Camcorder with streaming live video output

[cajundon]

Are you aware of any personal camcorder that has a live video streaming output port? I want to stream a live feed to a computer and then use that computer for a meeting broadcast to off site computers who may also view the meeting.

 

[Guest]

You have a couple of options here.

#1 - Go out to eBay or Craigslist and find a Mini-DV camcorder that maybe can't record or playback tapes but still powers up. Ensure the model has a firewire out (most do). You can feed via firewire directly into most webcam/video input enabled applications (Flash media encoder, Windows Media Encoder, etc.).

#2 - Get any video camera/camcorder with video out and purchase a USB video capture device. You can go cheap cheap ($20 or so, check out customer reviews on Newegg or Amazon for success/failure stories) or spend a little more on higher quality capture devices (Canopus, etc).

For audio, if you really want to get some decent quality, check into a Zoom H2 (or the newer 2 channel model, H1 I think is what it's called, coming out late July 2010) and use it to feed the audio into your line in/mic in on the computer.

And finally, make sure you have good lighting on the subject in the room, otherwise you're receiving party will be seeing pixelization city!