video streaming over an intranet

[chrisbainbridge]

I used to have kit to stream video from my operating theatre to a teaching room via the hospital intranet.  I am now told that the cameras, etc are defunct.

I have been offered the use of a £22k Cisco teleconference system but it is clunky, limited in terms of positioning and limited in availability.

Looking around the intranet I came across Boxcast https://www.boxcast.com/product/boxcaster who claim to be able to live stream video to any website over the internet.

My questions are:

is there any reason this would not work over the intranet in the hospital?  (wired ethernet)

Is this the best tool for the job?

Are there any other companies, kit i should look at?

Thank you

[pcolbeck]

OK designing and consulting on networks for organisations like hospitals is what I do for a living and this is a yes probably thing.

Video doesn't take that much bandwidth really and since this is video streaming rather than interactive video (such as video-conferencing) latency wont even be much of an issue as streaming video is usually buffered.

A streaming solution will almost certainly work, a video conferencing one may or may not dependant on what else is going on in the network as it would be highly latency sensitive.

I cant suggest any particular product as the network is my ball game not the systems attached to it. You should also have a word with your network IT guys and see what their thoughts are. They would prefer to be included in any such discussion from the start rather than presented with a load of kit and told to make the network work with it.

[Beardy]

Also consider the confidentiality issues of streaming content via 3rd party servers, especially if those servers are off shore and outside the EU

[chrisbainbridge]

Beardy, I think that I can use Boxcast internally without accessing their servers for what I am suggesting.  Good point for the future though.  It is one of the advantages of my sort of surgery that faces are not visible.

Pcolbeck,  thanks for the response. Our medical illustration team are lovely but not proactive on this occasion.  good point to talk to our IT guys who are very helpful.

Chris