For our first stake conference meeting house broadcast using the software we set up t

For our first stake conference meeting house broadcast using the software we set up the equipment and broadcast the Saturday night session of stake conference. All parts of that broadcast were very good.
On Sunday the broadcast started well then both receiving buildings froze two or three times within a minute and after those freezes we had image updates every 4 seconds. The audio was fine and so we elected not to try and fix anything. It was very much like a slideshow with sound.
In looking at the technical forums, I don't find anything that suggests other people that had this problem. Has anyone else had similar problems? Does anyone know a solution?
We wondered sense Saturday night’s session went very well and Sunday’s session was not good if the server doing the streaming didn't have enough capacity.
The only change we made in the entire set of was on the broadcast software from stake test to stake conference.

Does you building have Wifi Internet? If so, it may be possible all the phones, pads and PDA's that connected smothered your bandwidth.

srweight wrote:On Sunday the broadcast started well then both receiving buildings froze two or three times within a minute and after those freezes we had image updates every 4 seconds. The audio was fine and so we elected not to try and fix anything. It was very much like a slideshow with sound.

Yes. The same problem was described in this thread. They restarted the stream at the receiving ends to solve the problem.

It is too late for that now, of course, but probably would have been a solution to try at least once, especially since the problem happened at the beginning of the conference.

I am not clear that they had the same problem.

And I may not have stated what we experienced. We had 2 or 3 1/2 to 1 second freezes, then the feed on the Audio was fine but we had an image freeze for 4 seconds. Then the image was updated. We will take your suggestion and restart the stream.

I will need to do a test just before a meeting starts an end the test in time for the meeting.

Is there a test feed streaming for use on the receiving end? If not it really would help to have one - at something like stream.lds.org/999999-999999. Then I would know that if there were problems they were on my end of the process.

michaelfish's comment about other users in the meeting smothering the bandwidth is right on. That may not have been your issue, srweight, but I always advise people to simply disable any and all other Internet usages during your stake conference - disconnect the WiFi access point, unplug any connections going to the FamilySearch PCs, etc. This is one of those times when you definitely want to be selfish about your Internet bandwidth and take it all for your broadcast.

I agree. But the wired broadband in the chapel doesn't work consistently. We seemed to have good download speed and upload speed. But something changed when the meeting started, we went from playing the Bible Videos while the members came in to poor streaming of the meeting it's self. My plan is to make sure that the wired connections are working consistently and move to wired for the next conference. I would really like a test feed/stream that I can use for testing on the receiving end. Thanks for your reply.

srweight wrote:I would really like a test feed/stream that I can use for testing on the receiving end. Thanks for your reply.

Fortunately, the church has created such an A/V stream for testing the download half of the webcast process. They are available here...

http://stream.lds.org/webcast and http://stream.lds.org/webcast2

Sometimes it take a minute or so to finish buffering and actually start, so be patient.

srweight wrote:I am not clear that they had the same problem.
We had 2 or 3 1/2 to 1 second freezes, then the feed on the Audio was fine but we had an image freeze for 4 seconds. Then the image was updated. We will take your suggestion and restart the stream.

I agree. With this more detailed description, I would look for a bandwidth problem. The restart won't fix that, but it may help if the receiving device gets confused with all the starts and stops.

srweight wrote:I agree. But the wired broadband in the chapel doesn't work consistently. We seemed to have good download speed and upload speed. But something changed when the meeting started, we went from playing the Bible Videos while the members came in to poor streaming of the meeting it's self.

I'm not sure if I understand that "the wired broadband in the chapel doesn't work consistently". Does that mean that you have had problems in the past with the wired connector? Have you had problems when no one else was in the building? Does it work fine until people come in?

I always try to use a wired connection to the Internet, and only go wireless if there is no other option. Wired connections are more reliable, faster, and more secure than wireless connections.

The maximum bandwidth you can get is still determined at the point of the modem (cable, DSL, or other). Just because you are hard wired does not guarantee you get maximum throughput. All Internet connecting devices will share the limited bandwidth available, so cutting off other's access to the Internet is a sure way of ensuring no one else shares the available bandwidth.

michaelfish wrote:I'm not sure if I understand that "the wired broadband in the chapel doesn't work consistently". Does that mean that you have had problems in the past with the wired connector? Have you had problems when no one else was in the building? Does it work fine until people come in?

Last night I tested the wired and wireless connection in the Chapel again. The wireless connection gives me Internet access but the speed is slow. The wired connection during the course of 10 min. works well with good speed, then works with poor speed, then stopped working completely, then connects again and works.

I am running Windows 7 ultimate on a Dell laptop with a i5 processor. it will connect to the wired and wireless connections at the same time. I don't know if this is causing problems. so I test wired only, wireless only, and both wired and wireless connected at the same time. I get my best speed when they are both connected.

The wired adapter is a powerline connection and it may be that something is running somewhere in the building that comes and goes and kills the powerline connection.

I need to try the connection with people in the Chapel.

I get some rather curious speeds with the combination of connections. With both I can get anywhere from less than one to up to 5 MB per second. With the wireless I get between .6 and 2 MB per second. With the wired I get between .6 and 2 MB per second.

As to the webcast@streaming.LDS.org the color bars and audio let me know that I am receiving. What I don't know what I don't know because of the way the colored bars display is if it is a smooth feed or if it is a delayed feed like I had last Sunday.

Thanks

It seems that

Best Practices-Receiving

Internet Preparation For Receiving Webcasts
Disconnect all connections from the firewall but the line for receiving webcast.
The network should look like
1. DSL line in to modem
2. Modem to church issued firewall
3. Firewall to powerline adapter or long patch cord
4. Powerline adapter or long patch cord to laptop
5. Laptop Video out to projector and
6. Laptop Audio out to sound system via crab box

Rationale
A wired connection insurers better bandwidth control than a wireless connection. Wireless webcasts, when there is a congregation, have problems with bandwidth being sucked up by cell phones, iPads, and other handheld devices.
Disconnecting all other parts of the network eliminates unintentional bandwidth interference.

Testing needed
Testing is needed during the last sacrament meeting in the Chapel with;
1. The above Internet preparations for webcasts.
2. Use stream.LDS.org/webcast for the test.
3. Turn off audio or use earbuds.

What I don't know is if a video feed from Mormon Messages is the same as a feed from stream.lds.org?

srweight wrote:The wired adapter is a powerline connection and it may be that something is running somewhere in the building that comes and goes and kills the powerline connection.

Those power adapters aren't much better then wireless. Maybe worse. I'd suggest working with the FM group to get at least some CAT 5 cable run. That is reliable.

The FM group is the one that had the powerline adapters installed - I will talk to them about running CAT5

srweight wrote:The FM group is the one that had the powerline adapters installed - I will talk to them about running CAT5

Even if you can temporarily string a CAT5 cable down the hall(s) from your firewall to your webcast computer I think you will find it helps tremendously. We did this for our last stake conference, taping the cable down to the carpet as we went. (OK, it didn't go to the firewall, but to the nearest clerk's office that had a hardwired CAT5 jack, but you get the point.)

Oh, and you really shouldn't have both wired and wireless connected at the same time on your PC. While using one, you should either unplug or disable the other.

Mikerowaved wrote:Oh, and you really shouldn't have both wired and wireless connected at the same time on your PC. While using one, you should either unplug or disable the other.

Good information! I did by default - the wired was not plugged in for conference.

What quality setting are the test streams running at?

Mikerowaved wrote:Fortunately, the church has created such an A/V stream for testing the download half of the webcast process. They are available here...

http://stream.lds.org/webcast and http://stream.lds.org/webcast2

Sometimes it take a minute or so to finish buffering and actually start, so be patient.

bshepher wrote:What quality setting are the test streams running at?

Hummm... Good question. They appear to be down at the moment, but if/when they come back online, I can tell you.

Mikerowaved wrote:Hummm... Good question. They appear to be down at the moment, but if/when they come back online, I can tell you.

These feeds come from the conference center. Some work is currently being performed on encoder #1. Once that is complete, webcast2 will be bumped up to about 750 or so. They are both at 300 right now.