Tech Forum

Our Stake Presidency would like us to find a way to let home-bound members stream Stake Conference. The new webcasting system allows for "other" broadcasting sites to be added but there are no good controls to limit who can see it. If we ask for 5 other sites and get 20 members streaming then it will affect the streams of our chapels. I know that you can set a password and just limit who gets it, but I'm not comfortable with even the slightest possibility of the chapels streams being impacted.

One idea that we're floating is YouTube. Theoretically we could have someone at home download the broadcast from the portal and then stream it up to YouTube. The advantage of this is that we wouldn't have to be worried about how many email inboxes the video URL ended up in because YouTube can handle it. But there are some disadvantages. To live stream on YouTube you either need to a Hangout on Air (which is not recommended because the first 10 people get to have their own camera and mic) or a Live Event that requires an encoder (or Open Broadcaster) just like the portal does.

Any thoughts or suggestions on the matter?

To be honest, I'd much prefer to not support streaming at home.

I have read this and I don't understand how you are drawing the conclusion that adding 5 other sites will affect the streams of your chapels. it is my understanding that you are sending the audio/video to a server on the Internet in the area where the stake is located. Then you tell the system how many locations will be receiving the stream. Then the system is allocated to support that many people. Then the locations attach to that server and stream the broadcast to their buildings.

I would expect that each location wouldn't know of the other locations and each site would only download at the rate that the Internet Connection would allow. One thing that I would HIGHLY recommend for the church buildings is to completely shutdown the WIFI in the building and give all the bandwidth to the conference.

Great question. I suppose I should've made that more clear.

The issue is that a given event has a preset amount of allocated resources. If I have 5 primary receiving sites (chapels) and account for 5 members to login and view the stream from home then I have 10 total receiving sites. But there's no way to ensure that only 5 members login. If you enable any members to login then the portal will allow any number of members to login and start streaming. So I could end up with 20 members streaming when I only accounted for 5. Or I could account for 50 and end up with 100. Either way I can't limit how many members actually login and stream.

Good point, however, when you set up a site to stream to, you would need to have the user name of the user at the house and then you can make it private and only the person who is the assistant can only log in. So I see this as a way of controlling who can access the stream. So don't make the conference public is what I'm trying to say.

I haven't used it much, but I believe that you can make the session either private or public. So if it is made private, then only those "authorized" can log in and view it. So I think you should do some testing to make sure that you can create a total private event.

If a webcast is made private it gets assigned a code. For members to gain access you have to give them the code. That's certainly better than public but still has no real limit on how many people can stream. I would prefer granting members access by entering their LDS username. Then I know exactly how many resources to plan for and don't have to worry about too many people streaming.

harddrive wrote:I have read this and I don't understand how you are drawing the conclusion that adding 5 other sites will affect the streams of your chapels.

Probably from this thread. Exceeding the number of scheduled remote sites will cause a problem.

My preference was to uplink our stake conference right to the YouTube servers with a Live Event and bypass the church servers altogether. (I say "was", because our SP has arranged for the stake to meet at one place for conference, eliminating the immediate need for webcasting.) Here's a link describing my feelings on using YouTube.

https://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=134393#p134393

Mikerowaved, I like your answer. I agree with your assessment of the webcasting system. The "old" system wasn't reliable and I didn't like that. I haven't tried this new system, because we don't have the device to stream the broadcast. My stake president has asked us to look into it and I'm waiting for the device to test with.

However, we did switch to use Personal Video Conference (PVC) that is also offered by the church. That system has been very reliable and if it needs to it will reduce the video quality to maintain the stream. The one downside is that it can only do a maximum of 720p, but again it has been very reliable. I will give the new system a try and if it is unreliable, then I'm going to tell my stake president that I will be going back to PVC.

Using YouTube for the main broadcast would definitely be preferable. Though I don't much like having to bypass all the firewalls because my buildings are spread out and I don't have access to any besides the stake center.

The new VidiU devices are capable of streaming directly to YouTube though it would be difficult to add a slideshow or text overlays with it.

We performed a successful test on Sunday. The quality and reliability make it well worth any effort required to bypass the firewall.