Running multiple Sacrament Meetings from multiple buildings

We have been broadcasting Sacrament meetings from our Stake Center that is set up for webcasting, but are looking for solutions to expand and broadcast from our other buildings leveraging the Webcasting Tech. We currently only have a single Vidiu unit and it appears that we would need more of them to leverage the Webcast tech and not revert to using a Zoom or Google Meet Application. Any ideas from this group?

The Webcasting function was designed to serve stakes, not wards. Even if you work around the need for multiple Vidiu units, I'm not sure as you'd be able to have more than one meeting at the same time.

One idea you might explore - see if you can feed the Vidiu from the HDMI output of a computer. Use the church webcast to webcast the computer to the members and feed it with a private Zoom or Google Meet to get from the various chapels.

russellhltn wrote:The Webcasting function was designed to serve stakes, not wards. Even if you work around the need for multiple Vidiu units, I'm not sure as you'd be able to have more than one meeting at the same time.

Just tried setting up overlapping events in MWC Event Manager and it had no problem with it, as long as you specify a different encoder than what any other event has already claimed. It didn't even mind using the same site. (Learned something myself .)

I would have your high counselor over physical facilities (PFR) contact the FM group to see if they have any extra VidiU devices that can be borrowed. It can be temporarily registered to your stake and will show up as an available device in the MWC Event Manager. Understand that these devices are in high demand during these unusual times.

An alternative (not for the timid) would be to use a fairly robust notebook (Windows, Mac, or Linux) running OBS Studio with a USB 3.0 (minimum) video capture device, such as this one* or this one* on Amazon. (Not recommendations, just examples.)

For webcasting, it's highly recommended to:

1. Use a wired audio connection from the chapel soundsystem
2. Always webcast over a wired Ethernet connection
3. Turn off the WiFi in the building
4. Your host building(s) would need sufficient upload bandwidth to support a webcast. Anything above 15 Mb/s is ideal. Less than that and you'll have to give up some video quality or webcast in SD.

Unlike running Zoom on a notebook with a built-in camera, webcasting a church meeting is not a trivial thing. It can quickly get complicated to duplicate what most stake centers are already wired for.

*Ignore their marketing's "4K" rating. Most can only do that at a low frame rate. The ability to capture up to 1080p/60 is more than enough for our needs.

Note that the price of a VidiU in the Church store $632.80 USD - which is a very good price. And that's just the encoder. You still need the camera. And you need to find someone who can connect it all up and make it work.

By contrast, for Zoom and similar, you just need a computer with a webcam. Much simpler to operate. The results are going to be about the same unless you step up to a multi-camera setup, or text overlays. (Which will require more technical talent to operate.)

That's why I suggested front-ending the system with zoom and use the one stake VidiU to feed the church webcast for distribution.

russellhltn wrote:That's why I suggested front-ending the system with zoom and use the one stake VidiU to feed the church webcast for distribution.

Since this thread started, the church has made some changes to the webcast system with an eye to allowing Zoom to feed the webcast. I think it requires a paid verson of zoom, but I'm sure that's a very small cost compared to all the equipment required.

After I posted this, we have deployed Zoom (purchased subscription) meetings using a high end PODcasting Microphone...we can't tap into our PA system in these buildings and a good Web Camera. We hardwired the internet to the PC and had a member of the ward sitting at the PC and monitor the Zoom meeting and make sure members didn't unmute or activate their devices. Last Sunday, we allowed over 300 families join our meeting via technology across 12 different Sacrament meetings. 2 Building using Zoom and Web Camera and one using our Stake Center's webcasting system. Equipment cost was around $200 per building.

poznan23 wrote:we can't tap into our PA system in these buildings and a good Web Camera.

What problem are you running into? If there's no jack, I'd consider using an assistive listening device.

A few additional things to consider:

- There are free software and app options available. One that I've used is OBS. This can be downloaded onto your computer and connects via RTMP to the Church's webcast services. There are also apps that can be downloaded on mobile devices. I am not as familiar with the mobile apps, but will be testing them more in the near future. Others I've talked to have had success with the Larix Broadcaster app.

- There are some additional "low cost" options. One I know of that has been tested quite a bit is the Mevo camera. This camera can broadcast directly to the Church's webcast services using RTMP, eliminating the need for the Teradek.

- Zoom integration - Zoom can be broadcast to the Church's webcast system as well using RTMP. To do this though you will need a paid Zoom account. In order for it to work you would need to enable the high bandwidth encode toggle button that was just added. Enabling this button will give you a warning that it is a beta feature. You should definitely test to make sure you are comfortable with the solution. The Church's support team has done quite a bit of testing on this and are confident it is working well. The advantages of taking Zoom into the Church's system are 1) the stream becomes view only so you don't have to monitor participants muting/unmuting, 2) the Church's system now offers a static viewing homepage URL for viewers so you don't need to send a new link out every week, 3) if desired, you can limit viewers by marking the event as private which will require them to login with their Church account and the event code.

I am not saying you have to use the Church's webcast service. I am just giving some options to consider as you decide what works best for you.

russellhltn wrote:Note that the price of a VidiU in the Church store $632.80 USD - which is a very good price.

The Church store price is now $732.25. Still better than the $799 price on the Teradek site.

Again, though, now that there are several ways of feeding the Church webcasting system without using a Teradek VidiU encoder, our stake would prefer to pass on acquiring any additional encoders for the moment.

I posted about our stake's webcast experience in another forum. That information may be of interest to you since we've been doing it for a very long time. To see the post go to viewtopic.php?f=146&t=37353&p=213628#p213628

Does someone have the details on the connection settings got use Zoom or other meeting like tools to hit the church webcast site ?

davidbowmanbyu wrote:Does someone have the details on the connection settings got use Zoom or other meeting like tools to hit the church webcast site ?

The exact string is on a "per webcast" basis. You get the RMTP string once the event is created.

On the event in Event Manger, click on "Setup". Go to the "Other" tab. The string(s) will be in there. Depending on what Zoom wants, you may need to append the "Stream name" to the end of the "URL" adding a slash between them.

( {URL} \ {Stream Name} )

Remember when creating the event to turn on "High Bandwidth Encode" if you're going to be using Zoom as the feed.

davidbowmanbyu wrote:Does someone have the details on the connection settings got use Zoom or other meeting like tools to hit the church webcast site ?

And just remember, the above RTMP instructions can't be done with the free version of Zoom.

Here in Brazil we are using the OBS studio on laptops or apps like streamlabs on smartphones along with the Church webcasting system. It has been working fine.

I saw the price of the teradek's and it made me cringe, especially in this time, as its been asked that Wards and Stakes reduce costs of items like this, or use what members have. I started trying to figure out a way to mimic the teradek and i've actually used about $100 worth of parts and my 3d printer and have created a small box, with camera, that can plug into the ethernet jack near the pulpit (we have ours wired as PoE) which powers the device and provides data, and it set to automatically check every minute on its encoder settings to see if a stream can be created (just like the teradek does) and once the media server of the webcasting platform is spun up, it will connect automatically and start streaming. The only thing I'm trying to figure out is the best way to tap into the audio system as most chapels have this either near the sacrament table, or in the back of the chapel.

Would love to see a picture of what you came up with

I'll get some pictures of it once I have it completed again, I tore it apart to make some modifications to the case, just finishing the model so I can print it.

davidbowmanbyu, did you happen to figure out how to use Zoom and stream to the webcasting platform? I have tested it, and it requires a paid account to use the feature, but it works. Plus having the paid for account, you are given so many more options, like being able to restrict anyone from unmuting, so if you have people joining the zoom, there will be no accidental unmute issues.

If you need help, let me know.

Uh ... yeah .. never updated the thread were now doing 9 sacraments a week using OBS pushing at church webcast for 7 of them 1 ward doing YouTube and 1 doing zoom ...

I have a “light week” because it’s only stake conference this coming Sunday ... what a crazy year it’s been ...

Yeah, our stake has been very open in letting Wards decide how they want to do it (some use a mix of Zoom and Youtube, some just 1 or the other), but I think it would be best to bring them all together into the same platform. The reason I want this is because we aren't sure that Wards are truly deleting their Youtube Live Streams after, and using the webcasting platform, they aren't saved, so thats a plus.

I hope with the device I'm prototyping, that once I can show its use case to the Stake Presidency, they will see the benefit. I've designed the code to look for the live stream link, just like the teradek, and will keep an eye to see when its supposed to disconnect based on the event time, so that if it's not disconnected right away, it won't try to keep streaming.

Plus with having the price tag so low and having the 3d design, I could potentially build these things at a large scale.

Any updates @jnpetersen? I'm curious what your solution was.

Our stake originally worked toward a solution originally proposed by @technoSwiss, with some modifications...
(1) We setup 1 youtube channel for each building in our stake, plus the default channel for our stake gmail account. So our one gmail account has 5 youtube channels that cover our Stake + 4 buildings.
(2) We simplified the process by making our videos public and sent a link to the channel for the building. When live, the video shows up there. We delete them later. This means we didn't need to automate updating links on a webpage, we only needed a single link for each building. Wards would simply watch the channel during their regular meeting time. We also didn't need the code for sending SMS messages
(3) We worked toward a 'control' box that had a button (for soft power on/off of Pi), a couple switches (one for start/stop broadcast, and one for live-video/static-pic+no-sound for sacrament) and LED indicators for each control.

We wound up bailing on the Pi's due to poor internet in two of our buildings, and only one person capable of modifying the code for all of it. (If he were "hit by a bus", or moved out of the stake, the support model falls apart)

We wound up standardized on using OBS with laptops. We used the webcams and USB audio capture devices that we originally purchased for the Pis, which work great with the laptops. We leave the webcams, and audio capture devices setup all the time, and simply plugin the laptops prior to streaming. The plus side is that each ward in our stake has provided an assistant stake tech clerk, and they're each now trained how to use OBS to run a webcast, which will come in really handy to assist the STS during stake conferences.

For those wondering what hardware we wound up using... each building has:
(1) A laptop/computer capable of running OBS (OBS is free, laptops can be borrowed from members, or if purchased are ~$400-$500 each)
(a) A USB3 hub with ethernet adapter - new laptops don't have an rj45 connector anymore (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0178HOTOU ~$16)
(b) A 20ft Ethernet cable - you may need longer/shorter (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GBBSTEG ~$14)
(2) A 1080p USB webcam with h.264 (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B088TT8HVY ~$48)
(a) A Microphone stand - in case you don't have a spare one laying around. (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002PAW6AU ~$26)
(b) Microphone stand to webcam adapter - allows you to mount your webcam on a mic stand (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07RGJFR85 ~$11)
(3) A USB digital audio capture card (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019T9KS04 ~$20)
(a) A 25ft Audio extension cable to pull audio from Chapel out jack - I suggest getting longer than you need, ours are shorter than I'd like (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CNAV2YW ~$13)
(4) A Power Cord - recommend a windup variety like this one (https://www.walmart.com/ip/16489602 ~$17)

Chances are you already have some of that equipment already. But, if you have to buy everything, it's around ~$162 per building plus the cost of your computer/laptop. Meaning you should be able to purchase everything including the laptop for less than the cost of a single Teradyk Vidiu device.

Greetings everyone...this has probably already been mentioned but the cheapest and easiest way to broadcast Sacrament meetings is using your phones...We broadcast 10 sacrament meetings every sunday using the churches webcast system. I built 4 streamer kits, one for each building. Each building except 1 had three wards in the building so I had the stake purchase 4 tripods and phone tripod mounts, one for each building. I built 4 interface cables and use 4 hearing impaired receivers that feeds the chapel sound system into the phones. The interface cable has one RTS connector that plugs into the Comtek receiver, and goes to two RTTS connectors on the other end, one for Android phones, and one for Iphones. In the middle, I build a resistive attenuator that drops the Line level audio to Mic level for the mic input to the phone. Each ward has a person assigned to set up the tripod and camera 45 minutes before time to start the Service. I put velcro on one leg of the tripod and on the Comtek receiver so it simply sticks to the leg. If you have an iphone that doesn't have an RTTS jack, I purchased the Lightning connector to 1/8 " RTTS adapter, don't buy the cheap ones because the cheap ones do not pass the Mic jack feed , Purchase the Belkin adapter and you will have no problems. It passes the mic as well as the speaker connections which you don't use. I have loaded the Larix software on the main streaming phones, and the Manycam app on my phone for stake conference type broadcasts. The manycam app is $59 normally $79 for one device and 4 video sources on one phone. You can even use video files on the phone to play videos and two more phones that use WIFI and show up as sources on your main phone. Works very well. The Larix software if free, that's why I use it for the wards. Just load it on the phone and Input the RTMP URL into the software and press the button and go. The larix software has a visual VU meter to set the volume using the knob on the receiver. Peak it into the yellow and your good to go. I also have a way to include headsets so that you can monitor the audio from the receiver as well. Don't have enough space to tell it all, but if your interested in more information please drop me a line and I would be happy to help out ...my email address is georgia.radio@gmail.com. The total cost for each kit was about $65.00 and the phones were provided by the operator... We stream from 9 am to 4:30 pm continuously at each building except at the Branch that only has one ward in that building. There is more to this story, if your interested, will look forward to talking to you, 73, Bro Rogers...

With a recent email I received which asked us to only use the Church Webcasting platform for meetings with 500+ attendees, with the provided Zoom Accounts the church supplied, we have moved over to using Zoom Webinars which have worked well. With setting them up as recurring meetings, it makes it simple to just give people 1 url they can save in their calendar to be able to load up each week.

I tried working with my Stake Presidency to purchase equipment but then we went back into Stay at Home and so the need for equipment in the building was back to not needed. Now we are returning and so far we've only had the opportunity to have people use their own computers. I would love to tie the sound system in directly, but I think I'm going to find the best way to handle this using the comtek receiver, as the plug on the wall is all the way towards the back of the room. It would be nice to see about having our building updated to HDMI, even if it is just HDMI extenders over Ethernet, as we could then have a camera in the corner on the wall that feeds back to our satellite closet (which those are being removed soon) and I can get a nice setup for the 2 chapels in 1 room, and provide the streams from there.

There was a recent communication as well about recommending to turn off the Wifi during church to provide a better experience for those not in the building, which we are doing as I noticed last week, people joined the Zoom Webinar, even when they were in the building (for what reason, I have no idea).

I'm still planning on trying to set something up to make things easier and dedicated to each chapel, but for now, this is my plan.

@idahojoe Can you provide any pictures of how you have setup the devices? Are they mounted to the pulpit or somewhere else?

I built a solution if anyone is interested?