Video conferencing server?

[dice]

I'm not sure if Networking & Security is the right place for this, but I figure if it isn't someone will move it


The short story is that I'm looking for video conferencing software that is compatable between Windows and Linux and supports having multiple people in the conference. I believe that the best solution would be to have a central conference server hosted on my university connection or at colo (I have easy access to both). I also would like to know what web cams and/or microphones I should be looking at to get good image/sound quality and excellent Linux compatability.

The long story is that I'm working on a project with a number of people up and down the west coast and we'd like to hold regular meetings via video conferencing over the internet. Everyone has a broadband connection, but some people are running Windows and others are running Linux. My intuition tells me that the upstream pipes on the broadband lines are going to get clogged up really quickly as we add people into the conference if the conferencing software tries to send video/voice streams to everyone in the conference, which is why I think we'll need a central server.

Does anyone have experience with this kind of thing? Is there a F/OSS software package that does everything I'm looking for? If not is there fairly cheap closed-source software? What web cams should I be looking at?

[dice]

*bump*

[Juha]

I can see that the first post was posted on feb 2005,
so did you find any solutions ? I am in about similar situation and need to find a solution.
If you tryed any server software, please share your wisdom with me
_________________
-Juha-