Ok so I installed gstreamer-tools and after a bit of messing I managed to get the N900 to stream to my ubuntu desktop using the following:

-- Server (N900) --
gst-launch v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! videoscale! video/x-raw-yuv,width=320,height=240 ! ffmpegcolorspace ! jpegenc ! multipartmux ! tcpserversink host=192.168.0.3 port=5000

-- Client (PC) --
gst-launch tcpclientsrc host=192.168.0.5 port=5000 ! multipartdemux ! jpegdec ! autovideosink

It works but I am now trying to get it to play nice with VLC.
I have had a look at :
1
and
2

But the encoder used, hantro4200enc, I do not have. Does any one know of a possible solution to stream to VLC?