The device that is capturing a live feed and encoding it in real time. The video feed typically originates either from a camera input via USB/Firewire interface or from a video capture card. The hardware requirements for the encoding station vary depending on the kind of input device you are using and the number of output(s) (file streams) you require. Minimally speaking it is advised to use an Intel Pentium IV or equivalent processor with at least 1GB RAM. This device will require a copy of the VX30 Live software, for processing and encoding the video input. VX30 Live is also used to stream the encoded file feed either directly to the connecting clients or to a primary B-Cast Server. VX30 Live recognizes any capture device that supports the video for Windows driver.

The B-Cast server is the hub of a VX30 IP Broadcast Network. Remote Stations uplink their video streams to the B-Cast server who then routes the information to the clients or to other B-Cast servers. B-Cast Servers can support multiple uplinks and generally can support as many client connections as they have available throughput. Because the B-Cast server utilizes very little memory or CPU cycles to route streams the hardware requirments are nominal. For best practices it is recommended to use a single or dual processor Pentium IV server (or equivalent) with 1GB RAM. In addition each server will require an installation of the VX30 B-Cast software.

are only required in robust delivery situations where a single server cannot supply enough bandwidth capacity to service all clients. The primary B-Cast server can be configured to route the file stream(s) to a network of secondary B-Cast servers who in turn will function as repeaters of the original file stream(s).

Client devices include any hardware device that has a Java enabled web browser. Currently this includes all PC environments including Windows, OS X and Linux/UNIX. Specialty players can be created for streaming to non standard devices (e.g. cell-phones, set top boxes etc...)