, agenda items and time stamps along with links to meeting documents elsewhere on the web. A bonus feature would include the ability to grab static images from a number of basic webcams hooked to the in-room computer. I'd love it if images from two or three appropriately positioned webcams facing the same general direction could be stitched into a more panoramic view of the room. We'd refresh the image of course. Option two - In a room without a direct Internet connection, a high quality speaker phone (for really small meetings where most people are gathered around a table) or various equipment (any recommendations?) could connect the sound system to the phone line. The meeting host would have an account on the server, call-in, punch in a pin number and have their meeting streamed live and/or recorded. Additional ideas: 1. Podcasting - Allow folks to call into the site and leave shorter voice messages like you see with some commercial services that would apply podcasting methods. You could also offer any meeting as a podcast assuming that you really scrunched down the file because it is just voice. Most people won't be interested in listening to last night's city council meeting on their mp3 player, but maybe one in 500 would! 2. Player - I am interested applet-based Ogg Vorbis and MP3 player options that would connect to the basic content entered via the production console applet. The big buck services integrate video, power point, chat, etc. but I am just looking for something basic that could be added to later. 3. Site Content - Whether it is console or telephone submitted content, I am interested in which linux webcasting servers are easiest to work with in this regard. If you have any comments or know someone who has already done parts of this, please drop me a note: clift@xxxxxxxxxxxx Cheers, Steven Clift Steven Clift - http://publicus.net - Reply to: clift@xxxxxxxxxxxx Join DoWire: http://dowire.org E-Democracy: http://e-democracy.org
