Merge e.g. four realtime video streams into one 2x2 grid?

[rl4engc]

Anyone know what software/hardware I could use to do this? I had a random idea after a glass or two of wine as a present for the young'uns Christmas present.

The idea being;

1) Pick some live streams e.g International Space Station, Sun Solar activity, Nature ones etc (don't they bolt cameras onto whales backs now?).
2) Merge these into a CCTV-style video stream say 3x3 or 4x4
3) Output this to a dedicated (read old) monitor bolted to a wall, could be some distance away, will HDMI do it? Ethernet?

Any Ideas?

Cheers

[WTFH]

Why not just get 4 ustream pop ups running on a computer with a long cable to the screen?

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream/pop-out
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pete-s-pond/pop-out
...Etc

[woohoo]

Why not just get 4 ustream pop ups running on a computer with a long cable to the screen?

Live_ISS_Stream on USTREAM: Live video from the International Space Station includes internal views when the crew is on-duty and Earth views at other times...
Pete's Pond on Mashatu on USTREAM: Pete's Pond is a waterhole on Mashatu Game Reserve in Botswana, Africa. It is a famous webcam that began on National Geo...
...Etc

Or if you know a little programming you can have a wpf form, add 4 webbrowser controls and set the source to the popout. Has the advantage it just easier to start/stop etc.
<WebBrowser HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="230" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="316" Source="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream/pop-out"/>

Though you may want to switch the sound off if you have more than one source with sound.

[Bean]

I like the idea, however, you could instead grab some extremely long gif images of said things and store them on a e-photo frame instead?

Saves the bandwidth, uptime, cables etc - just a thought

[woohoo]

Or if you know a little programming you can have a wpf form, add 4 webbrowser controls and set the source to the popout. Has the advantage it just easier to start/stop etc.
<WebBrowser HorizontalAlignment="Left" Height="230" VerticalAlignment="Top" Width="316" Source="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream/pop-out"/>

Though you may want to switch the sound off if you have more than one source with sound.

<Window x:Class="VideoStream.MainWindow"
        xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
        xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
        xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
        xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
        xmlns:local="clr-namespace:VideoStream"
        mc:Ignorable="d"
        Title="MainWindow" Height="350" Width="525">
    <Grid>
        <Grid.RowDefinitions>
            <RowDefinition Height="*"></RowDefinition>
            <RowDefinition Height="*"></RowDefinition>
            
        </Grid.RowDefinitions>
        <Grid.ColumnDefinitions>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="*"></ColumnDefinition>
            <ColumnDefinition Width="*"></ColumnDefinition>
        </Grid.ColumnDefinitions>

        <WebBrowser Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="0" Source="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream/pop-out"/>
        <WebBrowser Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="0" Source="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pete-s-pond/pop-out" />
        <WebBrowser Grid.Column="0" Grid.Row="1" Source="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/live-iss-stream/pop-out"/>
        <WebBrowser Grid.Column="1" Grid.Row="1" Source="http://www.ustream.tv/channel/pete-s-pond/pop-out" />
    </Grid>

</Window>

[rl4engc]

Cheers some good responses

@WTFH, woohoo

Cheers I'd nopt heard of ustream, I guess it's like a live version of YouTube, though it doesn't appear to work on my server (shirley it doesn't need Flash? ) Just a black screen. I can code a bit, is it just a case of having a local .html file and loading it in a browser? I guess not cos that code looks like xml.

@Bean no I'd want it to be live, I like the idea of young one having a monitor on his wall with live feeds on, sort of a "CCTV window on the world" I might extend it to the lounge.

[WTFH]

You can get live streams on youtube, SafariLive do it on there twice a day (https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCV6HJBZD_hZcIX9JVJ3dCXQ ) along with several others.

[woohoo]

@WTFH, woohoo

Sorry mate, if it's code stuff you don't know. But basically you paste that into a WPF form and you will get a window split into 4 that stretches and displays the feed for IIS and the other show thing. If its something you want happy to send the code with an exe to run. If not, I'm actually going to use it, so thanks for the idea.