Video Streaming to non-PC devices

The Church has just announced that video streaming is now available to Roku boxes for Mormon Channel and BYU.tv content. In the past The Church has suggested WD TV boxes. There are also iOS Apps for iPod, iPad and iPhone devices.

I love this move towards making content more available but I am curious to know if these are just the first of many platforms The Church plans to support or if this is a declaration of the standards that will be supported?

I have been around long enough to see different projects come and go and I don't want to get stuck with the dead end. The WD TV suggestion was only for downloaded content but those boxes do support streaming, I guess they decided not to stick with WD? Then there were Sling boxes that were purchased, then banned and later replaced with the custom Webcast Communicator.

For home use I have been considering a Wii or WD TV Live Hub for Netflix but now we have the Roku suggestion. I would love to get BYU.tv and Mormon Channel for my family but the Roku doesn't do some of the things the Wii and WD TV boxes do. If there are more options coming it would be nice to know.

I agree, we have a Wii and it would be nice to be able to stream conference directly to it like can be done with the Roku box (as my parents do).

Aaron Z

rogerscr wrote:I love this move towards making content more available but I am curious to know if these are just the first of many platforms The Church plans to support or if this is a declaration of the standards that will be supported?

I think everyone is thinking similar to you but it would be hard for the church to answer it as it is an area still very much in its infant stage.

Many of these solutions come about because of the LDS Community Development taking place (members creating the solutions rather than the church alone) so much of what will be supported will be lead by what the members choose to buy and be interested in developing. I think we might just see the same with the connected tv stuff.

In addition to the above we also have Google TV, Boxee and all the SmartTV solutions by individual manufacturers of TV's. Add on top of that the connected TV solutions we will see in various part of the world such as HbbTV in France/Germany and even here in the UK where next year we will have the impressive YouView solution (DVB + Internet TV = 1 EPG).

Personally I think we will have to live for a while with the solution of connecting a laptop via VGA/HDMI to the TV like we have done for years.

I just heard some news about a survey of users of Netflix, which may be a good barometer of on-demand content by device, and here's what they said. For every 100 users:

14 percent use an Internet-connected TV to view Netflix content.
42 percent use a PC.
44 percent use a game console (Wii, XBox, PlayStation).

Granted web connected TVs are relatively new, that category will grow.

The game consoles number in the tens of millions, so the missionary aspect of having Church content available that way cannot be overlooked. However, I do see these figures changing as more things take place in the industry involving Internet connectivity and devices.

JamesAnderson wrote:44 percent use a game console (Wii, XBox, PlayStation).

Granted web connected TVs are relatively new, that category will grow.

The game consoles number in the tens of millions, so the missionary aspect of having Church content available that way cannot be overlooked. However, I do see these figures changing as more things take place in the industry involving Internet connectivity and devices.

I can't believe I forgot to mention game consoles, especially as I use one all the time to watch the BBC iPlayer. Yes I too think this whole area is a moving target and a very interesting area to follow.

I'm patiently waiting for the ability to steam Church content to a PS3:) Conference is in a few weeks so I thought I would look to see if it is possible yet.

Is it possible to stream conference from your pc to your game console? I haven't looked into solutions in a while because I found one for my ps3 for other stuff, but I'd switch to a different streamer if it could.

so +1 to the ability to stream to the ps3 from me

There's a link at the bottom of the Watch General Conference page for a low-bandwidth mms stream. I haven't tried it yet, but I have WiiMC on my Wii and I expect it will be able to play it, and that other consoles can as well.

You can also try opening the current stream at http://bcldshd-f.akamaihd.net/satameng_ ... 0841497001. Both this and the low-res stream work on my Wii in WiiMC.

you can watch it live on ps3 and xbox1, and i believe xbox360 through youtube, the church host a live stream on mormon channel, log into youtube, and go to mormonchannel(it has a stylized moroni. it's possible you could do this through a wii as well, but i'm not sure if wii is capable of live streams. i used my PS3 in april and last year in october. also you can probably get roku through you system, just check the store because i'm not sure on that one.