Any demand for a new webcast receiver?

Using the Church Webcasting System, YouTube, etc. Including cameras and mixers.
Aczlan
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#41

Post by Aczlan »

What I don't understand is why when they build the building, they don't drop in 3-4 2-4" conduits to go from outside the parking lot to the chapel. Yes, there isn't much else that goes in after the fact, but if an animal chews through a the phone line under the parking lot, you have to dig up the parking lot to fix it vs dropping a new cable in the conduit.
Cost (while things are already torn up during the initial construction) would probably be under $1000 and it could save many times that down the road.

Aaron Z
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johnshaw
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#42

Post by johnshaw »

Aaron,

I'm the Choir on this one.... I asked about this when we built our new stake center last year, like other items, this is a cost saving measure that the meetinghouse department has chosen. All Temples are built with several of these for the sole purpose of the Dedication.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
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russellhltn
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#43

Post by russellhltn »

Aczlan wrote:What I don't understand is why when they build the building, they don't drop in 3-4 2-4" conduits to go from outside the parking lot to the chapel.

At the time our buildings were built, the Internet, even cable TV for that matter was unknown. Wire can be restrung in existing conduits.
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johnshaw
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#44

Post by johnshaw »

RussellHltn wrote:At the time our buildings were built, the Internet, even cable TV for that matter was unknown. Wire can be restrung in existing conduits.
Inside the buildings, generally, are not a problem, running Ethernet after-the-fact should have existing conduit. It's the outside building or parking lot - Utility pole that is on the other side of the parking lot where Time Warner, Comcast, Uverse or one of the regional cable providers are stuck. it costs thousands to bring the cable in if not existing conduit exists.
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
russellhltn
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#45

Post by russellhltn »

JohnShaw wrote:Inside the buildings, generally, are not a problem, running Ethernet after-the-fact should have existing conduit. It's the outside building or parking lot - Utility pole that is on the other side of the parking lot where Time Warner, Comcast, Uverse or one of the regional cable providers are stuck. it costs thousands to bring the cable in if not existing conduit exists.

Understood. I was talking about conduit from the outside. Back then it didn't make any sense. If the wire got damaged, it was easy enough to run new wire.
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Aczlan
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#46

Post by Aczlan »

JohnShaw wrote:Inside the buildings, generally, are not a problem, running Ethernet after-the-fact should have existing conduit. It's the outside building or parking lot - Utility pole that is on the other side of the parking lot where Time Warner, Comcast, Uverse or one of the regional cable providers are stuck. it costs thousands to bring the cable in if not existing conduit exists.
My thoughts exactly. I was referring to running conduit from outside the parking lot "ring" to the building itself so that new feeds from the road could easily be pulled in rather than having to rip up the parking lot or get in a directional boring machine.

Aaron Z
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My experiences with cable install costs in 4 buildings

#47

Post by rknelson »

Building #1 – Stake Center: We had DSL with Qwest (now Centurylink) at 1.5Mbps down/0.896Mbps up. This was paid for by the stake on a 3 yr. contract price at about $40.40/month.

In February 2010 after the national contracts rolled out, the monthly cost was the same for every speed from Qwest for any rate up to 7Mbps down/ 5Mbps up. The consistency of DSL coupled with 5M up (which would be great for originating webcasts!) made this my first choice. However, the fastest they could actually deliver at this address was 5Mbps down/0.896Mbps up. Since 1M upload was not desirable for webcasting, we next pursued Cable.

The national contract with Comcast provided a good rate for 12M/2M (I don’t feel comfortable disclosing it but it is in the $50 range). There was a nice large conduit at the base of a pole on the street that ran right to the place we wanted it inside the building, but the conduit terminated outside in a Qwest pedestal. And the pole was a Qwest Pole. The phone company would have charged Comcast to use the pole, and the pedestal was property of Qwest, so this was not workable for getting Comcast cable into the building. Comcast indicated they would need to hire a contractor to do 150 ft. of directional drilling from the other side of the street where a Comcast pole was located, clear under the parking lot, and up to the building where they would place a new Comcast pedestal. Oh, and they might need to dig up a 2’ x 4’ hole in the middle of the recently repaved parking lot so that they could drill both directions. Construction cost: $4410.79 – ouch! Well it turns out that the national contract provided for Comcast to cover up to $2250 of the construction cost at the regular monthly rate, but if we paid another $10 per month they would cover up to $3500 of the construction cost. So that is what we did. The FM Group paid $910.79 (4410.79 – 3500) for the install, and the cost is $10 higher than the normal national contracted price. It turns out that they did not need to cut into the parking lot, except for a small 5” round hole where the drill would cross the power feed for the building. I think we may also have a higher speed connection as a result of the increased monthly rate.

Lesson learned: Don’t let the construction cost of the install scare you at first glance, investigate what they will cover.

Building #2: A 60 yr. old building with no existing internet, Qwest could only deliver 3M down/0.64M up. Since wiring was overhead into the building, Comcast installed cable from the pole to the building with no construction cost. We have 12M/2M in that building.

Building #3: Existing Qwest (Centurylink) DSL for a Family History Library. The meetinghouse is located only 200 feet from the Qwest building in the area. Unfortunately, the best speed they could deliver was 7M/0.896M. No national contract with the local cable provider, but we approached them and after a few months determined it would cost $5000 to bring the cable from across the street. They would not cover any of the cost, so we still have DSL.

Building #4: No nationally contracted DSL provider, and the same cable provider as Building #3 (no national contract), but overhead wires into the building, so the install went fine with no construction costs. FM purchased the modem and they are paying $44.95/month for 3M/0.768M speed. We could go to 10/1.5 for 69.95 on a 3 yr. contract. I believe if we asked FM Group to up the speed they would do it. So far we have not felt the need to upgrade in this single ward building.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere in this forum, we have an excellent working relationship with the FM group. I was actually the one who worked with the ISP’s to meet them at the building to do pre-planning and installs. Our FM group seems very willing to work with us.

I also want to add that if we as technologists want to communicate with FM people who do not understand the technical jargon we need to be very clear when we talk about speeds – no mixing of M and K, always mentioning down and up speeds and helping them understand what is important. Download is usually the important factor except in a webcast originating building where a good upload speed really impacts video quality.
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johnshaw
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#48

Post by johnshaw »

Wow... to have it so nice...
“A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom.”
― Thomas Paine, Common Sense
crees
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Re:

#49

Post by crees »

It's been a couple months since I posted on this but there is even a better appliance that has wifi, is the shape of a stick has a hdmi port and it runs android. Search the web for
Kimdecent Droid Stick A2 (mini PC packs a dual core Amlogic CPU)

This guy out if the box can do many things. I have some if these on order to test with some other projects I am working on. Will keep you posted


JonesRC wrote:
crees wrote:But really I think that whichever solution gets the "blessing" should also be used for in house media too. My Vision??? All pictures, Music, Conference Talks etc. be stored and or streamed and maintained by a xml fed repository hosted at lds.org. all media will be meta tagged and referenced to topics and lessons. So If was preparing a lesson on Baptism for CTRB I could "check out" a tv with an appliance (like the raspberry pi) and via menus select the correct topic or class lesson and Whalla. I have videos, pictures and music to my class. OH and don't forget an option to access streaming media such as church or meetinghouse broadcasts.
Yes, Yes, Yes, and Yes. Thank you for the thought on Raspberry Pi too. We were discussing that last week and are going to look into it. Video, Pictures, audio, quotes, and access to Mormon Messages, Conference talks, and additional media is all in the plan. Space and necessity will also help determine what content would be available as well. I especially like the thought of having a single unit that could work as a live streaming device for broadcasts. Thank you and keep the feedback coming. It helps us get additional insights into features that are wanted and lets us know we are on the right track.
vingolaw
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Re: Any demand for a new webcast receiver?

#50

Post by vingolaw »

I hope that you don't mind a non-tech contribution to this discussion. I serve on a rural stake presidency in the UK. We have six meetinghouses in a stake which covers an area over 4,000 sq miles. High and rising costs of car fuel (USD 8.50 per US gallon) and pressure on family budgets from rising taxes and below inflation pay increases have prompted us to significantly reduce planned stake meetings.

The Area Presidency have approved the installation of black boxes for use with web-casts in our stake. Every chapel has a standard broadband internet installation with British Telecom that is typically providing 15mbps download and 0.5mbps upload speeds. Physical facilities have approved the upgrade of the stake centre to fibre-optic broadband with much higher speeds. We have a fibre connection to our home with speeds of 80mbps download and 20mbps upload though we are very close to the local exchange and have 'clean' copper pair to the street cabinet. Even if the stake centre could achieve half those speeds I am sure that will facilitate smooth web-casts.

Do you know what the standard black box will be for chapel installations? I have been investigating some alternatives and have created a Raspberry Pi/XBIAN XBMC that is working perfectly on wifi at home (n speed wifi network and using standard Belkin USB wifi dongle on Rasp Pi. Also, I see that the Roku has Mormon channel and BYU TV. I'll buy one of these and see how streaming from these services works with a projector.
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