How many receiving sites can we have?

Is there a limit to the number of receiving sites we can have?

In the scheduling app, the "large event" switch says to use it if you expect between 75-200 sites.

What if you expect 750 to 1,000? What if the members are told to stay home from stake conference and watch the webcast?

Thanks, I thought there was something like that, but I wasn't in a position to set up an event to see. Now I see that when you hover over it, but the guide simply says more than 75 sites. I'm not sure why my stake president is asking but I suspect it might be for the reason that lajackson mentioned.

lajackson wrote:What if you expect 750 to 1,000?

Unless someone says something different, I'd suggest you look into a different solution.

A number of units have been having virtual meetings lately, I thought I heard of a stake conference as well. I should know what technology they are using but don’t, but I would think the number of units broadcasting would be the main issue, not the number of receiving sites.

craiggsmith wrote:but I would think the number of units broadcasting would be the main issue, not the number of reviving sites.

I don't think so. I think what happens is that the church spins up a server in Microsoft's cloud for each meeting. We'd have to use up the whole Azure system to tax the number of sending sites.

The problem with streaming, is unlike radio broadcasting, each receiving site requires it's own stream. Each server has some kind of bandwidth limit that limits how many streams it can support.

That’s why I said the number of units streaming would be an issue, although an inside contact says only 200, so I guess it is a separate stream for each receiving location. I guess it’s not the same method as general conference.

If you're concerned about capacity, I suggest using YouTube Live. It has unbelievable capacity and will spin up more servers automatically on demand. You can use your existing Teradek box for encoding. Hard to beat for free.

craiggsmith wrote:I guess it’s not the same method as general conference.

Method, yes. System, no. It's probably a combination of YouTube and Brightcove.

Interestingly, Brightcove's main page says "Brightcove is now offering 50 free hours of HD Live for 90 days to support our business community and help you avoid disruptions.*"

The current webcast solution will handle up to 200 connections if you choose "Large Event" when you schedule it. We are working as a priority towards increasing this to a lot more, but until then it is 200 connections per event stream.

Also, remember this number is per connection, not per person, sometimes we see areas where they will request the need for 500, but what they mean is 500 people not connections since 1 connection may be viewed by more than one person, e.g. a home with a family of 5.

seanhyte wrote:The current webcast solution will handle up to 200 connections if you choose "Large Event" when you schedule it.

Thanks. Please let us know if/when it changes. I do not anticipate an immediate need, but it will be good information for the stake presidency to have.

In light of the new guidelines from the First Presidency regarding large gatherings of saints in the affected areas of the COVID-19 virus (including USA), that number of 200 connections per stream is likely to be heavily taxed.

Mikerowaved wrote:In light of the new guidelines from the First Presidency regarding large gatherings of saints in the affected areas of the COVID-19 virus (including USA), that number of 200 connections per stream is likely to be heavily taxed.

I'm not sure where that challenge will be coming from:

we will postpone stake and leadership conferences and other large gatherings in Church Areas where illness caused by COVID-19 is a challenge

I'm reading this as all stake conferences are canceled for the time being. Not televised - canceled.

Televising the sacrament meeting is a different matter - something that would have to get approval from the area authority given the Handbook guidelines on webcasting.

Sure, but if a stake can webcast a stake conference to all its members in a similar fashion as General Conference, it wouldn't need to be cancelled.

Mikerowaved wrote:Sure, but if a stake can webcast a stake conference to all its members in a similar fashion as General Conference, it wouldn't need to be cancelled.

This was my thinking and exactly the question I came here to get answered. Treat the entire stake as a whole bunch of private connections. Since this was only intended to let a few people do the non building logins I am guessing the facilities would be badly strained by even a few stakes doing it. Was also thinking of weekly sacrament meeting. We don't have the facilities to stream it at the ward level but if the same system could be used we could do it at the stake level back down to the ward just like webcasting any other stake event back to the ward. But instead of having the building the main receiving site grant password access to everyone so it could be viewed from home. It would be dependent the ability to stream to huge numbers of private locations.

Simply trying to plan ahead and figure out what might be requested of me and what I need to learn. Because if the church follows normal pattern they will call the night before to tell me it needs to work at 10 the next morning or worse.

Mikerowaved wrote:Sure, but if a stake can webcast a stake conference to all its members in a similar fashion as General Conference, it wouldn't need to be cancelled.

It may not need to be canceled, but by direction of the First Presidency, it's been postponed. I believe stake conferences turn in a report. Such a report being turned in might encounter some criticisms. Given the letter, I'm not sure as stake presidents are going to want to stick out their necks. If I know my stake presidency, they'd be quietly happy that there's one less thing they have to deal with.

New direction may come at any time. And I suspect it will if/when it starts to look like this won't blow over in a few months (Especially if it starts to look like stakes will be missing two conferences). But with that announcement may come new resources/rules.

As techs, I think examining our tool chest would be wise, but I wouldn't get too wrapped up in details just yet.

One of the questions I'd ask of leaders is how many active families attend sacrament meeting. That would give you some idea of how many streams might be needed.

Mikerowaved wrote:Sure, but if a stake can webcast a stake conference to all its members in a similar fashion as General Conference, it wouldn't need to be cancelled.

Theoretically. But I think the First Presidency and Twelve have simply decided to postpone them. I doubt our assigned general authority will be coming next week. I expect to get word from the stake presidency after their meeting this evening that I should cancel a few webcast tests and the conference webcast, as well.

russellhltn wrote:It may not need to be canceled, but by direction of the First Presidency, it's been postponed.

A stake president does not have authority to schedule a stake conference. He is given the conference schedule from the President of the Quorum of the Twelve. If he feels to recommend a change of dates for stake conference, he requests it from the President of the Twelve.

Our stake president once needed to change the date of one of our stake conferences because he was going to be out of the country and unable to attend and preside. The response from the Twelve was, You have counselors, don't you? And so the first counselor in our stake presidency had the privilege of presiding at one of our stake conferences.

As challenging as it is for a stake president to preside at one of his own stake conferences, it was totally mind-blowing for that counselor to do it. And yet it still ranks right up there as one of the best stake conference our stake has ever held.

lajackson wrote:But I think the First Presidency and Twelve have simply decided to postpone them.

I've just been in touch with my SP regarding our April stake conference, and while he appreciated my offer to setup a webcast to the stake membership via YouTube Live, he suggested that it may have already been cancelled (from the verbiage in the letter), but he's waiting to hear from either the scheduled visiting authority or the area authority for the final word.

Our Stake Conference is scheduled this Sunday, one day before the new policies take effect. Our Stake President is seeking guidance but in the meantime, we have offered YouTube Live as a possible solution to keep everybody home, yet still broadcast from our local tabernacle. I'll let you all know the outcome.

Scratch that, Stake Conference officially canceled.

I'm a bit concerned about the assertion that setting the "large event" option will support 200 viewing sessions. The scale is likely not limited by a license, but by network bandwidth. Part of the bandwidth equation is the virtual host NIC provisioned in the Azure cloud (normal vs. large event?) but another part of that is what bit-rate your'e sending and what the viewers are watching.

If someone knows the details, I would like to know what is being provisioned with these two options. If the infrastructure scales to 200 users watching 720p @ 1.5Mbps , will it scale to perhaps 400 users if I drop the resolution to 480p @ 750Kbps? What bitrate was used to derive the 200 user limit?

Here's an approach to scale the existing infrastructure for the tech savvy. You should all be able to find someone in your stakes with Linux skills to help with this (or Windows skills if you're up in Idaho . Schedule 2 or 3 events at the same time, so you have 3 stream servers. Set up a linux PC and install the rtmp server. You can find guides like this via google: https://sites.google.com/view/facebook- ... rtmps/home. Use multiple push statements in the rtmp file, one push for each of the backend stream servers. If there are 9 wards in your stake, give each set of 3 wards one of the three codes, so the watchers are distributed. Now you can scale to 600 families watching.

Yeah, it's a bit geeky, but it uses the existing infrastructure which is pretty nice from a control and visibility standpoint.

kfred wrote:Schedule 2 or 3 events at the same time, so you have 3 stream servers.

The lowest authority for the webcast is the stake president. I have doubts that the system allows the stake to schedule more than one event at the same time.

russellhltn wrote:I have doubts that the system allows the stake to schedule more than one event at the same time.

It can be done but I think you have to use two different encoders. There was a primary and a backup for the last regional visit from an Apostle. The primary cratered and we all had to jump to the backup. The hosting stake borrowed an encoder from a neighboring stake. Glad they did it that way.

russellhltn wrote:

kfred wrote:Schedule 2 or 3 events at the same time, so you have 3 stream servers.

The lowest authority for the webcast is the stake president. I have doubts that the system allows the stake to schedule more than one event at the same time.

The system allows it, and I've used it to provide redundancy when an apostle visited for a youth conference late 2018. I provisioned two sessions in different cloud regions. We had a rogue client connect to the primary stream that caused performance issues, which was averted by having some of the sites move to the backup stream server, which I provisioned in another cloud region. You either need multiple encoders (not realistic for most) or something to forward the stream to multiple stream servers (the rtmp server I suggested).

This isn't just an idea, it's something I've already used; just sharing.

Interesting. My experience with visits from apostles is that CHQ reaches out and gives me a link to Brightcove.

Part of a letter just sent via email today, to what I assume are all members/all members with email subscriptions:

Beginning immediately, all public gatherings of Church members are being temporarily suspended worldwide until further notice. This includes:

- Stake conferences, leadership conferences and other large gatherings.
- All public worship services, including sacrament meetings.
- Branch, ward and stake activities.

Where possible, leaders should conduct any essential leadership meetings via technology. Specific questions may be referred to local priesthood leaders. Further direction related to other matters will be provided.

Bishops should counsel with their stake president to determine how to make the sacrament available to members at least once a month.

And another letter also published today gives the times of the satellite broadcasts etc., encouraging members to watch the various General Conference sessions!

Biggles wrote:And another letter also published today gives the times of the satellite broadcasts etc., encouraging members to watch the various General Conference sessions!

Watching make great sense. But I doubt if we'll be seeing much of an audience at the Conference Center. Even the choir might be trimmed back.

I thought general conference used a multicast method.

At any rate, we were scheduled to have our stake conference this weekend, and I got an email from the church yesterday (before the bigger announcement) saying the system can handle 400 receiving locations.

russellhltn wrote:But I doubt if we'll be seeing much of an audience at the Conference Center.

There won't be a live audience for the April GC.