Streaming a wedding over the internet.
 

I have now been asked everything. I have a bride who's grandparents will not be able to attend the wedding. She asked if there was anyway to stream it over the internet. Has anyone ever done this? Any thoughts?

I am testing this for a client who's spouse's side all lives in China and will likely not be able to attend.

I tested with the free Windows Media Encoder on a Core 2 Duo system piping the camera feed direct to the system using the firewire port. I had a few users get the stream from Main and Seattle (I'm in Idaho). Quality was passable, and dropouts did occur, but were infrequent. The real issue is if you expect to have more than one viewer. IF you will, then you need a CDN, or some other company with a bigger pipe that the wedding event location to be able to handle the multiple streams.

To stream it to just one person though, you might be able to get away with Skype, or AIM video. Not very fancy, but more reliable in my opinion than setting up your own server and such.

when doing one time events that need streaming video I use Multimediapros.com with Flash. Has worked great for me everytime. You just need to make sure you have a decent upload to get your content to their network from where ever you are filming. I have blogged about streaming live video a bit as well. Hope this helps.

I was thinking about using a 3G card from ATT attached to my laptop and then using Skype/iChat. This is only for the brides grandparents, so it will be a direct connection. No broadcasting needed.

The only thing about skype and chat videos is that they are usually very low quality except when objects fill the entire frame so without testing I dunno what a shot of the venue or bride and groom would look like. Also I would except when people are moving up and down the isle the video would fall apart. I would try and test it to see how that looks as well as see if you can keep a connection that is sufficient for the video stream from the location.