I'm currently thinking about a project for my masters degree graduation. I start researching for options to make my own video streaming software based on a premade hardware kit having not much knowledge about what I'll exactly need that will match my needs.

My search led me to the DVR (Digital Video Recorder) cards which seems to be the closest to what I need, but still I can't find out a few basic things so I decide to ask for them here.

Currently I haven't find a lot of manufacturers that offers such kits so where I can look and have some options to choose from? There are a lot of DVR products on the market but they already have a software written for them and even if I buy one they just don't give any documentation or sdk's so buying such is not an option I need a DVR card made exactly for software programers and not end users.

Are there a preferred manufacturers that provide such kind of devices with good and developer-friendly documentation?

Also - I prefer to do all this with Java, is this an option (I think I will make it with .NET too but really prefer Java as a language of choice)