Using Tabernacle Choir YouTube videos for Virtual Stake Conference Webcast Music

QUESTION: Is there a way for me, for church purposes only, to get free downloaded MP4-type video files of Tabernacle Choir songs for use in my virtual Stake Conference Webcast as opening/intermediate/closing music?
I am the stake technology specialist here. Our stake conference general session next week will be virtual with only the speakers and leaders (and technology specialists) in the stake center for the webcast. The stake presidency and stake music chairman have decided to use Tabernacle Choir YouTube videos for the opening/intermediate/closing music. I have no problem getting videos from a PC into our Webcasts via our AV mixer into the Vidiu. However, I do not like being dependent on pulling live YouTube.com video streams – I instruct all of our teachers in the stake to try to download all internet content so that if the wifi and/or internet in the building fails, that they can still teach their classes from the downloaded content on their devices. I cannot download YouTube videos (and I don’t think it is legal to do so). Is there a way for me to download, through official church channels, those videos for virtual church meeting webcast use?

The Tabernacle Chior has two types of performances: church and commercial. If you try to use the commercial ones, you may trigger content match and have your livestream blanked.

I've been advised (and am telling others) to limit the music to performances from General Conferences.

I'm not aware of a place you can download a video of just the music, but you can download the whole session and edit it.

russellhltn wrote:I'm not aware of a place you can download a video of just the music, but you can download the whole session and edit it.

I can only find the most recent four general conference sessions. Where are they hiding all of the others now?

lajackson wrote:I can only find the most recent four general conference sessions. Where are they hiding all of the others now?

I can see a large number of conferences if I got to the toolbar and click on Conferences > All Conferences. However not all have a video download of the whole session.

If you follow links for music, you end up at YouTube.

If you go to the General Conference Music page:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/gen ... c?lang=eng
You can find all of the audio files.

If you right-click the download button next to a song and copy the URL, you will see a URL like this:
https://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/genera ... nload=true

You can then adjust the URL to get the 360p, 720p, or 1080p video:
https://media2.ldscdn.org/assets/general-conference/october-2020-general-conference/2020-10-1041-come-ye-children-of-the-lord-360p-eng.mp4?download=true

Several years' worth of conference music is also indexed here, with download links, which may be a little easier:
https://singpraises.net/broadcasts
(This is a personal website – not an endorsed or official Church website.)

sbradshaw wrote:You can then adjust the URL

Brilliant. Thank you so very much.

For our Stake Conference last week, we were sent a document which had the links to the music, then I used a free program https://www.4kdownload.com/products/pro ... downloader to save as mp4 files. Other free programs work just as well. I attached the document that we were sent.

n1els0n wrote:For our Stake Conference last week, we were sent a document which had the links to the music, . . .

I hope I am not sent this document. Our stake music chairman selected six hymns for our upcoming conference and they have been approved.

Interesting point #1. Five of the six hymns are on the list. Nice batting average.

Interesting point #2. We are not using any of the recordings on the list. Of the five hymns we chose that are on the list, all five have performances by the choir at general conference that are better. We are using the better versions.

Interesting point #3. I did not have to download any YouTube files and convert them to mp4s. I got the files directly from the Church media page. They were already mp4s.

I hope the existence of this list does not mean that other hymns sung by the Tabernacle Choir at General Conference at not approved.

The final approval of what music to use would be with the stake president and presiding authority. The list is probably to help provide content and avoid clips with slow pans of the conference center and an announcement of which session you are watching, like this one... https://youtu.be/5CgWSMJi2co

n1els0n wrote:The final approval of what music to use would be with the stake president and presiding authority. The list is probably to help provide content and avoid clips with slow pans of the conference center and an announcement of which session you are watching, . . .

I am good with that. And it is a good place to start. The list seems to provide the most recent version of a hymn sung by the Choir at conference. One of them was a repeat used in 2019 that had the October 2017 overlay on it. I just pulled the 2017 version instead, since they were identical except for the date graphic.

The sbradshaw method avoids the need to convert from YouTube. And all of the General Conference music is available.

I was able to listen (mp3) to the performance for each hymn, avoid the broadcast announcement of the conference session, and then pull down the best two or three (mp4), viewing them to make the final selection. One that did not make the cut was a performance that was better than all of the others but included a shot of Mack Wilberg conducting with a background showing that a whole section of the Conference Center was moving toward the exit while the closing hymn was still in progress. Oops. There were also a few with significant coughs and other noise from the congregation where other versions had clean, non-distracting audio and video.

It was an interesting exercise for a music lover trying to find the best video that would not distract from the spirit of the conference.

We are planning on using downloaded Tabernacle Choir MP4 videos from the church's website for prelude and hymn numbers for our virtual attendance Stake Conference coming up. I feed the video into the EMtech panel using the "AUX IN" switch and a VGA input from the laptop playing the MP4. The video looks good when viewed within the stake center over the analog video system. However when viewed as a webcast, as the virtual congregation will view it, the MP4 is fairly blurry. The view of the pulpit and speaker is fine. It's just the MP4 videos.
Has anyone else experienced something like this?

Also, is there an easy way to overlay a title onto the MP4 videos we are using for the prelude like "Meeting will start at 10:00 a.m."?

sbradshaw wrote:If you go to the General Conference Music page:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/gen ... c?lang=eng
You can find all of the audio files.

Your marvelous link no longer works, but this one does.

https://www.thetabernaclechoir.org/watc ... brary.html

I had a last minute stake conference request and had to scramble. I love how things are always so dependable in an ever-changing world.

kentjorgensen wrote:
Also, is there an easy way to overlay a title onto the MP4 videos we are using for the prelude like "Meeting will start at 10:00 a.m."?

If you run the video through a mixer like a BlackMagic ATEM this is easy and you can also add speaker titles like they do for general conference.

Baring that, you could edit the MP4 to add this fairly easily. A 7 day free trial of Adobe Premier could meet your needs. There are numerous other video editing options.

Mike