How can I stream video from my application to the web?

Question

I have an application that grabs video from multiple webcams, does some image processing, and displays the result on the screen. I'd like to be able to stream the video output on to the web - preferably to some kind of distribution service rather than connecting to clients directly myself.

So my questions are:

• Do such streaming distribution services exist? I'm thinking of something like ShoutCAST relays, but for video. I'm aware of ustream.tv, but I think they just take a direct webcam connection rather than allow you to send any stream.
• If so, is there a standard protocol for doing this?
• If so, is there a free library implementation of this protocol for Win32?

Ideally I'd just like to throw a frame of video in DIB format at a SendToServer(bitmap) function, and have it compress, send, and distribute it for me ;)

Answer 1

ustream.tv works by using Adobe Flash's support for reading input from a webcam. To fake it out, you need a fake webcam driver. Looking on the ustream.tv site, they point to an application called WebCamMax that allows effects and splicing in video. It works by creating a pseudo-webcam that mixes video from one or more cameras along with other sources. Since that app can do it, your own code could do that too, although you'll probably need to write a Windows driver to get it all working correctly.

Answer 2

Take a look at video LAN client (or VLC for short) as a means for streaming video.

As for distribution sites, I don't know how well it works with ustream.tv and similar new services.