[ale] IP video streaming in a school

[Daniel Howard]

Apologies to those on SchoolForge where I just posted this, but just in 
case anyone on this list also has some ideas I'm also posting here. 
Best, Daniel

My daughter's principal has asked me to set up an IP video system so 
that teachers can capture their lectures using webcams attached to their 
Windows laptops, and also have one or two dedicated IP video setups 
where a PC in a computer lab or media center has a video camera on a 
tripod connected to it for realtime streaming of morning announcements 
to teachers Windows PCs.  I'm thinking a dedicated Ubuntu PC for each of 
two cameras running Ubuntu Studio, and another dedicated Linux box that 
becomes the IP video server where all videos from morning announcements 
and classrooms are stored and served.  The wrinkle is the teachers 
Windows laptops and the parents and students at home/work who would like 
to view the videos.

Has anyone done something like this?  Can you offer thoughts on how to 
best do it in a school setting?  I'll need an easy way in Windows for 
teachers to setup and capture videos of lectures and save them to the 
local server, hopefully an OpenSource solution and in a format that any 
OS can easily use, likewise the Ubuntu Studio PCs used for morning 
announcements, etc. in the Media Center and Computer Lab.  Note that I 
considered uploading videos to YouTube, but our school district blocks it.

Any ideas appreciated!