New Standard Webcasting solution

[telcommguy]

For all you guys creating your own solution i have some comments.

1st the church standardizes on tech so that when you "Computer Science Engineers" are sick, die or move away any layman ie. high council member or clerk can set it up and make it run.

2nd if you always try and cheep it together it may have a higher chance of failure.

3rd if you use the tech the church suggests the help desk can help trouble shoot the problem. you know the whole saying 2 heads are better than one.

I believe that study and prayer goes into the tech they choose and if this is for the lords work who are we to say they are doing it wrong. talk to the fm group they probably have budget to do it right.

[russellhltn]

talk to the fm group they probably have budget to do it right.

Infrastructure (network), yes. The actual webcasting equipment, no. That's on the local unit's dime.

[Aczlan]

For all you guys creating your own solution i have some comments.
1st the church standardizes on tech so that when you "Computer Science Engineers" are sick, die or move away any layman ie. high council member or clerk can set it up and make it run.

I agree, thats why I have a backup person who could run the old system if I were unavailable for any reason. Currently, we are testing the new system with some free broadcasting software while we wait for the dust to settle to see where things land with this new system before we spend any money.

2nd if you always try and cheep it together it may have a higher chance of failure.

I agree on general principal, however pending more money doesn't always guarantee success. I have seen (in my personal and professional experience) a fair chunk of change get spent on the "best system" and then seen it break while the "cheap junk system" kept plugging away.

3rd if you use the tech the church suggests the help desk can help trouble shoot the problem. you know the whole saying 2 heads are better than one.
I believe that study and prayer goes into the tech they choose and if this is for the lords work who are we to say they are doing it wrong.

Well, in this particular case (as I understand it), if we had purchased the "webcast box" from the church, we would not be able to adapt it to the new system and would have had to replace it vs being able to install a new piece of software on existing hardware and keep going.

My stake leaders are willing to spend what money I ask for to make things work, they trust that I will only ask for what is needed. As of yet, I am not ready to recommend spending money on the new system. I like it (especially the stats), but I want to see where the software side of things go before I recommend that we replace a perfectly functional computer with a "black box"

talk to the fm group they probably have budget to do it right.

I talked to the FM group when we started down this road, they were not willing to pay to add anything cablewise to support a camera (beyond the existing cables for someone to sit in the audience and run a camera or a fixed camera near the back of the chapel). They were however willing to punch holes and run conduits where we needed them so we could run the CAT6 cable (which another member who does this for a living provided at cost) where it needed to go.

Aaron Z

[drepouille]

For all you guys creating your own solution i have some comments.

1st the church standardizes on tech so that when you "Computer Science Engineers" are sick, die or move away any layman ie. high council member or clerk can set it up and make it run.

An Area Seventy told me to broadcast an upcoming conference, so I purchased the current standard, which is the VidiU, to be used with the webcast portal. I quickly learned that none of my counterparts who would receive this webcast had ever heard of the webcast portal. They had only used the old LDS MeetingHouse Webcast software.

A couple weeks later, the folks at Church HQ told me I should be doing a PVC, rather than a webcast, so I installed the PVC software on my laptop and started planning for a PVC. A week later, the Area Seventy told me a PVC was no longer needed, so I should switch back to a webcast. However, since the HD camera I had ordered from store.lds.org is still on back order, I could not use the VidiU. Therefore, I had to install the old LDS MeetingHouse Webcast software on my laptop, which made my counterparts happy, since they were familiar with that.

[telcommguy]

Well i've been reading and understanding your posts i noticed a change to the purchasing webcast products page.

https://www.lds.org/help/support/webcas ... s?lang=eng

Webcast Encoding Device
PRODUCT NAME PRODUCT DESCRIPTION PURCHASING INFO
Teradek VidiU Encoder

All-in-one hardware capture/encoder device for webcasting.
Key Features: HDMI input, 3.5mm stereo audio input, control via front controls, web interface, or mobile app

See Meetinghouse Webcast Requirements for additional requirements.



Available through local FM Group at no charge to stakes and districts.

[telcommguy]

talk to the fm group they probably have budget to do it right.

Infrastructure (network), yes. The actual webcasting equipment, no. That's on the local unit's dime.

There has been a change

https://www.lds.org/help/support/webcas ... s?lang=eng

[johnshaw]

This is pretty exciting... I wonder if there wasn't much of a rush to get off the old equipment and this is a way to speed up the acceptance?

Regardless, if the FM Budgets were not offset for this purchase it just isn't going to happen this way either.

[russellhltn]

There has been a change

Interesting. The Teradek VidiU itself is on FM's dime, but nothing else. But that does take a significant cost burden off the local stake. But I'm still intrigued by the computer-based encoding since it seems to add a number of features for free.

We just completed our second Stake Conference using a detached cultural hall as overflow. No complaints about being single camera, being SD or lack of titling or song verses. The only complaint was the audio was too low. I've put in to FM for the "SLC guys" to adjust that the next time they're out here.

I will say this does tend to follow a pattern I've seen a few times - when new technology comes out, it's on the unit's dime. Later, the church picks it up. I've see it with computers for MLS and Internet services. I think CHQ finds the budget after it's ready for deployment.

[drepouille]

I was in no rush to purchase a VidiU or HD camera. Just by coincidence, our Area Seventy asked me to broadcast a PLC exactly when the VidiU became available to order from the LDS store.

It will be interesting to see whether our stake presidency decides to webcast our next stake conference in August.

[russellhltn]

It will be interesting to see whether our stake presidency decides to webcast our next stake conference in August.

Same here. I think one big factor is that two of our chapels are in "internet dead zones". One can only get DSL and the other has to resort to 4G. Neither the cable company nor the phone company can connect them. And those are the two chapels that would benefit the most from webcasting as they are the farthest from the stake center.

The DSL would probably work out if I kill all other access, but the presidency might be reluctant to send people there if it won't be a good experience. So we might have to have a test run for one conference with only a few members at that location before we invite everyone.