Ryan, can I just say, "I feel your pain". I am the Stake Technology Specialist over A/V in the Mesa Boulder Creek Stake (Guadalupe and Hwy 202). Prior to this calling our stake suffered for over 3 years without a single successful webcast for stake conferences. Attendance in the other ward buildings had all but flat lined because our members had learned that typically after about 15 or 20 minutes into the conference either the video or audio would fail. There were no audio bridges in place to provide backup via land-line or mobile phone conference call fail safes, nothing. Our stake presidency cringed at the start of each conference because they knew that shortly after it would begin all 3 presidents could expect an influx of text messages reporting "dead air" in all of the buildings. Did I say this went on for over three years?
After receiving the calling of STS, I stripped everything down to brass tax to better understand how to pinpoint the problems and provide a resolve. I understand all of the elements and complexities of broadcasting video/audio streams over the internet. Earlier in my career I helped develop software with a local Gilbert vendor that was used by the O.J Simpson defense team to present evidence in the courtroom as well as stream video onto the internet to be received by CourtTV for their reporting purposes. And that was 20 years ago! In fact, if you Google "Gary Hilton CBS News" you can watch an interview I gave on CBS This Morning and the Today Show demonstrating the use of my software in his trial.
That said, I want you to know that I really am a very humble soul but sometimes I come across blogs like yours and I feel empathetic for what you are faced with and I understand the problems and frustrations you are dealing with of which most are probably not even staring you in the face and I want to help.
It took me roughly 8 months to iron out all of the issues that prevented our stake from having success broadcasting our web casts but also receiving the program in our 3 other ward buildings. You cannot just look at the problem and speculate an answer. If you truly want to figure out why you are experiencing these issues than you have to attack it very systematically. The last thing you want to do is try random changes to your software configurations or different wiring methods, etc. etc. I take my hat off to others making suggestions to you. They are all sound and certainly may work ... as long as all of the other variables in their setup is exactly the same as yours. And I am willing to bet that they are probably not.
I began my trek to resolving my stake's A/V Web-casting problems which plagued them for over 3 years by first sketching a schematic of all of the wires withing each of the buildings in an effort to discover if they were still in place as originally designed and installed. They were not. I worked closely with our FM group and their original drawings. I found wires that were "spliced" or "redirected" by past STS persons either to band-aid a problem at the time or to implement a new "pet project" that more than likely was out-of-spec of the church's design and support capabilities. This led to signal loss in my video distribution in some cases and made it impossible to get an audio signal into my communicator without a horrific buzzing in others. Needless to say, It was a real mess. The head of our FM Group, Allen Woodruff, employed a sound engineer to assist me to test ground fault and dB levels for every wire in all 4 buildings. We ended up replacing several pieces of equipment and some of the wire runs just to get our units back into "spec" with the church's original plans and specifications. And guess what? Our audio and video including HQ broadcasts and Stake Conference webcasts are sharper, clearer, and sound better than most stereo stores demo rooms. I am serious.
As a result of spending the time to understand all of the technology and elements that the church has obviously researched long and hard to "get it right" I had learned enough about the inner workings of the sound system and switching devices that I wrote a free Android App that help me to better understand how the microphones and folding partitions reacted when different scenarios had them open or closed to combine to rooms, etc. This very confusing to me and not well documented. The app can be downloaded from the Google Play Store and is called LDS A/V Assistant. It graphically shows which microphones can be heard in different parts of the building depending on which folding partitions in the chapel / cultural hall/ overflow areas are opened or closed.
Ryan, we both live in Mesa. I am willing to spend time with you to put you on the right track to resolve the issue(s) you are currently experiencing with your web casting. I can at least come out to your Stake and assess what is happening with you and help you to make a proper diagnosis as to what is causing you issues. If this is something you would like me to help you with, please contact me either by email or calling me directly on my cell phone. I can be reached at (602) 882-5932.
The Boulder creek stake center and the 3 other ward buildings have not experienced any audio or video problems in almost a year now. Our next stake conference is June 1st. It will be the 4th webcast that will hopefully prove "fault free".
We are back to full attendance in all of our buildings now that our members have their confidence restored that they can be blessed by hearing the entire message of our stake and regional leaders.
Feel free to call on me anytime.
Gary Hilton
Monterey Ward
Mesa, AZ
