Share your experience with broadcasting Sacrament Meeting

For the next several months many wards will begin to broadcast Sacrament Meetings for the first time. Some will try to use Interactive tools such as Zoom or Google Meet. Those who are trying to create an experience without disruptions caused by interactivity will try to use non-interactive tools such as the Church Webcast System or YouTube Live. We would like to find out from you which tool you used (not how you used it or what troubleshooting you are seeking to make it better) and whether you would recommend it for others to try. The church isn't going to make a global recommendation for a variety of reasons. But we would love to hear what is working for you, and what is not working.

For example my ward is going to use a webcam connected to a laptop (inside the podium), portable mic connected to the Laptop (and connected to the podium stand), and streamed through Youtube live. Tests looked excellent. Setup was simple. And the home experience was excellent. That was the test. The technologists in the ward will run it live this Sunday to see how it goes. Please respond with whatever detail you feel is needed. Thanks.

I used the Larix Broadcaster app on my Pixel 1 mounted to a tripod in the second row. The location was great for the visual (I could zoom in for a good close-up of the person talking). But it was a bad location for sound. I ended up making a cutom cable to connect my cell phone to the sound system.

I used this to feed the church Webcast System.

It worked very well.

I later learned why my location was so bad for sound - I was in a zone where I was getting sound directly from the person at the podium and the amplified sound from the sound system. Not a problem for humans, but a real problem for microphones.

My recommendation to others who are stuck using the built-in mic is to do a test using the built-in recording app to find a good location. Without testing, the best spot is likely to be "selfie distance" from the podium.

My ward put a music stand between the first and second rows, with a laptop sitting on top of it. The laptop was running Zoom. The laptop faced the podium, with the screen tilted so that the built-in camera pointed to the speaker. The clerk sat on the front row and checked the laptop screen every once in a while to make sure there weren't any problems. It worked surprisingly well for such a simple setup – no external cameras or microphones, etc. (as far as I could tell) – just a power cord for the computer. Feedback from remote viewers was positive.

We also are using a laptop with external camera/microphone and Youtube live. We've only done one and it went really well, but we'll get more experience next week.

Did you have someone in the stake with 1000 youtube subscribers or did you have a different workaround for that livestream requirement?

spence.hubbard wrote:Did you have someone in the stake with 1000 youtube subscribers or did you have a different workaround for that livestream requirement?

The 1,000 subscriber requirement is only for webcasting from a phone using the YouTube app. If you use a laptop or use a phone with some other app, it's not an issue.

What is the upload speed in your buildings? That is an issue for us in ours.

We broadcast today using the church webcast site (my webcast.churchofjesuschrist.org). It worked really well for those that were able to connect to the website. We had many others who didn't connect due to website certificate issues. The browser warning about it being an unsecured website that could make you vulnerable to hackers scared away many of our older members, and they didn't understand how to move on past that warning.

We hope the church will be able to resolve these certificate issues before we broadcast again in 2 weeks, because otherwise it was a seamless process to broadcast that worked really well.

krhellyer wrote:We broadcast today using the church webcast site (my webcast.churchofjesuschrist.org). It worked really well for those that were able to connect to the website. We had many others who didn't connect due to website certificate issues. The browser warning about it being an unsecured website that could make you vulnerable to hackers scared away many of our older members, and they didn't understand how to move on past that warning.

We hope the church will be able to resolve these certificate issues before we broadcast again in 2 weeks, because otherwise it was a seamless process to broadcast that worked really well.

The correct URL to give to the membership is http://mywebcast.churchofjesuschrist.org/[yourstake] NOT https. This is the link provided by MWC once an event is scheduled. There is no certificate issue because it's not designed to be a secure link.

Mikerowaved wrote:

krhellyer wrote:We broadcast today using the church webcast site (my webcast.churchofjesuschrist.org). It worked really well for those that were able to connect to the website. We had many others who didn't connect due to website certificate issues. The browser warning about it being an unsecured website that could make you vulnerable to hackers scared away many of our older members, and they didn't understand how to move on past that warning.

We hope the church will be able to resolve these certificate issues before we broadcast again in 2 weeks, because otherwise it was a seamless process to broadcast that worked really well.

The correct URL to give to the membership is http://mywebcast.churchofjesuschrist.org/[yourstake] NOT https. This is the link provided by MWC once an event is scheduled. There is no certificate issue because it's not designed to be a secure link.

Ahhhh, that makes sense. I'll ensure the "http" link is shared instead of the "https". Thanks for the clarification.