Drupal can be configured to work as a fully-functional YouTube or Google Video clone, by using either the FlashVideo module (http://drupal.org/project/flashvideo) or the Media Mover module (http://drupal.org/project/media_mover). Setting up the environment to serve video requires some familiarity with setting up Linux-based servers and an open source video conversion utility called ffmpeg. The advantage of building your own video processing site is that it gives you full control over all aspects of your material, with none of the privacy concerns, or concerns over inappropriate content, that you may have with YouTube or Google Video.

Additionally, if your academic program needs to support the streaming of large amounts of video, using either FlashVideo or Media Mover will have performance benefits. As noted above, using FlashVideo or Media Mover requires a more robust server environment, but the benefits of hosting your own video processing...