The Highline College MaST Center wanted a 24/7 underwater livestream of the happenings under their dock, at three different depths.

The Highline College MaST Center wanted a 24/7 underwater livestream of the happenings under their dock, at three different depths.

Their budget was essentially $0 so I used old equipment the college had slated for recycling.

Their budget was essentially $0 so I used old equipment the college had slated for recycling.

The 'server room' was a rack hidden behind a wall of fish tanks with a perpetual puddle of salt water on the floor.

The 'server room' was a rack hidden behind a wall of fish tanks with a perpetual puddle of salt water on the floor.

I used Logitech c920 webcams because (at the time) they had an H.264 hardware encoder.

I used Logitech c920 webcams because (at the time) they had an H.264 hardware encoder.

The MaST Center constructed a two-stories tall PVC pipe enclosure with viewports webcams and strapped it to the dock.  I ran very long USB cables up the pipe into the server room via a gap in the roof.

The MaST Center constructed a two-stories tall PVC pipe enclosure with viewports webcams and strapped it to the dock. I ran very long USB cables up the pipe into the server room via a gap in the roof.

The USB busses available didn't have enough throughput to support more than one H.264 stream at a time so used three separate laptops, one per webcam.

The USB busses available didn't have enough throughput to support more than one H.264 stream at a time so used three separate laptops, one per webcam.

VLC's command line tool, cvlc, transcoded the H.264 streams to RTMP and served them to the network.  Cron jobs to detect network connectivity, cvlc's activity, and the RTMP stream ensured the 24/7 uptime requirement.

VLC's command line tool, cvlc, transcoded the H.264 streams to RTMP and served them to the network. Cron jobs to detect network connectivity, cvlc's activity, and the RTMP stream ensured the 24/7 uptime requirement.