We use Microsoft Enterprise 2003 Server and the Media Service (free of charge) together with dotLRN and it works very well.
While currently this is done manually we will write a little package for dotLRN that allows professors to upload
a movie together with some meta data. The file is the automatically encoded for different bandwith and provided
as a stream via a link list in a portlet.
Our package will only work with Windows Media Service and
movies recorded with Camtasia Studio. Though extending it to indicate another encoders like virtualdub and streaming servers like darwin should be not too difficult.
Costs (Academic License):
Windows Enterprise 2003 550 EUR
Camtasia Studio 142 EUR
