camera help?

I'm hoping to install a few cameras and basically use the new html5 features (<video> tag, etc) to build some simple mobile-friendly sites to see what's going on with the cameras.

I read in a comment here that IP cameras basically encode the video data to like an mpeg-4 or similar stream, so that would probably be ideal, if true. (The comment was more of a "I think this is how it works" comment and not a "I know of what I speak and this is how it works."

I'm also particularly hoping for either an open-source firmware or straightforward control API if the camera has pan/tilt/zoom/etc remote controls.

Anyone know of any beasties fitting those bills? Have advice? Knowledge? I'm pretty much out of my depth here, starting at zero.