Simulcast of stake conference

[alphabeta-p40]

It's been several months since the tech talks were presented in Provo. Peter and his associates put on a great presentation about the solutions they were working on in this area of building to building communications. Our stake is too large to meet in one session. Has there been any progress made in rolling out any of the discussed solutions? Is there any way our stake in Lehi can participate in testing? Our next stake conference is in September and our Stake President has requested a solution regardless of where it comes from. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

[thedqs]

As for an official policy from the church I haven't heard anything from those I know that work for the church, but there have been many different methods proposed on the forums. The quickest and probably cheapest is to use the Stake Center's Internet connection (If it doesn't have one then a member who lives close to the building might be willing to help) and transmit the live feed over the Internet to the building that Stake Conference is being show.

Especially for those in the Utah Valley Area most people are switching over to the Utopia or iProvo networks which allow 10 Mbit/s upload and download so a member's connection could host multiple buildings. (Around 8 without significant drop).

[cnielson-p40]

It's been several months since the tech talks were presented in Provo. Peter and his associates put on a great presentation about the solutions they were working on in this area of building to building communications. Our stake is too large to meet in one session. Has there been any progress made in rolling out any of the discussed solutions? Is there any way our stake in Lehi can participate in testing? Our next stake conference is in September and our Stake President has requested a solution regardless of where it comes from. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

As a group (ICS) within the Church we have evaluated much technology concerning multimedia streaming. What we have learned is there is no "one size fits all" solution to the problem (or opportunity depending on how you look at it). We are working internally to create documentation for use by Stakes that have technical resorces. We are also working to provide a "reflector" for use in conferences or events that have multiple viewing locations.

As to your question several months ago concerning the Alpine Tablernacle's ability to stream content to other locations. My experience with the Tabernacle has yeilded mixed results. I'm not aware of the current situation but the last conference that our Stake orignated from the Tabernacle did not yeild a quality veiwing experience for the remote participants. This was due to the Tabernacle's Internet connection. I've been told that the Tabernacle has two Internet connections (Qwest DSL, American Fork City), personally I only have experice with the AFC connection. It seemed that the AFC Internet connection was so oversubscribed that a stream of 200k proved unreliable. This may have changed as it has been more that a year since our last attempt. I've been told that buildings within the AFC network are capable of multimegabit streams resulting in a very good user experience.

[wadeburt]

As gas prices go up and memnbership grows, we too are facing challenges in meetinghouse size and location. A Stake Center in Nashville (previously the Nashville Stake - we are now the Madison Stake) and a large Chapel in Bowling Green are our two large facilities.

Both of these facilities have FHC in them. The Stake Center has Comcast, which I despise and can be intermittent. Bowling Green is on a 3M/384 DSL.

Both facilities have public IP Addresses at the router. 5 at the SC, 2 at BG. I could put a second router at each locations parallel to the Church PIX 501 and run lan to lan vpn. I have done this at client offices with some success.

The Stake Presidency is interested in doing this for many meetings - one High Council each month, Bishopric Training quarterly, Stake Presidency meeting once a month, and then one of the two Stake Conferences.

I intend to start working on this technology in order to provide Stake Conference in May. Will use a connection from my home to the Gallatin Ward building (about 2 miles apart - Gallatin has a DSL), then transfer the technology to the Stake Center and BG. (Stake Center is 20 miles away, BG is 60)

I will keep everyone up on what we find out.

[rmaughan]

Just wondering if there are any updates regarding the documentation or the "reflector" mentioned by cnielson or the progress by Wade Burt for his Stake?

[chasely1]

Don't know if this is the correct thread, but we just had our last stake conference at the Apline tabernacle. Our stake is now too big. However, we were told that the Alpine Tabernacle is able to send audio and video over the internet (sounded like what was described in the tech talks). Naturally I thought we could broadcast from the tabernacle to our stake center when we have our next conference in September.

Does anyone know if this is accurate information?

--
Aaron

The Alpine Tabernacle has all of the equipment to send audio and video over the internet. We used the system for the first time at our Stake Conference at the end of February 2007. I used a member that knew how to configure Windows Media Encoder that is used on the computer at the Tabernacle to help us adjust the feed to work with our DSL connection at our stake center. We did not have any problems with the connections and we will do it again next February (We have a regional conference in September that will be using the satelite system).

chasely1

[big2thumbs-p40]

It surprises me that the Wasatch Front areas haven't coordinated and put together a few teams that go from stake to stake with a setup comprising of remote control video cameras, video mixer, RF transmitter, RF receiver, projectors, screens that they set up for stake conferences. As it is now, each stake figures it out for themselves and all that equipment is redundant and idle for most of the year.
I made a system for our stake that others are welcome to borrow but how do I coordinate with the other stakes or get the word out? It must come from the area people to set up since they know the organization.

[khancock-p40]

big2thumbs, one way to get the word out is to post like you did. I'm in a Sandy stake that has been looking at ways to eliminate the Poll Sound charges. Can you describe your setup and how it would work? We have a stake conference coming up in May.

[big2thumbs-p40]

I bought 3 "broken" camcorders (Cannon ES8400V = Samsung SCW71) from ebay. I picked this one because it is small, has a nice picture and I figured out how to tap into the zoom, focus and menus. I bought some tilt and pan assemblies from a surplus electronics place and programed a 8bit uC to control each of the PTZF. I talk to them through WUSB from a video mux that I made (6 in 4 out) and I do some special effects mixing for hymns and titles with a Sima SFX-M 2 input mixer. The video content is runs over RG6 to the mixer. I use a laptop with PowerPoint for hymns and titles. The center camera is on a tripod and the two side cameras are mounted on a 6"x36" wood strip that I hang on the decorative wood trim on the chapel walls.
From stake to remote chapel I've used a microwave RF link with 20dB dishes at each end that are mounted on the respective roofs. Although this year, we are going to use a Sling box over our new DSL. I tried it for General Priesthood meeting with acceptable results. It was pixelated some but ok.
Our Stk Conf is tomorrow if you want to check it out at 10am 116th S 300E.
Does it sound like a Mickey Mouse setup? Well I guess it is but the results look pretty good I think. Obviously this is more a personal hobby than a mandate by the stake president.

[rmrichesjr]

That 3-camera setup with special effects and titles sounds like WAY too much fun!

Have you solicited feedback from the viewers? Several years ago, I was using a one-camera setup to do a little panning across the choir and such. Then, someone passed me a note from the people in the remote room asking me to just keep the camera still, because they found the camera motion too distracting.