[Editor’s Note: Be sure to check-out our post on church video streaming settings, too!]
How do you get your stream on?
There are many options for making Sunday sermons available to view each and every week. Some manual, some automatic, some subscribe to an online service.
I would love to get some feedback from all of you, as I’m trying to find an alternative for my church back in the United States and I know they’re not the only church who is interested in getting feedback on this.
My old church is currently using a service (that will remain unnamed) whereby video is recorded and uploaded automatically. The sermons can then be accessed and viewed later in the week. It works so-so, but they need a new solution or solutions.
- How do you setup your podcast?
- Provide sermon videos from the previous weeks?
- Stream your live video?
There are many churches wondering the same thing–what do you know?
[Image via Travis Isaacs via Compfight cc]
Sean Skottey says
Record to two DVD burners for our video venues and archiving. Rip DVD via Handbrake to Vimeo. Audio recordings ripped off of DVD through MPEG Streamclip.
Rudy Norman says
How are you hosting your audio?
Sean Skottey says
We use Host Gator for our website hosting. Our audio files are stored in a folder there as well. (Checkout the media page at http://www.gvchristian.com.)
No live streaming just yet… We are looking into going HD but we’re a big church with two additional venues so it will not be easy or cheap.
Paul Clifford (@PaulAlanClif) says
Sean, that’s a big mistake. Hosting on your web host is betting against your own success.
I know that Host Gator claims to be “unlimited,” but there are tons of stories of podcasts getting popular and the owner of the files finding out that “unlimited” means “unlimited within an average.”
If tomorrow a million people download one of your episodes, you’ll hear from your host that you exceeded what they expect.
If you never get popular, you’ll be fine, but do you want that?
fjhughes says
I agree. If you read the terms of service, you’ll probably find that you are not allowed to store files that are not directly used by your website. That was the case for us, we uploaded the weekly sermon to our ‘unlimited’ account. But it was only being used by iTunes, not our website directly. For our host, they want you to purchase their Online File Folder product for storing files. That’s not actually a webserver, so it won’t work for iTunes.
Eric Dye says
So no live streaming?
Mitch says
We use a Roland VR-5 pushing out the video to USB. We then use LiveStream Procaster running on a Mac to push it to LiveStream where we have this embedded to ChurchOnline.org. We also save the service to a SD card where we upload the message only to our own website (www.gracechurchga.org). A little bit of running around but it works. From LiveStream I also embed the service after it is over onto the ChurchOnline.org site so that it is immediately available for those who may have been serving outside of the service that particular day.
Eric Dye says
Are you able to embed the live stream on your own website with the LiveStream basic service?
Collin Guernsey says
We host through multiple venues, although we currently don’t do live streaming
First through Itunes
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/gracebaptistchurch/id575212153
Second through Vimeo
http://vimeo.com/user6319953
Third through Podbean(our Itunes feed broadcasts from this)
http://gracebaptischurch.podbean.com/2013/02/10/love-sex-and-gospel-truth-pastor-craig-miller/
Lastly we put this onto our website very accessible through “Media”
gracecedarville.org
We are looking forward to putting a better frame to all of this in the future but we believe content is king.
Eric Dye says
Agreed. It would be nice if there was a solid online tool that brought all these things into one embed-able player.
Randy Gonzalez says
We use yourhost.com for our LIVE streaming provider using their “touch stream” hardware. At the same time we record to a mac using Elgato Video Capture and the software provided. It records to a h.264 format ready for Vimeo, YouTube and other video sharing websites. We then upload to Vimeo and I use Vimeo’s API’s to display on our website.
YourHost
http://yourhost.com/streaming-media/index.html
Elgato Video Capture
http://www.elgato.com/elgato/na/mainmenu/products/Video-Capture/product1.en.html
Church LIVE Page
http://www.ccdowney.com/media/live/
Church Archive Page
http://www.ccdowney.com/media/sunday-morning/
Eric Dye says
Yikes! The YourHost gear is a costly piece of gear.
(Cool live stream page! :D)
Gordon Daily says
BoxCast has affordable yet surprisingly powerful solution — especially for churches looking to stream.
David says
We stream live to YouTube, and also upload edited versions of the sermon there with scriptures, etc. it’s free with their non-profit program.
The video podcast is hosted through blip.tv
Audio on our own web hosting.
Eric Dye says
The YouTube streaming service does look interesting. The “all-in-one” solution doesn’t seem to exist. :-/
Dale Miller says
We use a WordPress plugin – Sermon Browser to keep the archive of sermons and Bible studies.
Eric Dye says
Hey, that looks awesome!
I’ll have to give that a closer look!
Aaron Smith says
We provision a Flash Media Server instance on Amazon using their Cloud Formation APIs via Scheduled Tasks 1hr prior to the service. We then use the free Flash Media Encoder to start the stream (again, via Scheduled Tasks) 15 minutes prior to service. Stream looks great and is distributed worldwide via Amazon’s low-latency streaming distribution. Following service, the server is decommissioned. This happens each Sunday.
This solution costs the church approx. $2-4 dollars per month, no joke!
Eric Dye says
Wow. Wow. Wow.
How do you archive?
Aaron Smith says
We record locally using the ATEM Television Studio (low bitrate H.264 via USB) and save the file up to Vimeo and link out.
Eric Dye says
Nice.
Rudy Norman says
:O
Vic A. says
Soooo this sounds awesome. I’ld love to talk to you about this for our church.
I’d love something. I wonder how easy it is for volunteers and newbies who aren’t the most tech savvy. Let’s connect!
-Victor!
Micah says
Hey can you tell me more about this option?? I’ve heard about it before and am wanting to attempt it!! Would love to know more about the actual setting it up!
David Shrein says
For audio we record to a Tascam CD Recorder, edit the message in Audacity (link below), edit the ID3 tags with ID3 Editor (link below), and upload to my.ekklesia360.com which is a CMS by Monk Development.
For video we record direct to the Focus Enhancement FS-5, import that footage into iMovie, export “Large Movie” and import into QuickTime 7 to add our watermark, export to .mov and then compress using handbrake. Upload to my.ekklesia360.com.
We stream audio and video and also allow for video and audio downloads. We do not do live streaming currently, http://bit.ly/14TylSV
Probably not the best system, but it’s what we do 🙂
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
http://www.pa-software.com/id3editor/
http://bit.ly/11HLnoP
http://handbrake.fr
Eric Dye says
I don’t think you’re alone. It seems like most solutions require plenty of finagling.
Kevin says
No live streaming here either.
Video delay posted to Vimeo and automatically pulled into site with tags as filter topics here: http://BrentwoodChurch.org/Media/Messages
Audio delay posted podcast through Buzzfeed
Eric Dye says
These archives look great!
Paul says
I actually just learned how to archive our sermons today!
I just started pastoring a church that uses churchesaid.com. I think I have figured out how it all works now. We use a Flash Live Encoder that streams live to churchesaid.com through our iMac. We archive by uploading the recordered .flv to a server. I’m still trying to work out the kinks myself.
It’s really not too bad.
Eric Dye says
Sounds interesting …
Michael Holt says
We stream our services live, just moved to Youtube NonProfit’s for our streaming service a few weeks ago… have used edgecast, livestream, and a local company and had mixed results.
We also provide our messages via vimeo for video and amazon s3 for audio hosting and use a customized joomla site to act as the portal.
Eric Dye says
How’s the YouTube Non-profit streaming service working compared to the other services?
Michael Holt says
This weekend will be our third week with Youtube and it’s been a great service so far. We are streaming through the youtube branded wirecast and love the features that it offers. The only down side is the youtube wirecast only allows broadcast of one bitrate… but i’m hoping down the road in a few months to get my church to pay for the pro version and be able to stream all the way from 240 to 720.
In terms of signup it was fairly quick as well… I had our google nonprofit account activated within 24 hours… then 72 hours later I had our youtube nonprofit account with basic features and within a week of that had the advanced features to allow multiple qualities.
Eric Dye says
Great feedback, Michael. I’m about pushed over the edge on the YouTube non-profit. Sounds like I need to give it a spin and write-up a blog post on it. Although I would be open to anyone submitting a guest post about it that’s used it a bit.
Dale Best says
Hi Michael,
Our church (Neighborhood Church in Visalia, CA) is in the process of migrating to Google Apps. Just got our non-profit put through. Do you know if there’s a way to set up the live broadcast for recurring … instead of an individual event for each service?
Also, where is the option to go to the Pro Version?
Dale Best
PS: I believe you’re co-worker, Mike Clear, mentors our family ministries team for Orange.
Michael Holt says
Hey Dale,
That’s really the one big downside of youtube live is you have to set up individual events and then that morning you have to go into the live control room and tell youtube to make it “live” but I don’t consider it a dealbreaker given the price point. The Advanced Features are really nice, they give you the ability to stream multiple qualities but unfortunately the youtube version of wirecast doesn’t support multiple streaming so you have to purchase the pro (I’ve demoed it and it works great but can’t get the higher ups to let me buy it yet). One idea I do have but probably won’t have time to test it until at least May is to fire up an EC2 instance running flash media server and send the streams there and have it relay the multiple bitrates to the different youtube stream points. I’ve priced it out that it would cost ~ $30 / month for a solution like this but right now it’s just a concept on paper.
Otherwise the streaming service has been awesome. I normally stream 480p and have noticed that youtube appears to downconvert it to 360p for mobile devices and it has works pretty smoothly for me. Biggest issue will be your available upload bandwidth.
360p uses 600mbps
480p uses 1mbps
720p uses 2mbps
If you have any other questions feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected]
David Smith says
How do you connect your live stream to your website? We have been testing Youtube streaming for a few weeks and not sure how to connect people other than just placing a link on our site.
Michael Holt says
We simply use the embed code… after you set up your event go back to the live events manager page and instead of clicking edit or live control room click on the event name. This will take you to the youtube page for the live event where you can click the share button and get the embed code. Also make sure you do not disable “allow embedding” on the advanced settings tab of the event. If you have any more questions feel free to shoot me an email, mholt[at]reallifechurch[dot]org
Eric Dye says
Thank you for all your help, here, Michael! You’re awesome. #FACT
Eric Dye says
You could consider Live Theme … but then again … I’m partial. 😛
Michael Holt says
I just started using Live Theme this week… launching it this weekend… it’s by far one of the best themes i’ve used. I was a little uncertain about it fitting our needs at first but a day and a half of customization and it’s exactly what I needed.
Eric Dye says
Cool!
URL? Would love to see what you’ve done with, etc …
Michael Holt says
http://online.reallifechurch.org
Only problem I ran into this weekend is some issues with my custom countdown script swapping the div’s before everything gets loaded on mobile devices using 3g. That is probably the biggest change I made to the theme because I need a countdown that can count down to our morning service and evening service on sundays without having to change the widget every week. Right now the calculations are all hard-coded but I am hoping to make it database driven and plan on eventually tidying it up and releasing it as a plugin
Eric Dye says
NICE!
taiye says
hello Michael
i love your live event page. looks nice
please how did you integrate the Bible to the tab?
John Hanlon says
We stream live via Ustream with the Cerevo Liveshell. It’s an awesome little box that works with HDMI and streams video/audio straight to Ustream. It doesn’t do HD but that isn’t a big problem for us considering it’s live video.
The videos are also edited with Premiere Pro and posted online in HD quality as well as a lower mobile phone viewing quality. I’m not involved in the online posting side but I believe we use Amazon’s streaming service.
Eric Dye says
The Liveshell looks sweet!
April says
We use Livestream for our services. It runs about a second or two behind our actual service which works out well.
We archive right now both on youtube, where we upload our edited version of the service, and on an external hard drive.
We are looking at audio streaming, but haven’t done anything in that department as of yet.
Eric Dye says
Cool! I’ll have to take a look at Livestream, as I’ve heard good stuff about them. I also find it interesting that more and more churches have video streaming, but not audio. Funny how tech has flipped like that.
Chris Huff says
We just recently started streaming audio via mixlr.com. We’ve been archiving audio for awhile on archive.org, using Sermon Browser to search for and play files on our website. I’d like to start streaming video soon also.
Eric Dye says
archive.org mentioned again … interesting …
April says
yeah, we’re just now looking into audio streaming because we have a few who cannot watch while at work but want to listen. Any information someone can give me would greatly help me! 🙂
Eric Dye says
Live or podcast?
April says
I’d love to do live if that is possible and maybe turn it into a podcast later.
Eric Dye says
Looks like we need to pick the ChurchMag Community’s brain on this, too!
April says
Awesome! Let’s hear it! 🙂
Andy says
I might be restating what has already been said but we basically record on a consumer HD camcorder, edit, then upload to a free Vimeo account. In addition to the hosting/archiving, Vimeo also creates an RSS feed and has a “hubnut” widget that we use on our website to push newly uploaded videos automatically. Though I could have it online within a couple hours of the service, it generally doesn’t get done until Monday or Tuesday.
So far we’ve not started live streaming services because of licensing issues (for music), the costs of technical needs (faster internet, video capture device), and limited demand for such a service in our small rural community. We’re one of the only ones in our area that even posts sermon video or audio or has an updated website. Mostly it benefits our volunteers who work in the nursery or in children’s ministries during the one service we offer.
A while ago we tested streaming a funeral sermon with a simple webcam using a Livestream account for some people who were out of town, but the quality and lag was pretty bad. We are starting to explore YouTube again now that they removed the 15 min restriction and are offering Hangouts On Air. I’m also interested to learn more about YouTube for non-profits mentioned in earlier comments.
Chandos says
I’m intrigued by your automated vimeo to website biz. How does the “hubnut” widget work?
Andy says
When logged in to your Vimeo account go to: “http://vimeo.com/tools/widget/hubnut” and customize the features you want.
Copy and paste the code wherever you want it to appear on your website. In our case we’ve created an album called “2013 Sermons” and once I upload the video and add it to the album the newest video appears first in the “hubnut” widget.
You can see it in action on the front page of our site at: “http://www.fccerwin.org/”
Chandos says
Neat! Thanks!
Eric Dye says
Do you need a paid account for this?
Andy says
Nope. The widget works fine with the free account. Though you are limited to only 3 albums and 500mb of uploads per week. So HD sermons are not really an option without the paid version.
Eric Dye says
Non-HD isn’t bad though, especially if you’re not running anything too high-end to rec anyway. Thanks, Andy!
Eric Dye says
As am I! The YouTube non-profits does sound interesting. It sounds like you’re still doing a lot of it manually, like many other churches, which takes a decent amount of manpower.
Chandos says
We set up a Mac Mini with an Elgato EyeTV HD capturing video from our matrix switcher. Then we have a Turbo.264 HD to make minor edits and add the podcast intro and outro. We also have a Compressor droplet saved that auto-converts the video file to audio. Then it gets uploaded to our website and to vimeo. All in all, including upload time, it takes about 45 minutes. Since it’s live captured and the turbo.264 HD cranks out video pretty quick, the podcast is usually online before our second service is halfway over.
We haven’t done live streaming yet, as our internet isn’t up to it, but maybe someday.
Eric Dye says
This sounds slick!
Brandon Pitts says
Our church uses archive.org to host audio sermons, and vimeo for video sermons. We then use a joomla extension called preachit to categorize them. We don’t stream as our internet connection isn’t up to it in our rural area of New York. We have found that our audio produces roughly the same results as far as number of views as our videos, and thus we have recently made a switch to strictly audio as the time to upload and publish is very minimal for audio.
Eric Dye says
Good call on the audio/video issue. Archive.org … will have to take a look, thanks Brandon!
Brad Caldwell says
During the service, we stream using Adobe’s Live Media Encoder to a Flash server hosted by our tech guy’s company, record to a Toshiba DVD recorder, and record audio to a recorder that accepts USB or SD cards.
After the service, we rip the DVD & edit to put in our intro/outro and upload that to our Vimeo Plus account.
Audio is posted to our website using the built in sermon setup from our WordPress theme from ChurchThemes.net.
Links:
Website: http://www.doverassembly.com
Live Page: http://www.doverassembly.com/live
Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/doverassembly.com
Audio/Podcast: http://www.doverassembly.com/podcast
Eric Dye says
Cool setup, Brad! It helps you’ve got a cool tech guy company, too — 😛
Brad Caldwell says
Thanks! It definitely does help to have access to his company’s servers. Our website is hosted on one of them too 🙂
Eric Dye says
Sweet!
Sean Ater says
Many churches in the Cincinnati area use ChurchCast http://churchcastonline.com/
It is a great service. We even feed it into our Archdiocesan “Being Catholic” App http://www.catholiccincinnati.org/being-catholic/being-catholic-app/ – which is a really nice feature.
Eric Dye says
This looks impressive!
David Smith says
We currently capture via Final Cut 7 on a Macbook and external HD. Then we edit it down and distribute it to Vimeo and Youtube. Embed it to our site (powered by WordPress!) via Youtube at http://verticalct.com/watch-online/
For podcasting we upload both audio(.mp3) and video(.h264) to our web host and connect it to iTunes via PowerPress Plugin. Audio is available on our media page along side our video.
We are currently testing live streaming via a Youtube NonProfit Account and another Macbook but still trying to figure out the best way to connect it to our website. Really happy with the service so far though, very simple to use and totally free, with an option to automatically record the service directly to Youtube for archiving, can’t bet that.
An all-in-one cost effective option would be amazing but I’m not holding my breath.
Eric Dye says
I know that feeling. I’m not holding my breath, either. It seems like the market is wide-open for a solid all-in-one solution for churches. I really do like the looks of the YouTube NonProfit.
David says
Just an update on our experience with YouTube Live… we are now using the Church Online Platform from LifeChurch.tv to be our landing page(verticalct.churchonline.org) for the live stream instead of directing people to YouTube. It’s pretty easy to set up(knowing some basic code helps) and it’s totally free. We were also able to embed the countdown on our site at verticalct.com which shows a Live Now link when we are well “Live Now”. You are also able to chat, post notes, post prayer request and have custom banners. The set-up is a little tedious, (1)create youtube event, (2)create church online event, (3)paste embedded code from youtube to church online, that’s for each service time so it’s a little repetitive. What else would you expect from a totally free solution though.
David Shrein says
Eric,
What about doing a post on video encoding settings. I know what settings I use but I would love to know what these guys do. I know I like what I’ve been doing but there has to be better out there. And it would be a great resource for folks doing new podcasts and video streaming.
Just a thought. Seemed like a relevant conversation.
Eric Dye says
Agreed. Let’s do it.
Jason says
We use a Kulabyte Encoder that we lease from 316 Networks (http://solutions.316networks.com/) and we stream live to web and mobile devices via our site http://thechurchgroup.com/ichurch/live. The Kulabyte software allows us to archive messages during the live service, which is sweet because we post them up before we leave the property after each service. We push our archives up to 316 and make available on our website (http://thechurchgroup.com/ichurch/replay )
I am looking into what Aaron Smith said about using Amazon in the cloud as well. We want to use Wowza and AWS (for about $30-$50/month) to offer a backup stream and an audio only stream. We have a dedicated 40M pipe for streaming though, but honestly you probably only need about 10-15M. It really depends on the video quality you are pushing and the various bit rates you are using.
I love seeing what everyone is doing because sometimes it can feel like you have to figure out all of this stuff yourself 🙂
Eric Dye says
This sounds intense!! Love it. 🙂
Jason Minton says
I created our podcast/video page in Drupal 6. Audio and Video is hosted by blip.tv and then I create the weekly series/episodes in drupal.
http://friendshipcommunitychurch.org/podcast
I created a tutorial for our other volunteers that goes into great detail about the entire process, although a few things have changed since I created it, but it’s still a good tutorial.
http://www.friendshipcommunitychurch.org/tutorials/podcast-production-how-to
We now use a camera with SDHC cards so importing is much faster.
Eric Dye says
Thank you for the link Jason! (You should write for us sometime. :))
Dale Aceron says
We stream using Adobe Flash Media Encoder then push it to our host called Streaming for Jesus. We have it on our church website.
Archiving is also hosted with STJ and then we utilize the WP Plugin Series Engine.
Dale Aceron says
Church Site: http://victoryrock.org
Eric Dye says
Whoa. That’s some serious streaming.
Matt says
We currently stream live using a DV camera via FireWire into a laptop running Flash Media Encorder wih Influxis hosting our flash media server. We’re using their lowest custom plan, which is fairly cheap (<$10/mo) as long as we don't get too much traffic, but we're also using a low bitrate, low-resoluton stream.
We don't currently archive videos (someday I hope to), but we do archive the message audio using a ShareFaith WordPress Plugin, using Audacity to edit and compress mp3s as needed.
It works decent for what we do, but I'm always wondering at ways to improve. Like others I see above, I'm curious if the Google/YouTube for Non-profits could be a good fit.
Eric Dye says
I’m going to jump on the YouTube Non-profit this week (recommend it to my church, anyway). Looks like it deserves some attention, for sure.
Paul Clifford (@PaulAlanClif) says
For audio, no church should ever host their files on their web server…ever! You need a media host like http://blubrry.com or http://libsyn.com. If you use your web server and you get a spike in downloads, you’ll get a huge bill. $10 a month is a small price to pay to know that if you ever get popular you can send tons of downloads reliably with no increase in cost.
Paul
Eric Dye says
An Amazon S3 solution isn’t a bad option either, don’t you think? Or not?
Steven P. says
We use ChurchCast. It’s 100% automatic and they have embeddable players for our church website. The live-streaming starts and stops based on a schedule we set through our customer portal. Archives are posted automatically directly following our service. It’s available on any device (iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry). http://stann.churchcastonline.com. We tried YouTube for non-profits but it wasn’t automatic which is a very nice perk that ChurchCast provides.
Eric Dye says
I’m going to have to look into this … automation FTW!
Dan Van Oss says
We’re in the process of upgrading our main site and will be using the SeriesEngine plugin for WordPress (http://seriesengine.com/) It basically organizes your media into series and groups, plus has the ablity to attach files such as sermon notes and generate podcasts. We’ll be hosting the video with a Vimeo Plus account and the audio with an Amazon S3 account (highly recommended – that’s where we also store our website backups). Fairly minimal cost although not an ideal “all-in-one” solution.
Eric Dye says
But pretty close. Sounds like a decent setup for sure!
Andrew says
At Ambassador Baptist College (www.ambassadors.edu), we recording and archive audio and live-stream video and audio.
For recording audio, we use Audacity, export as WAV, import to iTunes, add ID3 tags and artwork, then upload it to our site. We do use our webhost (http://manage.aff.biz/z/1027/CD15837/) for hosting audio and haven’t had any issues yet. I’ve put together a custom sermon archive system that only requires information in the filename to automatically generate the archive (www.ambassadors.edu/Resources/Sermons/).
For live-streaming, we use sermon.net as our streaming host. We use Wirecast to send three streams (high-quality, low-quality, and audio-only) up to sermon.net, and they handle the distribution. We used their embed code and customized it into our live-stream page (www.ambassadors.edu/Resources/Streaming/) along with some custom PHP code to hide the player when a service is not in progress.
ODC_Sound says
Our church uses sermon studio.
studio.sermon.net
http://www.sermon.net
To the guy who is not live streaming his worship, CCLI has an option to handle the live stream, but not for viewing the archived version if my understanding is correct.
We live stream the Worship & then do not publish it for later viewing (and go in & delete the archive when we get a chance). The we start a new file for the sermon which is supposed to be published when the sermon is complete. Granted we have had some issues lately, but I have not yet determined if it is volunteers who are not checking the right settings to publish at the end ot if there is something in the changes that are occurring as Sermon Studio upgrades their system that is causing it.
Bill says
We use an HD camera connected to a Blackmagic Intensity Extreme via HDMI. The Blackmagic is connected to a Mac Mini via thunderbolt.
We use Wirecast to stream to our sermon.net account. We are grandfathered in on an older type of sermon.net account, and it only costs us $15/month.
I also have Wirecast set up do record to disk. I especially like that Wirecast can use separate settings for broadcast and for recording and that the recording can be done independently of the stream broadcast. So, we are able to stream the whole service, but I can press the record button when the preacher starts and stop it when he ends. That way, there is no trimming in Final Cut, or anything like that, and I can upload just the sermon part of our service to our sermon.net account for archiving.
Eric Dye says
Nice! I dig the Wirecast action. I’ll have to look at that.
Andrew says
Wirecast is great—a bit pricey, but it’s absolutely worth it in my opinion. It can also handle multiple cameras or other inputs, including mirroring another computer’s screen (useful for Skype calls, slide presentations, etc.) or including a movie.
Bill says
Andrew is right. Wirecast is pricey; $500 for basic and $1,000 for Pro. But, if your tech department is going to spring for something, I would definitely recommend it.
As Andrew also mentioned, it can handle multiple cameras. That makes Wirecast a relatively cheap switcher! Now, I’m trying to figure out how to attach another HDMI camera to our Mac Mini so we can switch between the two. I have an SD camera hooked up via Firewire, but I don’t like the look of switching from HD to SD.
You can also switch with other files or devices, as well. We have been making our own videos and showing them right before the preaching starts. With Wirecast, we are able to show the video in the stream, as well. This also works well if the preacher has images that he will use in his sermon as illustrations.
We used to use Adobe FLME, which is a great free option. But, our workflow was greatly increased. FLME will only record in flv format (at lease, I couldn’t find a way to change it) so the file has to be converted. Also, the entire service was recorded so we had to put it in Final Cut to trim off the singing and announcements. Then, that would have to be exported through Compressor before it could be uploaded. All in all, it took about two hours to have a file ready for upload.
Andrew says
The only way I’ve seen to connect an HDMI camera to a mini is one of BlackMagic’s Intensity products: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/
I haven’t been able to try one yet, but I’m hoping to move to that within a few years, as well as adding a few HD cameras to our setup.
Bill says
I currently have one camera hooked up through a BM Intensity Extreme. I would like to add a second camera, though.
The setup between camera-Blackmagic-Wirecast can be a bit tricky. This past Sunday, Wirecast wouldn’t pick up our camera, even though it had been working for several weeks. I had to change recording settings on the camera and in Wirecast to get it to work.
Eric Dye says
Great info, Bill! Thank you!
Eric Dye says
Yeah. I looked at it. You’re right about the price, but it doesn’t seem “over” priced as it is packed full of options.
David Smith says
If you go the YouTube NonProfit route “Wirecast for YouTube” is included. Not sure how it compares to the basic version of Wirecast but it includes support for multiple devices, media files, desktop, composites and overlays all free of course.
Eric Dye says
Really? Very cool.
Tommy Scully says
I use Wirecast to input audio/video. It allows for multiple outputs so you can record to disc, push just an audio stream, and various qualities of video. Its less resource hungry than Adobe Flash Media Encoder and way more versatile.
We host on Amazon S3 and push to their entire network using CloudFront. While it was a little difficult to get setup, its insanely cheap. It literally costs pennies to host big video files. Chances are you’ll fall into their free tier for a long time. After the first year, the free tier goes away…but still the best option I’ve EVER seen for audio/video hosting.
Youtube is now offering FREE live streaming for verified 501(c)3 non profit organizations. I’ve just had my first experience last week streaming live and it works awesome. The player is easily embed-able, and the configuration is super easy. They also offer DVR which will record up to 4 hours at a time. The entire program runs AD-FREE! Youtube doesn’t even brand the player like other common free live streaming services.
Andrew says
Tommy,
I’m interested in hosting streaming via S3; do you have a blog post or anything you referred to when setting it up?
Thanks!
Michael Holt says
I am interested in the S3 setup as well, can you provide any details?
Eric Dye says
We should talk more about how to set this up. Sounds #EPIC!
kyle says
We use a JVC camcorder. We use the a/v out to a pinnacle a/v to USB converter. This then goes to our custom built W7 Pro x64 machine. We use UStream as our current vendor to stream. They provide a free Ustream application. This reads the Pinnacle as the video source. Then we have our Soundboard sending in to the “Line In” on sound card and we tell the Ustream to select the Line In for audio (that way we are not picking up audio from the camera mic. This has been great so fare, you can see videos on our website and any feedback would be great.
Mike says
Kyle I am very interested in how your method is working we are using a JVC to a dazzle cord which we thought we should be able to go straight to pinnacle and then over to Ustream however Ustream will not pick up camera if I have pinnacle open. So I am curious to how you guys were able to get past this issue. We are trying to do our first live stream at an upcoming event and not sure where we are going wrong.
Jeff says
I use a sony camcorder hdr-cx150, and a zoom H2 for the musical audio, and a wav file produced at the soundboard on a laptop with audacity for the sermon audio. Blend it all together on video studio pro video editor after the service, then upload to youtube and embed on our church website.
We are looking to make the process more streamlined so others can be trained in and easily handle it.
We’d like to avoid the post production syncing of audio and video. Can do that if we can get the sound into the video camera at the time of recording (with external mic input).
We are also looking at live streaming. Youtube recently announced they are rolling out live streaming capability to all youtube accounts, so we’ll look into that.
The video quality is OK, could be better with a higher priced camera – dslr or other.
Andrew says
Some cameras have an auto-gain feature that will make the audio not sound as good as it would coming from your soundboard. You may want to check if your camera has such a feature and if it can be disabled.
Jeff says
thanks Andrew, it’s not the case with this one though. It’s very commonly accepted that built in mics in camcorders do not provide the best sound.
kyle says
We just upgraded to a Canon Vixia HF G20. We go “out” from out soundboard to the “line in” on our computer. Then we have the video in to our computer. I have used USTREAM and YOUTUBE to stream/record. You can tell your computer to use the “line in” (blue) jack on the back of your computer for sound in and use your normal video feed and there’s no need to post produce. It really depends on how much time you have. The most recent 2 or 3 posts here are our “new” setup. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQXElBe9X4fBfWKrmTA0JUw
Jeff says
Kyle, do you know if youtube allows you to keep (archive) a streamed video? That would be nice because you would not have to upload a recorded video later.
Jeff
kyle says
Hey, i believe so. We used ustream and they just started to dump anything older than 30 days. Right now it look like we have about 2 months of videos uploaded. That’s only 23 videos for us total. They do allow you to go under your video manager if you want to download your own video. They haven’t auto-deleted any old videos and I don’t believe there’s anything saying how many videos you can have. I’ve watched channels where they have hundreds of old videos stored in their channel from years ago.
Justin says
We use UStream for our services. I have been handed this job though I am pretty new to the game. We use a cerevo liveshell attached to our camera, but I want to go further and use multiple cameras with multiple angles and be able to switch between live feeds. I have been researching VidBlaster which is a bit pricey for a small church and UStream is frustrating with all of the ads.
Does anyone have a suggestion on what software can be used to support streaming of multiple cameras that can be cued with the click of a button?
Adrian says
Please see my comment below, Justin! Sounds like a great fit for what you are looking for!
Adrian says
Have you seen Anvato Live Cloud? It’s a new live streaming platform that creates the multiple live streaming renditions in the cloud, archives your services, and provides editing and social sharing from one page. Pretty cool. http://livecloud.anvato.com is the URL. I’d be happy to give you a demo. It’s in private beta now.
Adrian says
Forgot to mention, Justin, that Live Cloud also allows you to switch between live sources using the Control Room!
ToddVB says
We stream using Google Hangouts with a Microsoft LifeCam and an older XP laptop. It works (most of the time). We are small group with a small budget, but looking to upgrade since we are gaining viewership. The laptop upgrade is a no-brainer, but not sure about what camera to purchase to increase video quality. Audio is through the board and OK. Looking for suggestions.\
Thank you for any suggestions.
Ricky Jimenez says
I designed and built our infrastructure several times till I was satisfied with our current system First of all, it is 100% responsive in design. It will work on any and all screen sizes. Secondly, it is in HD & SD with a Live viewer, Sunday AM, Sunday PM, Wednesday PM and a Special Event Archive. We use an HD Panasonic Prosumer camcorder (better low light than a webcam or consumer camcorder). We set the camera to output 720p, 30fps and take the HDMI output and feed it into a Blackmagic Extreme which does most of the hard work. We take the Thunderbolt output and feed an iMac (built with fastest processor, maximum RAM, and best video card available in 2013). We use Telestream’s Wirecast Pro to switch between camera, black screen, Sermon Graphics, MP4 videos, Youtube, etc. We use yourstreamlive.com for are streaming, hosting of our video & audio files. We chose to modify the embed codes to redirect for iDevices and Android. All players are responsive. We upload 2 streams 1500(HD) and 550(SD). We also take the audio directly from our sound board and feed it into the camera at mic level. We can choose the audio independently from the video so we can have the sermon played during a photo, graphic, or different cameras as we add more angles (coming up very soon). Our sermons are ready for download 5 minutes after service concludes. I use Logmein to run the show when I can’t make it into church or someone calls off at last minute. We rarely have issues. My iMac runs at 65% cpu load during a live service. Considering our poor lighting and single camera angle, we have an incredible Live and archived experience. We get contacted by other churches all the time regarding our website and broadcast. I was the men’s leader for 6 years when I stepped down to help my wife when she gave birth to our 2 youngest daughters within 2 years of each other. My first priority is my family. However, I could not sit still so I embarked on this ministry. Eventually I took over the whole website and redesigned and built what we have now. FYI, I am a industrial mechanic by trade. I learned everything from scratch. Contact me if you need help getting your webcast up and running. I have done all the hard work already. Lets fulfill the great commision.
Betty says
Hi Rickey, thanks for sharing all this information. We currently stream, and have come a long way. We are stuck now as we are looking for a way to record straight to DVD so that our DVD can be ready for sell 5 minutes or so after service is over. Right now, it takes us about 45 minutes to 1 hour to get a DVD ready, that’s downloading it from our Mac computer, uploading it to another Mac computer, adding a intro and outro and burning it to DVD. We then have to label it but the bulk of our time is spent getting it sell ready. We have a Sony MCS8 switcher, we use a BlackMagic box to stream using Wirecast and we use Truthcasting for our stream service. Any advice you can offer would be helpful. Thanks
Ricky Jimenez says
Don’t bother with DVD. We made the switch to USB thumb drives last month to provide an entire series to our congregants. DVD format is becoming obsolete. It is very costly and time consuming. Most people have a way to view an MP4 on a TV,computer,tablet or phone. All of our sermons are available online for free so it does not make sense expend resources on DVDs for purchase when they are free online. Granted our sermons are not polished with post production, but when I clcik the last button after a semon, 5 minutes later it is archived everywhere. Our website, Vimeo, and our app. We use a series artwork slide at the beginning and a “thanks for viewing” slide at the end. Thats it. We try to keep the “main thing” the “main thing” here.
Betty says
Thanks Ricky, if it were my call I’d love to say no DVDs but the higher ups are insisting on it. Plus we still use DVDs when the leaders go out to visit other churches and take materials to sell its usually DVDs and CDs. I am curious though how the thumb drive works, do you sell this or how is it distributed to those that want to purchase. We also have all our sermons online as well and like you said, not quite sure why anyone buys a msg on DVD or cd. From what I’ve been reading, the only way it might be possible would be if we used a computer with a video capture card and a encoder like we use for streaming but send it to the computer instead. The other thing I thought about but wasn’t sure how to rig it up was capture the picture from the tv we have in the hallway. It’s not hooked up to anything but the hdmi splitter box that sends the signal from the switcher to the TV. Is there a way to record the picture displaying.
Thanks
Frans Bosman says
We stream by using YouTube live streaming. We use an Axis p1344 IP-Camera with an software extension of http://www.cam-streamer.com/.
This enables us to stream unattended.
The broadcast on our website is steered by the events in google calendar.
Jason Gaines says
I honestly did no read all of the messages posted here, and the article is old, but still relevant. So here goes:
We live stream our entire service, worship and message to UStream.tv with a free account. It only allows us SD streaming, but that is fine as we use an old Canon XL1s connected to a MacPro via the 1394a-b cable (firewire 400-800). Our camera is connected to our mixing board to give us our audio during the live stream, and we also record the audio to CD on our board. We host our message audio on Sermon.net and it has a very nice free service, allowing us to embed a message player on our site, that has an available bible tab for following along during messages. Its a great free feature.
UStream free gives us just 30 days of video storage now, whereas I used to be able to store almost a year on the site given we were recording just once a week. But now we have to move our archives off the site prior to the 30 day window, which we have just started using YouTube for that. My only concern is that, although we have a CCLi display and streaming license, Im not entirely sure if that covers us for YouTube archiving of our worship? Im still working on that and if anyone has better info for me on that, it would great.
I was planning on using Vimeo for message storage but UStream has a direct to YouTube option so it was easiest, and Vimeo will leave me with the same question as for copyright.
Our costs?
Camera, was free as a gift from a friend.
MacPro, is our Lead Pastors and we use it on Sundays for this
UStream – streaming and software, free
YouTube, free
Sermon.org, free
We are a small church like most, and costs are a concern we have to deal with daily. To go HD for our stream would bump us from the little to none category for costs, to the very expensive. UStream Pro is at least $99/mo. That doesn’t take into consideration we would need to have a better internet connection as our current bandwidth would not allow us to stream HD, so we would go from $110 to almost $200 or more/mo. in internet upgrades. UStream also requires a purchase of their software to stream HD, which last check is $280 to $550.
All these costs prevent us from moving up into the HD world, but God has given us the availability to reach our community and beyond in an affordable manner.
Marius says
I’m not sure if there is an interest for this issue.
We are a church in Romania, and we do a live streaming for aprox six years.
I am looking for new methods of streaming and options for storage of our recordings.
Kyle Nickel says
Shameless plug but check out BoxCast.(boxcast.com/church-stream) Feel free to shoot me an email and I can forward you some information. [email protected]