Church Streaming (Streaming Tips for Houses of Worship)

[TheAdmnMan]

Their are a number of community groups trying to maintain their communities (500+ people) by switching to live streaming.  Do you have any tips concerning services like vimeo, youtube, facebook live that can help improve the experience.  Some of the streams I have seen are low res, in the case of vimeo a little choppy.  Are their any suggestions for easy solutions for displaying text and lower third graphics, lyrics... in these streams?  I would love a video on a low budget option for meeting this need, but time is of the essence as hopefully the covid-19 disease will lose out at some point and we will once again be able to see each other face to face.  

[Helhound]

For livestreaming? Discord and Skype are pretty good options. Discord is better suited for large groups.

[TheAdmnMan]

It’s for live-streaming in order to try to keep a community feel without being polished and produced. We had 400 view the livestream today,  but would like to improve the experience especially if this quarantine gets drawn out.  

[Helhound]

Then I recommend Discord if it's that many people. May I ask what church it is? Just curious.

[Roswell]

Would highly suggest AGAINST discord. There's no way 400 (likely many older) people are going to successfully jump through all of the hoops required for signing up and joining a server without it causing an absolute support nightmare for you.

 

I'd just keep it simple and use a YouTube live stream. No account required for the viewers, just toss them the link.

[tdkid]

pretty much any live streaming service will work. its just a matter of letting the people know which one you are going to use. getting them to sign up for it and then them finding you once they do.

[Thaldor]

There really isn't a lot easy and cheap options for better quality. Mid-range laptop is kind of minimum, very good webcam or digital video camera or DSLR that can send live image to another "monitor" (with video camera or DSLR you will also need some capture card), way to connect to the PA-system (if there is one, if isn't then that also, kind of needed just because any more public environment and the audio that is wanted to send is just lost) and good internet connection is the key.

OBS at least is free and can handle all the needs for adding text to the stream, manage the inputs (video and audio) and other things like that as long as there's someone who can use it.

 

Kind of minimum setup would be a laptop that can handle at least 720p video stream, 720p/1080p webcam (this is the first place to put money for better quality streaming), AUX-cable and most probably 6,3mm to 3,5mm plug adapter (to connect the laptop to the PA system for sound) and good internet connection. Platform really doesn't matter, YouTube is pretty good option, but the streaming hardware and connection matters a lot (as long as you get the stream well to the YouTube, it will handle the delivery to viewers).

 

Biggest problems for these usually are that people try to stream with bad internet connections (usually platforms lower the quality automatically if the connection is bad), not getting a microphone for the speaker and getting its audio to the stream and the usual "big no no" small communities do is just get a tripod (if even that) for a phone and think that their phone with slow/bad internet connection can handle the job.

[LogicalDrm]

-> Moved to Programs, Apps and Websites

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You might want to look at this posted earlier:

 

[steelo]

7 minutes ago, LogicalDrm said:

-> Moved to Programs, Apps and Websites

***

 

You might want to look at this posted earlier:

 

Gotcha thanks