The Helix DNA server is open source, but the pure open source version is missing most of the binary codecs that you need to actually stream video content, so the formats that it can stream are actually very limited.
You will need to buy the Helix Universal server from Real if you want to stream WMV content. This works very nicely, we have it on our server and you can see the WMV videos it streams on our website. However, it is expensive, expect to $1000's for it, depending on the size of your organisation and expected usage. Otherwise, you are stuck with the free version which only supports the latest Real codec and restricts you to 5 simultaneous streams. They will still expect you to agree to a licence to get this, the licence is free and needs to be renewed every year. However, be warned, Real periodically upgrade the free version to their latest codec and remove support for the older codec, this means that to keep using the free version you have to re-encode your entire video library or pay money for the full version.
If you want to stream WMV, the only other option is to run the MS streaming media server, which can be downloaded free for recent windows server versions. Otherwise, I can thoroughly reccomend the Apple Darwin server for Quicktime, this will stream both Quicktime and Generic ISO MPEG 4 videos which will work with both Quicktime and a number of other clients (eg VideoLan). The server is open source and has the full set of codecs in the open source version. You will probably want to get Quicktime pro to encode the videos, i've not had much luck encoding quicktime videos that work with Darwin using VideoLan. However, QT Pro is cheap.
Unfortunately MS have so far refused to support the ISO MPEG 4 container format, so windows media player can't play these streams. If they ever do support the format, then using Darwin to stream MPEG 4 would be the ideal solution for providing multi-platform support with a single stream.
Unless you have a windows server, go for Darwin, the popularity of iTunes means that the Quicktime plugin is probably a lot more widespread than Real player these days, so it's less likely to cause problems for your end users. Multi-rate streaming and plugin embedding in webpages is a bit of a pain with Quicktime since it you need to generate reference file to go on the server. AutoView has a quicktime reference generator built in which can sort out the reference issues for embedding a single stream, but will not as yet create a multi-rate reference file for you (although you can set up two separate single rate sources, one for modem and the other for broadband). If you have a windows server, then ask yourself what is most important, cross-platform standards based streaming or support for windows media player. Of course, you could have both, we have a Darwin server in addition to the Helix Universal server.
As far as Autoview is concerned, instead of selecting the video file from Moodles file browser when setting up a video source, just type in the relevant rtsp:// URL and it should work.
You will need to buy the Helix Universal server from Real if you want to stream WMV content. This works very nicely, we have it on our server and you can see the WMV videos it streams on our website. However, it is expensive, expect to $1000's for it, depending on the size of your organisation and expected usage. Otherwise, you are stuck with the free version which only supports the latest Real codec and restricts you to 5 simultaneous streams. They will still expect you to agree to a licence to get this, the licence is free and needs to be renewed every year. However, be warned, Real periodically upgrade the free version to their latest codec and remove support for the older codec, this means that to keep using the free version you have to re-encode your entire video library or pay money for the full version.
If you want to stream WMV, the only other option is to run the MS streaming media server, which can be downloaded free for recent windows server versions. Otherwise, I can thoroughly reccomend the Apple Darwin server for Quicktime, this will stream both Quicktime and Generic ISO MPEG 4 videos which will work with both Quicktime and a number of other clients (eg VideoLan). The server is open source and has the full set of codecs in the open source version. You will probably want to get Quicktime pro to encode the videos, i've not had much luck encoding quicktime videos that work with Darwin using VideoLan. However, QT Pro is cheap.
Unfortunately MS have so far refused to support the ISO MPEG 4 container format, so windows media player can't play these streams. If they ever do support the format, then using Darwin to stream MPEG 4 would be the ideal solution for providing multi-platform support with a single stream.
Unless you have a windows server, go for Darwin, the popularity of iTunes means that the Quicktime plugin is probably a lot more widespread than Real player these days, so it's less likely to cause problems for your end users. Multi-rate streaming and plugin embedding in webpages is a bit of a pain with Quicktime since it you need to generate reference file to go on the server. AutoView has a quicktime reference generator built in which can sort out the reference issues for embedding a single stream, but will not as yet create a multi-rate reference file for you (although you can set up two separate single rate sources, one for modem and the other for broadband). If you have a windows server, then ask yourself what is most important, cross-platform standards based streaming or support for windows media player. Of course, you could have both, we have a Darwin server in addition to the Helix Universal server.
As far as Autoview is concerned, instead of selecting the video file from Moodles file browser when setting up a video source, just type in the relevant rtsp:// URL and it should work.