Stake Conference Broadcast Keeps Getting Better

First we dropped the microwave dish to broadcast our Stake Conference and went with the Slingbox to broadcast over the internet
See: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=45#post193

Then we did text/video overlay for Hymns
See: http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=61

This last conference we updated our really old and really big camera. We had several problems.

1. Picture Quality: Lenses have come a long way
2. Placement: people would bump the tripod. The camera and operator also blocked the view of a few people.
3. Height: if we put it on a box stand so as to see above the crowd when people stood it would jiggle every time the operator moved.
4. Pan/Tilt/Zoom: unless you have a professional operating it, you can get motion sick from watching them tweak it.
5. More people had to be involved to "run the show".

Our solution was to replace the old camera with a CCTV Camera. After some research we decided on Canon VC-C50i. The reasons are:

1. PC Controlled Pan/Tilt/Zoom using a serial cable
2. 26x Zoom (we needed at least 24x)
3. 9 Pan/Tilt/Zoom presets: I didn't need all 9 of them, but it was nice to zoom to Speaker, Choir or Conductor with the touch of a button. Great motion and precision. The speed of all 3 pan/tilt/zoom is easily controlled.
4. Price: lower than some

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/3 ... ation.html



We just had our conference today and I was setup in the library controlling the camera, the Slingbox transmission and the text overlay. The camera was mounted up on a ledge in the chapel where it was out of the way and no one could bump or block it. The image was fantastic.

Anyway, thought I'd share in case anyone else ever looks into the same thing.

That sounds like a great setup.

For anyone on a smaller budget, one thing that can be done for manual pan and maybe for tilt is to extend the arm/handle of the tripod's pan/tilt head with something flexible. I used an 18-inch piece of black poly tubing ("funny pipe" to lawn sprinkler installers) attached by duct tape. With some viscous damping in the tripod head, the funny pipe provided a very good mechanical low-pass filter for panning.

For zooming, I wired a 3-conductor jack in parallel with the zoom buttons on my camcorder, then put four pushbuttons in a small plastic utility/project box. That gave me zoom capability without touching the camera. I called the little box my "zoom box".

tleish wrote:The image was fantastic.

Even on the big screen?

RussellHltn wrote:Even on the big screen?

I was referring to the image projected on the screens in the same building as the camera. The building receiving the broadcast over the internet doesn't get a perfect picture.

BTW, before we bought this canon another pan/tilt/zoom option we were looking at was products by Trackercam like the MotorPod which is a cheaper solution if you already have a handicam.



http://www.trackercam.com/TCamWeb/motorpod.htm

Oh man.... NOW you tell me. Why didn't you post this when we were working on the 2008 stake budgets?

(I'm new to this so hopefully this posts OK). Just FYI ...

Our three buildings are in Utah County. Each of the ward buildings has line-of-sight to the stake center. Broadcast is done using an over-the-air ethernet system (802.11A) from Proxim. Backup uses a telephone conferencing center. The system has worked flawlessly now for 3 conferences and we are on target for another next week.

The key to the systems reliability and success is the right installer, as well as equipment.

Bandwidth of the system supports more than one HD video stream - more than sufficient for the conference. Stake-wide, church approved internet access is also possible. A small media server provides the encoding. We plan to use it at some point to provide shut-in support as well.

Our next projects are camera and projector installations, small (but needed) upgrades to the media encoder and telephone backup system. Farther down the road I would like to move to network appliances for the media stream encode/decode. Axis makes very good equipment, but newer, less-expensive Linux-based boxes are begining to surface.

We utilize the ERC organization (hams) on event day to help with logistics of telephone backup, reporting problems and headcounts.

eyoungberg wrote:(I'm new to this so hopefully this posts OK). Just FYI ...

Our three buildings are in Utah County. Each of the ward buildings has line-of-sight to the stake center. Broadcast is done using an over-the-air ethernet system (802.11A) from Proxim. Backup uses a telephone conferencing center. The system has worked flawlessly now for 3 conferences and we are on target for another next week.

The key to the systems reliability and success is the right installer, as well as equipment.

Bandwidth of the system supports more than one HD video stream - more than sufficient for the conference. Stake-wide, church approved internet access is also possible. A small media server provides the encoding. We plan to use it at some point to provide shut-in support as well.

Our next projects are camera and projector installations, small (but needed) upgrades to the media encoder and telephone backup system. Farther down the road I would like to move to network appliances for the media stream encode/decode. Axis makes very good equipment, but newer, less-expensive Linux-based boxes are begining to surface.

We utilize the ERC organization (hams) on event day to help with logistics of telephone backup, reporting problems and headcounts.

I would like to know more about your setup. What do you use for the broadcast machine? for the receivers? what is the media server that you refer to? We tried high-speed radios for the network and it is just too expensive (although it worked very well).

When is the next time you will do this?

Thanks
Ken

junkman1989 wrote:I would like to know more about your setup. What do you use for the broadcast machine? for the receivers? what is the media server that you refer to? We tried high-speed radios for the network and it is just too expensive (although it worked very well).

When is the next time you will do this?

Thanks
Ken

Hi Ken,

The Proxim radios are Tsunami MP-11a.

The A/V encoder is Windows Media Encoder running on a Win 2003 server, but I think we are soon going to change to a dedicated video server running on some sort of Linux appliance. You can find the latter for $100 - $600, depending upon features and manufacturer.

The A/V decoders are currently two laptops running Windows Media Player. The laptops are used for other functions thoughout the year. I believe we will be changing those soon for dedicated video decoders, which are a little more pricey than the dedicated video encoder.

In our stake we are serving upwards of 1500 people in a single session. We see the issue as needing high reliability at a reasonable cost. If the conference fails part way through, attandance goes down. If you have two sessions, there are other issues. Our stake presidency is committed to making this work, which is the key. We are in our third year of using the system, and our 5th year of trying various other methods for doing this. The dedicated radios are the only thing that has worked well.

Our next stake conference is sometime in August, I believe. You are welcome to come by and visit anytime.

Please feel free to call as well - 801-489-1121.

Eric

We are preparing for a stake conference "simulcast" to a second building in 3 weeks. This is our first attempt. I've really appreciated all the posts here and we have used many of the ideas over the past 3 months as we have implemented this. We are using a Slingbox to stream the video.

From the suggestions of others on this forum, we want to have an audio backup ready over a regular phone line -- just in case the video streaming runs into problems. I know how to receive phone audio using the crab-box to bridge between the phone line and sound system. I don’t know a simple way to send the audio over a phone line other than the obvious – using a muted speaker phone. Does anyone have a simple approach for an “off the shelf” or easy to build way to take a line level or mic level signal and “insert” that signal into a phone?

The EJ-10 crab box has a mini phone jack on the side for anything you want played into the phone line. Since the EJ-8 doesn't have telephone capability, that's probably what you have.

rknelson wrote:I know how to receive phone audio using the crab-box to bridge between the phone line and sound system. I don’t know a simple way to send the audio over a phone line other than the obvious – using a muted speaker phone. Does anyone have a simple approach for an “off the shelf” or easy to build way to take a line level or mic level signal and “insert” that signal into a phone?

The EJ-10 crab box has a mini phone jack on the side for anything you want played into the phone line. Since the EJ-8 doesn't have telephone capability, that's probably what you have.

RussellHltn wrote:The EJ-10 crab box has a mini phone jack on the side for anything you want played into the phone line. Since the EJ-8 doesn't have telephone capability, that's probably what you have.

I believe the EJ-10 is only one-way: phone line to audio system. I don't think you can go the other way.

We used a true telephone hybrid. See:
http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=TT1

Great audio, powered off the phone line. If you want to go cheap, bug one of the hams in your stake who's got one to use their hybrid phone patch. It's a bit of a messy setup, but it works.

Eric

rknelson wrote:We are preparing for a stake conference "simulcast" to a second building in 3 weeks. This is our first attempt. I've really appreciated all the posts here and we have used many of the ideas over the past 3 months as we have implemented this. We are using a Slingbox to stream the video.

From the suggestions of others on this forum, we want to have an audio backup ready over a regular phone line -- just in case the video streaming runs into problems. I know how to receive phone audio using the crab-box to bridge between the phone line and sound system. I don’t know a simple way to send the audio over a phone line other than the obvious – using a muted speaker phone. Does anyone have a simple approach for an “off the shelf” or easy to build way to take a line level or mic level signal and “insert” that signal into a phone?

(Don't know if you saw this or not, but here is my second try at replying ...)

I believe the EJ-10 is only one-way: phone line to audio system. I don't think you can go the other way.

We used a true telephone hybrid. See:
http://www.bswusa.com/proditem.asp?item=TT1

Great audio, powered off the phone line. If you want to go cheap, bug one of the hams in your stake who's got one to use their hybrid phone patch. It's a bit of a messy setup, but it works.

Eric

eyoungberg wrote:I believe the EJ-10 is only one-way: phone line to audio system. I don't think you can go the other way.

Not the jacks on the top of the unit, the one audio jack on the side.

EJ-10 Manual

The alternative hardware solution for driving a phone line is the 1:1 600 ohm audio transformer from the local electronics store. Feed the input to the transformer from a mixer with adjustable gain and adjust the level until it is comparable to a normal phone conversation and without excessive noise or distortion.

RussellHltn wrote:Not the jacks on the top of the unit, the one audio jack on the side.

EJ-10 Manual

TNX for the manual. Since there is no specific adjustment I guess you just live with whatever sidetone you get. I've only used them for telephone to mic, not the other way.

We didn't have one of these in the stake center, only at the chapels. The hybrid we picked fits nicely into the satellite rack and ends up being a simple, clean sounding, no-hassle easy-to-use solution.

For what it's worth ...

eyoungberg wrote:Since there is no specific adjustment I guess you just live with whatever sidetone you get.

Sidetone is only an issue if the telephone connection is two-way. I've used fancy broadcast grade interfaces in the past and found the sidetone too high for use in a PA system. So that could be an issue.

But you're right, it seems there is very limited flexibility when it comes to piping sound into the phone line.

rmrichesjr wrote:The alternative hardware solution for driving a phone line is the 1:1 600 ohm audio transformer from the local electronics store.

While that would probably work, there's a couple of things that someone needs to be aware of.

First, the DC line voltage will be shorted out by the transformer if it's placed directly across the line. On one side, that's good because it takes the phone "off hook". But the transformer must be able to handle this without burning up or saturating the core and distorting the sound.

The other problem is to make sure the phone is picked up before the transformer is connected. The ring voltage on a phone line is around 100 volts. That would do some very bad things to the sound system it's connected to.

Very exciting stuff. Thanks for posting this info.

And you might have (as we do) a phone jack right next to the A/V distribution center in the library ... easy connection from the phone line to the audio distribution amp.

Yes - it is from one of the clerks offices. It, along with the audio feed, is connecetd into the unit in the panel. Works great, and is a no-hassle, one-button operation (which is nice when the pressure is on).

We had a similar desire to broadcast stake conference to avoid travel and multiple sessions, and were successful in doing so, but with less hardware cost than a Slingbox. The solution we finally settled on, after running down several blind alleys, was (surprisingly) using Windows Media Encoder as a front-end to encode and transmit video. This did not require a Slingbox or Hava, but rather an inexpensive USB hardware encoder. Windows Media Encoder is a free download and works amazingly well.

The computer used for the transmission was a borrowed laptop, and we had two PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom) cameras set up for different angles on the speakers. The cameras were already in place for video transmission to other parts of the stake center, and we centralized them along with control cables in our high council room near the satellite controls.

Since this last conference was a regional broadcast, it gave a great test for the new system since we not only had live video but cross-linked video from the satellite being rebroadcast through the internet. This worked just fine through the church's firewall.

With Windows Media encoder, there are two choices: an external server or self-serving of multiple feeds. In testing, we tried video encoding at 250Kbps and connected up 4 sites served by WME directly. This required an aggregate bandwidth of around 800Kbps (real bandwidth) and had a good quality video presentation, and best of all did not suffer from any video/audio mis-sync.

For the conference, we used a video server service and encoded the video at 400Kbps. Since our total upload bandwidth is only 800Kbps, this was a better solution for 3 other sites. In fact, this worked so well that in 2 hours of transmission, we only dropped 6 video frames. And the quality was excellent. One of the sites we received it at was on a cruise ship in the middle of the Mediterranean. We were impressed with the quality as most solutions give a jerky output.

Playback is straightforward using Windows Media Player and a connection is made by doing File->open URL. Full screen video was excellent and was projected on 10 ft screens at two other chapels. The laptop used to receive had one input (the network) and two outputs (VGA to the projector and audio to PA system).

We were very happy with the ease with which the system came together.

I would love to see the church set up a Windows Media server capability inside their firewall so that we don't need to use an external provider.

In contrast, last week we had a multi-stake training session that attempted an internet uplink to SLC and retransmission via satellite to other chapels. The retransmission had quite a few problems on the receiving end, and the problems were reportedly due to the hardware encoder and connection box.

We were grateful to finally have found a simple solution to some gnarly problems we've struggled with in the past.

rknelson wrote:We are preparing for a stake conference "simulcast" to a second building in 3 weeks. This is our first attempt. I've really appreciated all the posts here and we have used many of the ideas over the past 3 months as we have implemented this. We are using a Slingbox to stream the video.

From the suggestions of others on this forum, we want to have an audio backup ready over a regular phone line -- just in case the video streaming runs into problems. I know how to receive phone audio using the crab-box to bridge between the phone line and sound system. I don’t know a simple way to send the audio over a phone line other than the obvious – using a muted speaker phone. Does anyone have a simple approach for an “off the shelf” or easy to build way to take a line level or mic level signal and “insert” that signal into a phone?

Regarding Telephone Audio back-up:

At our stake, we use a meeting house "pocket hearing impaired" receiver (with a fresh battery!) to provide a wireless audio feed to the "crab box" in the stake clerks office. The wireless audio service is already connected to the meeting house PA system, and the pocket units are always available on request for a hearing impaired member. These are existing church-provided materials.

The crab box connects easilly to the phone line in the clerks office with an RJ phone cord.

We use a single RCA female-to-female connector to join two of the crabs existing patch cords to form an adapter cable between the hearing aid jack and the crab's audio-in jack.
It works great and only takes a minute to set up.

At the remote ward, the audio link is provided by using a spread-spectrum wireless phone desk set in a clerks office. The roaming handset has an earphone jack which we can use for the house PA system if the computer or slingbox should fail. All we needed was a patch cord between telephone handset's mini-jack, and the ward's crab box to get into the house PA system.

We also have a jpeg folder of nice Temple Scenes ready to display from the laptop computer, if the slingbox path fails.
We actually used the phone backup for about 2 1/2 minutes last year when we experienced a brief sllingbox internet disconnect. Members could still participate in the sustainings, even though the video was briefly lost.
And they did !

Our Stake conference in late Oct '08 was sent to three other distant buildings via the Internet. Each had a PIX firewall/router from the Church. The video stream was sent to the Church servers which broadcast the stream to anyone who had the address. At the buildings they simply connected Ethernet to the computer then to the projector and sound system. We had one building that connected into the coaxial cables of the building and then into the projector. Just like Gen Conference. All rooms with outlets then get the video.

We were loaned a Sony DVID 70 remotely controlled camera by the support people. Beautiful camera. We used our own desktop PC and MS Windows Encoder. The support people help with a few settings and we were streaming. We had a video capture card that failed sporadically but only once during the conference. Test your system for hours before conference!

Our only issue was that our DSL upload was limited to 200 - 300 Kbps.

I know the there is a group at the Church developing this so it is a turn key process. Even a black box that the Stakes can buy.

I have probably said too much since this is still under development and we had the latest kit #7. This gives you an idea of how far along they are. It should be announced anytime now.

Put some money in the Stake budget for this. It will be between $1,000 to $2,500 depending on how you do the computer.

I live in the Utah County area (Lehi) and am just getting started with a similar project for our stake. I would like to draw from you successes and receive your advise. Would you mind contacting me at:
Rickwhittaker@me.com

http://www.lds.org/Static%20Files/PDF/S ... 0Guide.pdf
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v ... 6f620a____

Here's what you need to know about the turn-key solution that is finally available!:)

You may want to check out these links as well.

Meetinghouse Webcast

and

Broadcast Distribution

Troy

Need software to capture webcast of NASE Stakes Auxiliary Training

"There may be some question concerning stakes that have either a stake conference or prior planned event, in these cases the meeting may be recorded for later use."

Please advise what would be the best software tool to capture the webcast?


NASE Stakes = North America South East stakes
Webcast date: 05Dec2009

Thanks

I'd suggest you think about capturing it at baseband - audio and video - rather than at the stream level. You will certainly have a better recording.

If you must do it at the stream level, I'd suggest trying RePlay (http://applian.com/avscs/). It seems to be pretty solid software, easy to use. They offer some capability even with the free download stuff that is pretty nice.