Simulcast of stake conference

Our stake center is at capacity for conference. There is another ward building about 30-40 minutes away that is central to about 1/3 of the stake. Both this other unit and the stake center have DSL-equipped FHCs and satellite dishes.

What can be done to stream stake conference to this other ward building?

At the present time there is not an official recommendation from church headquarters on how to handle this. There is an ongoing effort to identify a solution that is going to be supportable, reliable, cost-effective, and provide adequate quality.

Casey can post some of the things you should watch out for if you chose to figure something out on your own, including bandwidth guidelines (especially for audio), firewall/NAT traversal issues (ideally you can push the content toward a reflector), where to look for line-level audio, and various production tips.

This can be a stressful exercise - be sure to have an audio backup plan that uses the phone system...

Something to keep in mind is that the upload speeds on broadband are much smaller then download. In my area I get 3MBit download, but only 768Kbit upload. Cable modem is even less - about 400Kbit.

Also need to consider that the video across broadband probably isn't going to be of very good quality. We had a regional conference awhile back where they had to upload the video via the Internet when the satellite truck didn't show. Ugly. Looked like about a 3rd generation VHS tape. And do you have any idea what organ notes sounds like on a bit rate limited connection? More cringing then uplifting.

Satellite is do-able, but you have to get a satellite truck and crew. Not cheap.

Our stake has done this successfully the last 2 stake conferences using Slingbox. It has worked really well for us and has saved us money from the alternative solutions. We used to pay $3700 a year for 2 stake conferences to contract a company to broadcast our stake conference with microwave dishes. After buying the $200 Slingbox, our only expense is just over $700 a year for broadband of 2 buldings. A savings of $3000 a year for our stake.

At the tech forums, this solution seemed to be looked down upon because it's not a "silver bullet", a solution for all units. There's also some initial networking NAT setup involived (which really isn't that difficult, and is a one time deal). Empoyees at the church are trying to put together a solution that will solve this problem for everyone. However, the equipment for the "silver bullet" is over $3000 while the Slingbox solution is around $200.

In addition to this, was the time and expense of making paper copies of the words from the Hymns for the meetings. We just purchased another $150 piece of equipment that allowed us to put the words to the Hymns (via PowerPoint) over the video for the overflow areas. It looked very close to the way General Conference does this. It was obvious that more people sang the Hymns and diminished the overhead of lots of copies of paper. This was supprisingly easy to do, much easier than I originally anticipated when we first set out to figure out a solution to do this.

Bro. Tleish,
What was name/brand/model/etc of the $150 equipment you referred to? It would be great to save the expense of the printed hymns. Wouldn't be bad to save the cleanup and noise hassle either.
-John-

You might inquire at Pacific Wireless http://www.pacwireless.com/ in Bluffdale, Utah. They have systems which, if you have line-of-sight, might help out. You can stream a lot of data on a closed system. Rumor has it that the church has used their systems building-to-building in California.

jepeneter wrote:Bro. Tleish,
What was name/brand/model/etc of the $150 equipment you referred to? It would be great to save the expense of the printed hymns. Wouldn't be bad to save the cleanup and noise hassle either.
-John-

I started a new thread with the info here:
http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?p=206#post206

tleish wrote:
At the tech forums, this solution seemed to be looked down upon because it's not a "silver bullet", a solution for all units. There's also some initial networking NAT setup involived (which really isn't that difficult, and is a one time deal). Empoyees at the church are trying to put together a solution that will solve this problem for everyone. However, the equipment for the "silver bullet" is over $3000 while the Slingbox solution is around $200.

This is fair feedback - let me attempt to provide some additional context.

For support and flexibility reasons we'd like to find a device that allows us to push content to a central reflector where one or more endpoints can connect to receive the stream.

The pushing of content allows us to avoid the NAT problem. The NAT setup is a little more difficult if your site is running behind a Church-provided firewall (which it should be.) Since we have to manage several thousand of these devices we are very sensitive to adding any complexity to their configurations. We deal with a wide range of connectivity into church buildings and in many cases the IP addresses behind the firewall have been through two NATs. We can usually work through all of the issues, but it is painful and fragile. We'd prefer to avoid the NAT problem.

The second issue has to deal with getting the content to more than one endpoint - pushing to a reflector allows us to conserve the egress bandwidth (typically the most constrained resource) at the sourcing site. We realize that many of you do not yet have the need for this capability, but some sites do. We are weighing it in our decision criteria accordingly.

We haven't yet found a silver bullet. As you point out, $3000 feels like too much to pay for the encoder. We have some options that would just use a stake member's laptop (no hardware costs to the Church) but we again worry about the associated support ramifications. btw, with the slingbox we have this issue on the receive side.

The slingbox is nice because it is easy, it does a good job of adjusting to existing network conditions, and it is inexpensive. It's inability to push isn't a fatal flaw, but it weighs significantly in our thinking. Every other solution you saw at the tech forum also has flaws (price, ease of use, ...) The challenge we face is coming up with a "one size fits all" recommendation that we can centrally support. Such a solution may not exist so the new problem may become: how best do we then manage a disparate set of solutions?

pwhiting wrote: We have some options that would just use a stake member's laptop (no hardware costs to the Church) but we again worry about the associated support ramifications. btw, with the slingbox we have this issue on the receive side.

FYI, SlingMedia just announced at CES this month that they have a new product coming out called the SlingCatcher, which would replace the need for a laptop at the recieving end. The SlingCatcher is expected to retail for under $200 and come out some time in the middle of 2007.

See:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070108-8569.html

From what I read, it can "catch" video streams from locations other than just SlingBox, so it may help you in your the solutions you are looking into.


I agree that SlingBox doesn't solve all the problems, but it certainly was the perfect solution for our situation of streaming from the Stake Center to one single location. We also plan on purchasing the SlingCatcher so we don't have to borrow a members laptop.

Also, it's not the hardware that prevents multiple streams from the SlingBox as much as it is legal reasons where a user could broadcast their cable station to multiple people.

Also, SlingBox isn't the only player out there, a similar one is HAVA
http://www.snappymultimedia.com/index.php

pwhiting wrote:The NAT setup is a little more difficult if your site is running behind a Church-provided firewall (which it should be.) Since we have to manage several thousand of these devices we are very sensitive to adding any complexity to their configurations.

Just as a thought, what about placing the device outside of the firewall? This avoids the issue of dealing with the PIX configuration. I don't see an issue with a dedicated device (like a sling box) "outside" as long as the connection is locked down (MAC address?) to prevent others from trying to use it to get around the web filtering function.

The Slingbox meets a specific need of one source to one destination. Currently the Slingbox has two negatives; it requires the configuration of port forwards or the use of UPnP to configure incoming ports (if two NAT devices are used it gets more complicated), and it is limited to a single destination. If you are located in a Church facility with a Family History Center then the Internet connection was installed with a Cisco PIX firewall which is does not support UPnP and is not configurable by the members of the stake or ward. In speaking with Sling Media it would be very surprising if the Slingbox were changed to allow multiple destinations, this is not a technical problem but a legal issue.

If the Slingbox could "push" content to a reflector it would be an almost ideal solution.

RussellHltn wrote:Just as a thought, what about placing the device outside of the firewall?

a reasonable suggestion. Some sites get one IP address on the back side of the modem - currently this goes to the PIX who NATs for everyone else. Other sites received a NATed address from the modem (the modem is often more than a modem in these cases) and port forwarding needs to be configured on the modem/router.

We have done as you suggested in several sites when they had this need - however pushing content has generally resulted in fewer support problems.

pwhiting wrote:The challenge we face is coming up with a "one size fits all" recommendation that we can centrally support.

This is indeed the fatal flaw in the planning. You should not even try to find a "one size fits all" solution because there will always be exceptions.

Such a solution may not exist so the new problem may become: how best do we then manage a disparate set of solutions?

By limiting the set. Come up with two or three solutions and let the stake presidents - who understand local situations much better than SLC, and/or have technology clerks who do - decide what is best for their particular situations

aclawson wrote:This is indeed the fatal flaw in the planning. You should not even try to find a "one size fits all" solution because there will always be exceptions. ... Come up with two or three solutions and let the stake presidents - who understand local situations much better than SLC, and/or have technology clerks who do - decide what is best for their particular situations

I'd like to second the idea. Different stakes are going to have different needs and may find that they have different broadband capabilities available to them. Some of my biggest frustrations with the church's technology has been the "one size fits all". For example, when the satellite system was installed, they put one of the foreign languages on CH 9. Only problem is we're 3 blocks away from THE CH 9 transmitter for the state. Oops. There's more, but I'll leave that rant for another time.

While I can appreciate the need for standardization, I'd like to see some flexibility to meet the local situation.

Returning to the topic of streaming stake conference. My old stake building was too small, and for some of the wards too far, to hold everyone that would come for stake conference. There solution was to use an outlining building, which a member who had DSL lived right next to, as a second meeting place for stake conference. The stake audio/visual specialist would bring his computer which had MS Media Encoder on it and connect a camera and the PA system to it. He then would have at the other building another computer (which would use MS Media Player) which would go through the member's DSL connection to the Stake's Family History uplink and connect to the Stream.

This has worked for the past 4 conferences very well and more people have been able to attend.

The aditional cost for transmitting in this case is $0. Though this does require a few people to volunteer their services or equipment. (2 computers (one with MS Media Encoder) and DSL connection).

I was kind of wondering what was happening on this front. In my stake, the guys from Church Headquarters came out and did the simulcast thing about a year ago. We were told we were kind of a test-bed. I was one of the tech guys that helped out. It's a pretty cool setup they put together -- multiple cameras, communicating on cell-phones walkie-talkie style ("OK, go to camera 3....now."). It was fun. The Church's sytem used H.264 (the HD codec used on iPods), and very high-end equipment, so it was reasonably good video quality. There were a couple glitches where the feed dropped. So yeah, a backup audio feed via regular phone is a good idea.

We still have the DSL connection, firewall, etc., left over from that experience. But we don't use it. I was told we could hook up the clerk computers to it later, to transmit MLS stuff faster. Does anyone know if that would be kosher with policy? Would we have to get any special permission, or could we just run the ethernet cable?

reachtheworld wrote:We still have the DSL connection, firewall, etc., left over from that experience. But we don't use it. I was told we could hook up the clerk computers to it later, to transmit MLS stuff faster. Does anyone know if that would be kosher with policy? Would we have to get any special permission, or could we just run the ethernet cable?

Go through your regular priesthood channels to get special permission or approval.

Tom

This last weekend was our stake conference and the second that we used the slingbox scenario discussed here.

Six months ago our first attempt was marginal at best. We had too many variables that were changing too much and not enough resources (audio specialists, in particular) to properly isolate the issues. In the end, we got 95% of the content to the other building but several slingplayer feed glitches and even 2 computer lockups caused some to criticize. We compiled a report for our stake president with all the results. While it was difficult to swallow, we had to admit that we had failed. And our members suffered as a result.

Fast forward to this last month/weekend. Our stake president exercised his keys and his faith and said we would try again. We found a member in our stake who owns an audio services company, and he was instrumental in fixing many of the audio issues in both the originating stake center and the receiving ward building. We found that the modulator(s) in the stake center were inappropriately over modulating the audio portion of the signal going into the slingbox. We found that the EJ-10 converter boxes in our stake (the boxes convert different media like the headphone jack on the laptop to the 3-prong plugs in ward PA system) were also old and antiquated. We found an EJ-8 box that both allowed modulation as well as the elimination of the hum we were hearing. We also found that other computers connected to the originating network and on the receiving network would occasionally disrupt the internet transmission so we just turned them all off. And we used a much newer and more AV friendly laptop at the receiving ward. The end result was a much improved broadcast and a much more favorable response from the remote members (and less criticism for us we hope). The attendance at the remote ward was lower than before (by almost 50%) so we wonder if the rumors of the previous failures proved to be a rationalization by members to stay home.

The lesson for us was to be more humble, submissive, believing, and repentant. What I would share with all y'all is the following: 1) start early, at least several months ahead; 2) enlist the help of experts; 3) plan several (dozen) tests such as youth firesides, stake primary baptisms, etc. broadcasting them; 4) scrutinize each element in the chain from originating PA system and camera through to the receiving laptop, PA system, and projector; 5) document all the changes you make and why you made them, keep a journal! 6) more humble, submissive, believing, and repentant, 7) seek the revelation of the Lord - if he tells you to do something, do it, if not, DON'T.

-John-

jepeneter wrote:We found that the EJ-10 converter boxes in our stake (the boxes convert different media like the headphone jack on the laptop to the 3-prong plugs in ward PA system) were also old and antiquated. We found an EJ-8 box that both allowed modulation as well as the elimination of the hum we were hearing.

What's wrong with the EJ-10? The only thing I've noticed is that it doesn't have enough gain for some applications. The EJ-8 allows you to get the volume higher. Both have hum switches. The EJ-10 also interfaces with the phone line. I don't think the EJ-8 does.

reachtheworld wrote:We still have the DSL connection, firewall, etc., left over from that experience. But we don't use it. I was told we could hook up the clerk computers to it later, to transmit MLS stuff faster. Does anyone know if that would be kosher with policy? Would we have to get any special permission, or could we just run the ethernet cable?

At minimum you need to have loaded Desktop 5.5 on the machine. If you haven't received the CDs yet, you probably will - soon. That is required before being permitted to connect.

Second, you'll need to have a PIX box for a firewall. That's to assure that everything is in line with policy.

Beyond that you should be good to go, but I would ask for permission first.

RussellHltn wrote:What's wrong with the EJ-10? The only thing I've noticed is that it doesn't have enough gain for some applications. The EJ-8 allows you to get the volume higher. Both have hum switches. The EJ-10 also interfaces with the phone line. I don't think the EJ-8 does.

I will admit that my feelings about the EJ-10 are not scientifically based

It was nice to take advantage of the potentiometer on the EJ-8 (which isn't there on the EJ-10) to help us make the adjustments we needed.

jepeneter wrote:It was nice to take advantage of the potentiometer on the EJ-8 (which isn't there on the EJ-10) to help us make the adjustments we needed.

Maybe I'm getting my models confused. All the boxes I've seen have that adjustment.

If they are refering to the volume control then yes, both models do have that.

Don't know if this is the correct thread, but we just had our last stake conference at the Apline tabernacle. Our stake is now too big. However, we were told that the Alpine Tabernacle is able to send audio and video over the internet (sounded like what was described in the tech talks). Naturally I thought we could broadcast from the tabernacle to our stake center when we have our next conference in September.

Does anyone know if this is accurate information?

--
Aaron

In reading through this thread and having attended the Tech Talks in Salt Lake in January, I have noticed that there is a detail not mentioned that I think useful. Stake Conference is an event that only occurs for 2 hours twice a year. Other events in a stake that may make use of the connectivity would likely not increase usage much. It would seem to me that this detail could be an advantage. I will admit that there is much I do not know about the church satellite system, but I would think that in somewhat the same fashion that it is use now to connect regional conferences, it could also be use on the stake level. The difference being that the transmitter and receiver equipment would need to be portable enough to be shared among a region or group of stakes. Each building would have the support wiring permanently installed along with the mounts for the dish antenna. An antenna mounting base could also be installed at each facility that would maintain the azimuth and elevation setting for the local coordinate. Transmitters and receivers may be interchangeable between facilities to make it possible for those speaking to be located at different facilities in the stake if circumstances require for a particular conference session. Setup could hopefully be as simple as placing the electronic hardware on the location, making the connections and turning it on. Any further configuration could be communicated through the satellite transponder. Scheduling of conferences and other events could be coordinated such that only a cost effective number of transmitters and receivers would be needed. Satellite transponder bandwidth would be used throughout the day on any given Sunday. After a meeting the equipment is packed up in their shipping containers and sent to the next meeting location.

I realize I have made several assumptions in this description, but the point is, with some attention to utilization and sharing, some more expensive options may turn out to be economically feasible.

Great idea, although I believe that when the church does those activities where it is remote broadcasting, they bring a satellite transmission truck with them, it sends the signal to the conference center and the conference centers relays it into the stream and then the stream is sent to the satellite. So only one stake conference could happen at a time and also the entire part of world the world serviced by that satellite (the entire region) could see the stake conference.

Also these satellites are not owned by the church but by a broadcasting company and each stake would need to get permission to use them along with many pieces of documentation saying that they are capable to support and follow the FCC regulations on public broadcasting transmission. (Which is the problem with any transmitting source that sends a signal. It must be approved and is regulated by the FCC (In the USA) or the ICU (worldwide)).

The benifits of broadcasting though is that many can receive it from one source without burdening the server. Also you have a larger bandwidth and if you have the equipment can get it in HD.

And getting to alphabeta's question. If the Apline Tabernacle has an Internet connection that services it then yes you "technically" can transmit conference over the Internet. The Alpine stake might even have the equipment to set that up (Camera, Audio Mixer, and computer), you should ask your Stake Tech Specialist.

gpal wrote:Stake Conference is an event that only occurs for 2 hours twice a year.

But only on Sundays. Subtract two Sundays a year for General Conference and you have 50 Sundays. The bulk of the U.S. is within 4 time zones. And while a Stake Conference itself is only 2 hours, you probably should plan on total of 3 hours to get setup and tested. I'm thinking there's only about 4 time slots per Sunday leaving us with 200 slots per year. Given each stake does 2 conferences a year, that's only 100 stakes that can be serviced by a single satellite channel. And that leaves nothing for Regional Conferences.

k0nod541 wrote:You might inquire at Pacific Wireless http://www.pacwireless.com/ in Bluffdale, Utah. They have systems which, if you have line-of-sight, might help out. You can stream a lot of data on a closed system. Rumor has it that the church has used their systems building-to-building in California.

Our stake here in Poway CA has such a setup between two buildings. The two buildings have a line of site and are with in 200 yards which is very unusual in CA. We use the data feed for Stake Conferences. The setup works well but the feed did cutout during our last conference. This was the second time to use the radio antenna and it was a windy day, so maybe this had something to do with it. The stake also rents and mounts two high quality remote control video cameras for the telecast.

I have worked through the same numbers you point out. The reason I think this possible is from an experience of a few years back. Our stake center was moved to a different building. Rather than move the satellite dish and receiver it was decided to auction it off and install a new one at the new location. I was the only bidder. With it installed I was able to watch conference and priesthood sessions at home, as could anyone at the time with a C-Band receiver. A few years later our region participated in one of the first regional conferences where several stake centers were connected through the satellite system and the program sourced from one of the stake centers. Elder Holland was the visiting General Authority. On that occasion I thought (the same as was posted earlier) that the program would be available to the entire system, and that I could watch from home. The time for the meeting came and all I could view was static. I verified that my own stake center was indeed receiving a signal. After the meeting I drove to stake center where they were sourcing the program and found the Bonneville Communications Truck there and talked to the operators to learn why I was not receiving the signal on my home system. I was told that all the stake centers were being migrated from the original analog receivers to digital receivers. This change provides the following advantages:

• 7 digital signals can fit in the same bandwidth needed for the original analog signal, and therefore they are now able to simultaneously operate 7 such meeting groups over the same transponder.
• The digital receivers can be configured remotely, to decode the target signal. They are able to control from the "home office" what receivers are able to connect to a particular meeting signal. I clarified with the Bonneville operators that even if I were to have a digital receiver I would still only see static unless it was "enabled" to decode the signal.

On that occasion the program signal was "uplinked" on Ku-Band and retransmitted from Salt Lake City over C-Band to the enabled Receivers.

This proposal is based on the following assumptions:

• This approach does not require any additional bandwidth or satellite transponders beyond what is already established.
• A single transponder can carry 7 separate digital signals
• A reasonably portable, single frequency, plug-and-play up-link transmitter system is or can be developed.
• Only a 30 minute interval is needed between sessions to disable one group of transmitter-receivers and enable the next.
• Stake conferences in need of this resource can be scheduled at non-typical hours such as 8:00 AM, 10:30 AM, 1:00 PM, 3:30 PM, and 6:00 PM.

That all having been said, given 7 channels and 5 time slots/day, 35 Stake Conferences could be fit in a Sunday. Excluding about 4 Sundays per year for General Conference and a couple of holidays, that would allow for over 1600 conferences a year. This equipment could also find use on the General Conference Sundays by placing the receivers in those remote Ward buildings needing this system because it is a long drive to their Stake Center.

Feedback is welcome.

gpal wrote:7 digital signals can fit in the same bandwidth needed for the original analog signal, and therefore they are now able to simultaneously operate 7 such meeting groups over the same transponder.

Well, the question I have is how has the church purchased their satellite time? Is it by transponder which means they have access to all 7 digital signals or is it by a single signal? It's one thing to use an existing idle resource, it's quite another to have to buy satellite time to carry multiple conferences. I'd be surprised if the church bought that much overcapacity unless that was the only way to do it.

I think the biggest obstacle may be that simple transmitter. The one they dragged over to our place was anything but.

It's been several months since the tech talks were presented in Provo. Peter and his associates put on a great presentation about the solutions they were working on in this area of building to building communications. Our stake is too large to meet in one session. Has there been any progress made in rolling out any of the discussed solutions? Is there any way our stake in Lehi can participate in testing? Our next stake conference is in September and our Stake President has requested a solution regardless of where it comes from. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

As for an official policy from the church I haven't heard anything from those I know that work for the church, but there have been many different methods proposed on the forums. The quickest and probably cheapest is to use the Stake Center's Internet connection (If it doesn't have one then a member who lives close to the building might be willing to help) and transmit the live feed over the Internet to the building that Stake Conference is being show.

Especially for those in the Utah Valley Area most people are switching over to the Utopia or iProvo networks which allow 10 Mbit/s upload and download so a member's connection could host multiple buildings. (Around 8 without significant drop).

alphabeta wrote:It's been several months since the tech talks were presented in Provo. Peter and his associates put on a great presentation about the solutions they were working on in this area of building to building communications. Our stake is too large to meet in one session. Has there been any progress made in rolling out any of the discussed solutions? Is there any way our stake in Lehi can participate in testing? Our next stake conference is in September and our Stake President has requested a solution regardless of where it comes from. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

As a group (ICS) within the Church we have evaluated much technology concerning multimedia streaming. What we have learned is there is no "one size fits all" solution to the problem (or opportunity depending on how you look at it). We are working internally to create documentation for use by Stakes that have technical resorces. We are also working to provide a "reflector" for use in conferences or events that have multiple viewing locations.

As to your question several months ago concerning the Alpine Tablernacle's ability to stream content to other locations. My experience with the Tabernacle has yeilded mixed results. I'm not aware of the current situation but the last conference that our Stake orignated from the Tabernacle did not yeild a quality veiwing experience for the remote participants. This was due to the Tabernacle's Internet connection. I've been told that the Tabernacle has two Internet connections (Qwest DSL, American Fork City), personally I only have experice with the AFC connection. It seemed that the AFC Internet connection was so oversubscribed that a stream of 200k proved unreliable. This may have changed as it has been more that a year since our last attempt. I've been told that buildings within the AFC network are capable of multimegabit streams resulting in a very good user experience.

As gas prices go up and memnbership grows, we too are facing challenges in meetinghouse size and location. A Stake Center in Nashville (previously the Nashville Stake - we are now the Madison Stake) and a large Chapel in Bowling Green are our two large facilities.

Both of these facilities have FHC in them. The Stake Center has Comcast, which I despise and can be intermittent. Bowling Green is on a 3M/384 DSL.

Both facilities have public IP Addresses at the router. 5 at the SC, 2 at BG. I could put a second router at each locations parallel to the Church PIX 501 and run lan to lan vpn. I have done this at client offices with some success.

The Stake Presidency is interested in doing this for many meetings - one High Council each month, Bishopric Training quarterly, Stake Presidency meeting once a month, and then one of the two Stake Conferences.

I intend to start working on this technology in order to provide Stake Conference in May. Will use a connection from my home to the Gallatin Ward building (about 2 miles apart - Gallatin has a DSL), then transfer the technology to the Stake Center and BG. (Stake Center is 20 miles away, BG is 60)

I will keep everyone up on what we find out.

Just wondering if there are any updates regarding the documentation or the "reflector" mentioned by cnielson or the progress by Wade Burt for his Stake?

alphabeta wrote:Don't know if this is the correct thread, but we just had our last stake conference at the Apline tabernacle. Our stake is now too big. However, we were told that the Alpine Tabernacle is able to send audio and video over the internet (sounded like what was described in the tech talks). Naturally I thought we could broadcast from the tabernacle to our stake center when we have our next conference in September.

Does anyone know if this is accurate information?

--
Aaron

The Alpine Tabernacle has all of the equipment to send audio and video over the internet. We used the system for the first time at our Stake Conference at the end of February 2007. I used a member that knew how to configure Windows Media Encoder that is used on the computer at the Tabernacle to help us adjust the feed to work with our DSL connection at our stake center. We did not have any problems with the connections and we will do it again next February (We have a regional conference in September that will be using the satelite system).

chasely1

It surprises me that the Wasatch Front areas haven't coordinated and put together a few teams that go from stake to stake with a setup comprising of remote control video cameras, video mixer, RF transmitter, RF receiver, projectors, screens that they set up for stake conferences. As it is now, each stake figures it out for themselves and all that equipment is redundant and idle for most of the year.
I made a system for our stake that others are welcome to borrow but how do I coordinate with the other stakes or get the word out? It must come from the area people to set up since they know the organization.

big2thumbs, one way to get the word out is to post like you did. I'm in a Sandy stake that has been looking at ways to eliminate the Poll Sound charges. Can you describe your setup and how it would work? We have a stake conference coming up in May.

I bought 3 "broken" camcorders (Cannon ES8400V = Samsung SCW71) from ebay. I picked this one because it is small, has a nice picture and I figured out how to tap into the zoom, focus and menus. I bought some tilt and pan assemblies from a surplus electronics place and programed a 8bit uC to control each of the PTZF. I talk to them through WUSB from a video mux that I made (6 in 4 out) and I do some special effects mixing for hymns and titles with a Sima SFX-M 2 input mixer. The video content is runs over RG6 to the mixer. I use a laptop with PowerPoint for hymns and titles. The center camera is on a tripod and the two side cameras are mounted on a 6"x36" wood strip that I hang on the decorative wood trim on the chapel walls.
From stake to remote chapel I've used a microwave RF link with 20dB dishes at each end that are mounted on the respective roofs. Although this year, we are going to use a Sling box over our new DSL. I tried it for General Priesthood meeting with acceptable results. It was pixelated some but ok.
Our Stk Conf is tomorrow if you want to check it out at 10am 116th S 300E.
Does it sound like a Mickey Mouse setup? Well I guess it is but the results look pretty good I think. Obviously this is more a personal hobby than a mandate by the stake president.

That 3-camera setup with special effects and titles sounds like WAY too much fun!

Have you solicited feedback from the viewers? Several years ago, I was using a one-camera setup to do a little panning across the choir and such. Then, someone passed me a note from the people in the remote room asking me to just keep the camera still, because they found the camera motion too distracting.

rmrichesjr wrote:Then, someone passed me a note from the people in the remote room asking me to just keep the camera still, because they found the camera motion too distracting.

Done improperly, it is too distracting. The key is slow, smooth and with a purpose. And it never looks as bad to the cameraman at the time. You'd have to watch the playback to judge yourself properly.

(I hate watching the playback of my own stuff - "up! up! up! you're cutting off that guy's head! Good, panning to the left .... Uh, that's the Tenor section - they aren't singing! Ack! Why'd you stop there? You're cutting off someone else!)

I'm using a tripod I picked up used for $150. A good fluid head goes a long ways to making it work.

RussellHltn wrote:Done improperly, it is too distracting. The key is slow, smooth and with a purpose. And it never looks as bad to the cameraman at the time. You'd have to watch the playback to judge yourself properly.

(I hate watching the playback of my own stuff - "up! up! up! you're cutting off that guy's head! Good, panning to the left .... Uh, that's the Tenor section - they aren't singing! Ack! Why'd you stop there? You're cutting off someone else!)

I'm using a tripod I picked up used for $150. A good fluid head goes a long ways to making it work.

It sounds like you have more training and/or practice at camera techniques than do I. I have had some training, but it evidently wasn't enough.

That sounds like a nice tripod. Mine was about $50 new, and it has some form of fluid damping. One trick I learned a couple of years later was to duct-tape an 18-inch piece of funny pipe (one-half inch black poly tubing) to the tripod's handle. The springiness of the pipe and the fluid damping in the tripod's head made a really nice mechanical low pass filter.

I did a short stint in community programming for the local Public Affairs office. When you use good equipment, you don't want to go back. The tripod I got is a lot sturdier then needed for small cameras, but oh, that fluid head. Enough resistance that it's easy to push against to get it to do what you want, but no friction such that you have to press to "break it loose" and end up jerking the picture.

That long handle might work. I'll have to remember it. But it only works if you have a view screen to work with rather then an eyepiece.

RussellHltn wrote:I did a short stint in community programming for the local Public Affairs office. When you use good equipment, you don't want to go back. The tripod I got is a lot sturdier then needed for small cameras, but oh, that fluid head. Enough resistance that it's easy to push against to get it to do what you want, but no friction such that you have to press to "break it loose" and end up jerking the picture.

That long handle might work. I'll have to remember it. But it only works if you have a view screen to work with rather then an eyepiece.

That does sound like a nice tripod.

Yes, using the long handle wouldn't work well if trying to use the eyepiece. In my case, the tripod was atop two classroom tables held together with duct tape. Using the eyepiece was not an option. Putting the tripod up a few feet solved having to deal with young boys pulling faces in front of the camera.

Our Stake has successfully broadcast our Stake Conference from the Stake Center to another ward building using the Slingbox technology. All works great. Now the Stake President wants to replicate and have Stake Conference broadcast additionally to two Assisted Living Facilities in our Stake boundries. Has anyone successfuly broadcast to more than just a single building using multiple Slingboxes or some other method? If so, how?

We have created our own internal wireless internet with the use of the Q-Bridge antenna's.

I just found your post on Stake Conference transmissions. This is something I was wondering about doing in our stake. How did it go with your first transmission? Was it bug free without any drops or interference to the picture? This seams like it is a big decision to make because of the commitment that must go into it. For example do you pay a lot to get the best picture or do you compromise the quality of the transmission because something might come along that is better. I would like to hear from more people, what the different methods there are to accomplish a good quality and dependable transmission of both picture and sound. How many methods are there to accomplish this.

Just so others know what we've done... We've recently setup three of our outlying ward buildings to receive a Live stream from our Stake Centre via the internet for Firesides, Stake Conferences, Zone Conferences, etc. My understanding was that using a Slingbox would only allow 1 receiving unit to connect at a time (I could be wrong about that), whereas a streaming server would facilitate as many connections as we like. Not only that but using computers wouldn't be as proprietary and would allow us a bit more flexibilty in the future. Since we don't have the resources to run our own Media Server we outsourced the service for a minimal fee. Our setup is as follows:

Stake Centre:
- Windows box with a video capture card running Windows Media Encoder
- High quality IP "security" camera in the chapel
- DSL connection uploading to a Streaming Media Server (low monthly fee of <$50 for 4 unlimited connections)

Ward/Branch Buildings:
- Windows PC with dual display video card
- DSL or cable internet connection

Setup & Running costs::
1 average computer and 3 basic computers/laptops
1 IP Camera
Monthly streaming server charge (~$50/month)
*Windows Media Encoder and Player are free*
Misc cables and connectors to connect into the AV equipment

The IP camera is manually controlled using a joystick console. The video feed is received through the AV equipment (sound through the chapel sound system) and one of the outputs goes to the Stake Encoding computer which encodes in Windows Media and uploads at 400kbps to the Streaming Media Server. We can throttle the upload if needed to a lower rate if we have an Unit internet connection that can't pull it down at 400kbps (so far all three are fine)

The Units connect to a url which launches Windows Media Player and outputs the live video through the second cloned computer display (AV out through the sound card) which is fed into the AV equipment. Users toggle a switch when needed from the Satellite feed to Internet stream. The video and audio from the computer is then feed throughout the buildings to all the displays.

We have the unit computers in the AV rooms setup identically and pre-configured so that everything is mostly automated once they turn the computer on. We've done a few broadcasts already and everything has worked very well. The audio and video match up exactly and the delay is only about 20sec due to transmission and the buffer we've selected.

Video quality is great, you can tell at times as it will jog a bit during rapid motion but for a conference its great. Until now our outlying units have had to drive in anywhere from 2-4.5 hours from out of town to view anything so this is by far an improvement, saving time, money, and bringing meetings to those that normally wouldn't make the drive.

**And the best part is that we can remotely access the Stake Computer and begin a session without having to run down to the church.

Not sure if this setup would work for everyone but so far its been great for us.

Thanks Croftt
That was very informative. That's the first time I have seen anyone post such a complete description of their system. I see you stated that a DSL line
could be used. Is that what your were using? If not, would DSL be fast enough to stream conference with? I can see that if you could use DSL, you would not have to bring cable internet into all of the buildings. I'm wondering if this would work with Q-Bridge, which is like a wireless network. If anyone else has a system they would like to tell us about I would like to hear about it.
Thanks

croftt wrote:...
The IP camera is manually controlled using a joystick console. The video feed is received through the AV equipment (sound through the chapel sound system) and one of the outputs goes to the Stake Encoding computer which encodes in Windows Media and uploads at 400kbps to the Streaming Media Server. We can throttle the upload if needed to a lower rate if we have an Unit internet connection that can't pull it down at 400kbps (so far all three are fine)
...

Ground Rod wrote:Thanks Croftt
That was very informative. That's the first time I have seen anyone post such a complete description of their system. I see you stated that a DSL line
could be used. Is that what your were using? If not, would DSL be fast enough to stream conference with? I can see that if you could use DSL, you would not have to bring cable internet into all of the buildings. I'm wondering if this would work with Q-Bridge, which is like a wireless network. If anyone else has a system they would like to tell us about I would like to hear about it.
Thanks

(Until Croftt replies...)

All DSL lines I have seen have been able to handle well over the 400kbps figure quoted above. My suggestion would be to do a download speed test. If you can consistently download at least 500kbps (to give a bit of headroom above 400kbps), you should be okay.

Hope that helps.

rmrichesjr wrote:(Until Croftt replies...)

All DSL lines I have seen have been able to handle well over the 400kbps figure quoted above. My suggestion would be to do a download speed test. If you can consistently download at least 500kbps (to give a bit of headroom above 400kbps), you should be okay.

Hope that helps.

Our limitation to the 400 kbps is strictly due to our upload speeds at the Stake Centre using our basic high speed package. Our average upload on the adsl connection we have is between 400 - 500kbps.

We've ensured each of the remote unit buildings has a high speed adsl connection (one is actually using a wireless internet provider) and all have around 3MB download speeds. Really the download speed is only an issue if the remote areas use dial-up or "light" internet which have a much slower download.

I'm not sure about the Q-bridge you mentioned. I'm definately not much of a guru but I'll definately share what I do know.

We have used Q-Bridge for our last two conferences in West Valley City, Utah (Salt Lake Granger South Stake.) It is line-of-sight between our two buildings and it has worked flawlessly for our conference last October and again for our conference last month. I highly recommend it. Ours has a bandwith up to 4 Mb/sec but the new ones go as high as 12 Mb/sec bandwidth depending on your distance. You can read about it at http://connexwireless.com/Q-Bridge/about/.

Has anyone looked at using the HAVA along with a Darwin Streaming Server as a multicast reflector? With the limited information on the protocols used by the HAVA, it looks like it might work.

rpyne wrote:Has anyone looked at using the HAVA

I ran a test of the HAVA Titanium HD against the SlingBox Pro and found the the SlingBox WM9 protocol used less bandwidth as the HAVA's MPEG-4 Advanced Simple Profile format and although SlingBox WM9 bandwidth was less, the picture quality looked virtually the same (I had both streaming simultaneously).

I can chime in and give our setup as we currently have it. We also elected to broadcast from our Stake Center to our outlying buildings.
We originally connected DSL lines to each of the buildings, at the cost of about 40 dollars per month per building for a 7 meg down 1 meg up connection.

We then purchased a new PC which was a quad core with an Osprey 210 video capture card. We then decided to use Adobe Flash Media Encoder rather than MS Windows Media Encoder due to Flash being a better stream in our testing. The camera we use is a Sony EVI-D70 which we keep close to the PC on a tripod, so we don't need a huge cable to run remotely for connection or power. We connect via S-video cable from the camera to the capture card. Audio is plugged into the sound card from the chapel sound.

Then we signed up with a commercial streaming company which cost us 40 dollars a month to stream the bandwidth we need. The streaming service allows unlimited simultaneous downloads, so having 3 buildings connected to the stream is not an issue at all.

The signal is uploaded at approximately 600k per second in our setup. Download speeds at the receiving buildings are also 7 meg connections so speed is not an issue. Each receiving building uses a simple laptop connected to the internet and a projector. They use the EJ-10 crabs at each location to plug into the sound system at each chapel at a microphone input location.

The signal has always been good quality compared to the Windows Media Encoder that we tried once before. I recall having a broadcast fail during a Stake Conference and our visiting authority was President Rasband of the 70. That was a bad day for a failure, and we were forced to use the audio backup over the phone system.

We tracked the issue back to the encoder. For some reason it would not allow us near the quality, and so we switched to flash media encoder and never looked back. The streaming company actually likes flash encoding better as well. The stream can play back on any computer with a flash plugin installed, which is nearly all of them. You don't need special software to receive the stream, and the Adobe Flash Media Encoder is free. Simply enter the URL of the stream into the web browser and up it comes.

Hopefully that helps someone out a bit.