Face to Face technical difficulties

My stake held an event where the youth gathered to watch the Face to Face broadcast with Elder Bednar. I was asked to set up the equipment and handle the broadcast. Unfortunately, the video froze up various times during the event, sometimes to where I had to refresh the page and force it to reconnect. I'm frustrated that it took a lot away from the event, but in hindsight I should've realized it was a potential issue and had some mitigations ready before it started.

I had a couple of questions:

1. Did anyone else streaming the video online run into issues with video buffering/freezing? I'm guessing the issues were with our building's Internet connection, but I'm curious to know if others saw what we did.

2. I just saw on another message (http://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=152&t=21716#) that the event was streamed on the Church's satellite system. I didn't see this mentioned anywhere (the main page I referenced was https://www.lds.org/youth/activities/sp ... r?lang=eng#), but if it was, I really wish I'd known about it. Is there anywhere I could have seen this?

3. For future events like this, could an audio-only stream be provided (if there was, I didn't see it anywhere) as a last resort for anyone with spotty bandwidth?

kcowolf wrote:2. I just saw on another message (http://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=152&t=21716#) that the event was streamed on the Church's satellite system. I didn't see this mentioned anywhere (the main page I referenced was https://www.lds.org/youth/activities/sp ... r?lang=eng#), but if it was, I really wish I'd known about it. Is there anywhere I could have seen this?

I'm not sure about that answer. You'll notice I had the same questions and difficulties in finding an answer.

I've got a question for you: when you ran into problems, did you disable the building's wireless? Otherwise other users of the building's internet could have been an issue.

I was streaming using the Wi-fi. I would've needed to have a long Ethernet cable ready to run from the pulpit to the Clerk's Office (or ideally I should've planned to set that up from the beginning). If we have an Ethernet port closer to the pulpit I'm not aware of it.

I did ask everyone to disconnect their devices from the wireless, but I don't know how many did.

Fortunately for me, FM installed a jack at the pulpit of each of our meetinghouses. But in your case it could go either way.

I would use the situation to push for getting a jack installed. Not doubt there will be future broadcasts and this failure emphases the need for a fix.

Always, always, always stream using Ethernet, even if you have to run a cable, a long cable. This let's you disable wireless.

You can always call the global service center and ask about the satellite, I was told at the end of last week that the church has decided to always broadcast these kinds of events over satellite. I hope that is the case.

kcowolf wrote:1. Did anyone else streaming the video online run into issues with video buffering/freezing? I'm guessing the issues were with our building's Internet connection, but I'm curious to know if others saw what we did.

For me, it froze once for about 3-4 seconds about 15 minutes before the live event started. It certainly grabbed my attention, but that was all I saw; the rest went very smooth.

kcowolf wrote:2. I just saw on another message (http://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=152&t=21716#) that the event was streamed on the Church's satellite system. I didn't see this mentioned anywhere (the main page I referenced was https://www.lds.org/youth/activities/sp ... r?lang=eng#), but if it was, I really wish I'd known about it. Is there anywhere I could have seen this?

I posted that and I agree it could have been better publicized about the different methods of streaming on more than that one page.

I think it would have been counterproductive to disable Wi-Fi since I thought the whole purpose of the event was to allow the youth to interact during the event. Perhaps I am wrong.

Either way, this event occurred at exactly the time Microsoft released its monthly Windows critical updates. I was in a stake council meeting last night, and had to reboot for that reason.

drepouille wrote:I think it would have been counterproductive to disable Wi-Fi since I thought the whole purpose of the event was to allow the youth to interact during the event. Perhaps I am wrong.

How many youth rely on WiFi for texting?

drepouille wrote:I think it would have been counterproductive to disable Wi-Fi since I thought the whole purpose of the event was to allow the youth to interact during the event. Perhaps I am wrong.

That was the impression I got too. I seem to recall satelite being mentioned on the page I saw about the event last week - even if it had not been mentioned, I would have assumed an event like this would use the satelite system. Our stake did not host a live viewing. In our ward, we invited the youth to stream live at home if they wished; our YM (I'm not sure about YW) are planning to watch the video from it tonight.

russellhltn wrote:

drepouille wrote:I think it would have been counterproductive to disable Wi-Fi since I thought the whole purpose of the event was to allow the youth to interact during the event. Perhaps I am wrong.

How many youth rely on WiFi for texting?

Not for texting, but for accessing #LDSface2face on Twitter or Facebook. I had the same quandary before discovering it was on the satellite.

I believe they can still send questions via Twitter and SMS, but the fact remains that once you activate WiFi in the building, you have no control what anyone uses it for. Last Sunday I stumbled upon a missionary using his iPad to facetime with someone.

It may be worth considering turning off the building WiFi and setting up a consumer WAP next to the projector so the signal is limited to the room.