PCs and Video – an exercise in frustration

I have been working with video on a PC for a while now. First it was hooking up a video camera to the PC so I could download and convert clips and put these on the web. Frankly, I am still not very good at it but I have learned a lot. I cannot believe what a pain it is to do anything with videos on a PC.

Presently I am trying to figure out a way to capture a signal from a security camera and have it available remotely – either over the web as a web page, or on a local PC that I can remote desktop into so I can see the picture. What a pain!! Turns out that the software for the TV Tuner does not broadcast NOR will it support remote desktop or VNC (I just get a "black box" on the client, whereas the server – the PC with the TV tuner – shows the video fine). Windows Media Encoder can't seem to recognize the source, so I cannot get it to capture, encode and broadcast. 

Tonight I'll try using a WinAmp encoder and broadcast to Shoutcast. Wish me luck.