Is live video streaming possible with a digital camcorder?

Our church has a small, older camcorder mounted in the sanctuary. We run a
cable from the (analog) "Video Out" RCA jack on the camera to a VCR in a
cabinet a few feet away. The camera has a standard record-to-tape option,
but can also provide a "live stream" over the Video Out jack, which allow us
to record live sermons directly to VHS tape on the VCR.

We've been offering audio sermons for download on our website for a while,
and we'd like to being offering video sermon downloads (probably DivX or
Windows Media) as well.

I suppose we could put a splitter on the camcorder's video cable and
continue to run one end into the VCR, while running the other end into a PC
with a video capture card. But I'm assuming that would probably result in a
lower quality signal.

So here's my questions (and my apologies that these are probably newbie
questions):

1) Are digital camcorders capable of providing a live digital feed (via
Firewire or USB 2.0 or whatever) in the same way that our old analog
camcorder can provide a live feed over a coax cable?

2) If they can, do I need any other special hardware on the PC besides a
Firewire/USB 2.0 connector? And what software would be required to capture
the incoming digital video?

3) Again assuming #1 is possible, is it possible to "split" a digital signal
so that it can be sent to both a PC and, say, a standalone DVD-R unit?

Thanks to anyone who can point me in the right direction!

 

If you had a Windows media server in your building, you could have the
camera plugged in to a computer with the free Windows Media encoder set to
stream live ( as well as to archive a file), and then have this computer
direct the live stream file to your server. If you had a T1 line, you
could probably forego having to have the server in your building with
you---you could have the live file upload directly to the server over the
T1.
If you download the free Windows Media Encoder
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/download/default.asp
you can read through the help section on how to stream live from the camera.
You do need a powerful computer to be able to handle decent resolution video
in real time.

Dan V

 

Considering your "industry", you ought to check out the Christmas card
link on top of the www.musicmissionkiev.org web page...this is an electronic
Christmas Card that goes out with the "Gift" of beautiful Christmas Music.
In this case, a song--O Come all Ye Faithful is purchased ( $5.00) by a
person who wants to send a nice Christmas card to a friend or family member,
and the Windows Media Audio file of O come all Ye Faithful is "gifted" to
the friend or family member---it shows up in their e-mail as a nice html
based and personalized Christmas card, and it has a link to the downloadable
music which has been "purchased" for them by the sender--whose name appears
in the e-mail "From" portion of the e-mail. An alternative is for the sender
to purchase the entire Christmas album for $15.00 and "gift" this instead. A
one hour "Christmas in Kiev" show ( which was a DVD) is about to be offered
as a high res Windows Media Video download, which can be "gifted" in the
same way, but for more money.

Music Mission Kiev raises money with these sales, and pays no shipping or
receiving fees---this is all electronic, so the charitable purpose has a
wonderfully low "cost" for this form of fundraising.

If you have an interest in trying something like this for your church, there
is still plenty of time before Christmas--provided you have some music or
video which could function in an equivalent manner---Christmas Carols, etc.

Regards,
Dan Volker