"Virtual" Guest Speakers at Firesides

We're investigating the possiblity of hosting a "virtual guest" from the US at an upcoming ward fireside (in Australia). We have a pretty basic ADSL connection at the meetinghouse, so we're considering using Skype or WebEx as they both support voice and video. We have a wireless microphone which will be plugged into the PC so that people attending can ask questions, and all the PC audio will be piped through the chapel sound system. We'll have the remote image projected at the front as we do for conference, and have a webcam situated at the front of the chapel, probably on or near the pulpit so the guest can see us.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has had any experience with this kind of situation. If so, how did you do it, and what can you suggest for us to make it successful?

lionelwalters wrote:We're investigating the possiblity of hosting a "virtual guest" from the US at an upcoming ward fireside (in Australia). We have a pretty basic ADSL connection at the meetinghouse, so we're considering using Skype or WebEx as they both support voice and video. We have a wireless microphone which will be plugged into the PC so that people attending can ask questions, and all the PC audio will be piped through the chapel sound system. We'll have the remote image projected at the front as we do for conference, and have a webcam situated at the front of the chapel, probably on or near the pulpit so the guest can see us.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has had any experience with this kind of situation. If so, how did you do it, and what can you suggest for us to make it successful?

The Anchorage Alaska mission has a branch in Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. It takes an airplane to get there from the mainland. For sacrament meeting on High Council Sunday, they will use a Polycom to have the stake representative call in and give their talk over a speaker phone. I also spoke one Sunday from Iowa to the members in Dutch Harbor. There was no video, but the speaker phone worked very well. You could feel the Spirit just fine having meetings in this manner. So if video does not work for you, speaker phone will work well.

opee wrote:The Anchorage Alaska mission has a branch in Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands. It takes an airplane to get there from the mainland. For sacrament meeting on High Council Sunday, they will use a Polycom to have the stake representative call in and give their talk over a speaker phone. I also spoke one Sunday from Iowa to the members in Dutch Harbor. There was no video, but the speaker phone worked very well. You could feel the Spirit just fine having meetings in this manner. So if video does not work for you, speaker phone will work well.

Polycom is a good system, but expensive. I recommend the new Google Chat client to folks I work with. The video quality is much better than anything else I have seen. That is especially important if it is going to be broadcast on a big screen. It also has excellent echo reduction. Skype is also good though.

http://mail.google.com/videochat