Synchronizable Download Repository for LDS Videos

I know the church as several repositories for church videos for on demand downloading (http://www.lds.org/media-library/video), but does anyone know of, or maintain a repository of 'most used' church media content for mass downloading or syncing to a Stake's electronic media library - specifically those typically used in lessons (in addition to Come Follow Me)?

Our stake just received new USB TV sets which play electronic media (tested) and I want to provide media already downloaded (MM, CFM, etc.) so individual teachers (non-tech-savvy) won't struggle downloading, storing or streaming media content for their lessons.

If there is not already, as a community could we have a repository we can just sync up with (like DropBox)? I am not tech-savvy enough to sync the webpage (and all it's contents) to a drive but perhaps that could be the solution.

I think we've all concluded that, under the terms of Rights and Usage found here... http://www.lds.org/legal/terms?lang=eng ...we can't host the videos as a community on a non-church server.

You may not post material from this site on another website or on a computer network without our permission. You may not transmit or distribute material from this site to other sites.

So I would say that your best bet is to just assign someone in the ward or stake to manage the downloading for your ward or stake. I assigned myself to download videos and keep the USB flash drives full of the "most used" (or most anticipated to be used) videos and then I'll update them as necessary. (I keep a "library" of a few hundred downloaded videos on my own hard drive. I let the computer download lots of files overnight while I sleep.) Yes, it seems like a lot of duplicated busywork if other people have to do this in every ward or stake but, at the moment, this seems like the only way to make it work under the current terms of use.

According to this page... https://www.lds.org/youth/learn/train/s ... s?lang=eng ...it's recommended that you assign someone in the ward or stake (who knows how to do it) to use the downloaded videos to create DVDs for the whole ward or stake to use. I've done that too. But it still seems a little fishy from a copyright standpoint... but it's recommended right there on the church's web page. And, even if you do that, it's still not okay to post the DVD files somewhere else to help people in other places make copies of your DVD.

Since this is for church use only and stored in a meetinghouse library, can we explore getting permission (an STS could be delegated the KEYS) by using our lds.org username and password? Or perhaps adding that feature to MLS?

Look at the solutions that evolved in this thread. The generalized method is a software tool that builds local download libraries from distributed pointers to the downloadable videos. The local user runs the tool and bulk-downloads the actual videos in a structured format. There is no local server involved in hosting the material. Thus, no copyright complications.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for the link! It was a GREAT solution.

Michaelfish,

We must not accept that this is the best possible idea from the church for downloading videos. While it may be easy to download the 'Come Follow Me' videos, the church has already made a great number of videos available online, including the new WWLT (where is the GREAT solution for that?) - I am being asked all the time for a Mormon Message, or something from the Leadership Training Library.

My point... it is STILL a needed item, the centralized location that those of us who want to provide these videos in a more imaginative and innovative way should be able to. Because the church owns the lds.org board, they can figure out a way to centrally locate the files so we can download them en-masse. Why haven't they done it? Well, time and resources mean they will implement the quickest, easiest, method and then see/hope that it is ok with everyone. They will only make changes to what they've determined is the right thing to do is for us to continue to ask for it to be presented in a different manner.

The reason that it isn't, mostly, is that we're not thinking very strategically, nor do we as a group consider that there are hundreds and thousands of hours being worked by individual STS on a local level that isn't being taken into consideration because it's only a couple of hours for me... but those couple of hours could be used to provide the entire library of media or it could be used multiple times over as the church trickles out items for us to do.

We need a centralized mechanism to download these videos.... FTP site, large zip files, DVD's that can be ordered through the Store... Dropbox account we can be added to ... whatever it takes. We need Innovation and we need to raise our voices high in request!

I agree! And this tech.lds.org website IS one of those resources members have to find solutions. I had a need, posted my problem, people responded with a solution (although I agree, time was wasted with many working on the same problem) but it gave me a temporary solution.

I would like to get ideas from anyone who has more knowledge and come up with a idea the church can implement for a hosting service for the purpose of synchronizing church media.

What would be the most efficient and automatic way to get the videos? Should we wait for Internet streaming to become the standard, have media purchased and shipped to us (Vinyl, VHS, DVD, ???).

How hard would it be to organize all of the videos in one central location, provide access and allow us to set up synchronization on the local unit level? Could the church implement a system like DropBox?

It seems to me to be a universally easy to implement solution. What am I missing?

What about a video podcast mechanism ?

Every time a video is added to a church website,
the department has to fill out an entry that gets added
to an RSS feed.

Then all you would need is a podcast aggregator to
download the files as they are added.

It seems it could be built into the approval process
rather easily.

Or does the church already have this ?

Yes... that is an idea... bittorrent is also one that would work fairly easily....

What I have done for our stake (we are in the process of moving to a centralized system with android mini-PCs that connect directly to the TVs) Is take all of the LDS videos available (including everything from Mormon Channel, MoTabChannel, and others) that I can find, as well as the Gospel Art Kit and other LDS paintings. And upload them to a dedicated dropbox account I set up for our stake, then on each of these Android mini-PCs I have set up an application called DropSync Pro to check that dropbox every 30 minutes and then download any new content available that I or a bishop in the stake has uploaded to it. Having the central Dropbox account and using DropSync in a download mirror setting, allows me to change any content on ALL of the mini-PCs simultaneously and rather efficiently. These mini-PCs are also very cost effective at only $85 a piece (that includes shipping). Currently my dropbox has about 18.5GB of 480p content in videos alone. (That is over 500 videos!!) I am working with our local FM group to distribute this wider, but it is a slow process for now.

Does this spark any ideas with someone else?

How many of these mini-pcs do you put in each building?

We are still in the initial phases of this install, but the goal is to have one of these mini PCs for each of the 4 allowed TVs per building (I was told that the church's insurance will only cover 4 TVs in each building, so that is the limit we placed on the number of mini-PCs.)

Another tool is the Meetinghouse Library. For details and discussion, see this topic: Meetinghouse Library Project.