This past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing a live video stream service on the iPhone. It looked absolutely brilliant, and worked extremely well.
The Honolulu-based New Hope Christian Fellowship (http://www.enewhope.org) announced it recently that they will begin streaming its weekend worship services live to iPhone and iPod touch users:
Live streaming to the iPhone was one of the most requested features from church attendees, and is now possible with the inclusion of HTTP live streaming in Apple’s iPhone 3.0 software. New Hope’s addition of live streaming to the iPhone is significant in that it is the first non-profit organization to offer this type of service.
Leveraging standards-based HTTP streaming technology, New Hope will deliver high quality video over either a Wi-Fi connection or other carrier network, providing for a truly portable experience.
Exciting times, indeed!
Thanks Peter for giving me the sneak peek! Love what you guys are doing and we’ll be watching!
[Image from Jimmy]
Bill Whitt says
I tried the archives, but I get the error "Cannot Play Movie: The server is not correctly configured." Doh!
So what type of movie file streaming is supported with iPhone 3.0 OS? Any special coding you have to do to make the magic happen?
Just a random thought, but… Wouldn't it be wild if a church also incorporated live media for iPhones into its services that was designed FOR the people in attendance? They would be using their phones to interact with the service in various ways… Wowzers!
human3rror says
the world is so young here… opportunities abound!
peterthourson says
Hey Bill,
Thanks for the feedback. I researched that particular error because we were having the same problem. Evidently if your network is behind a Sonicwall, it blocks "byte-range" requests. In order for iPhone to be able to stream videos on-demand, your network has to support that. If you try any other on-demand video for iPhone (including ones on Apple's site) from within your network, you will encounter that same error. The permanent fix is to change a setting on your network's SonicWall to enable byte-range requests.
Anyways, if you switch your network to Edge or 3G, the videos will play fine. The good news is that live video isn't affected by this issue and it will play fine on any network!
Bill Whitt says
Peter, thanks for the reply. You were exactly right. At work, we use a Watch Guard Firebox firewall. At home, I don't. It works at home!
The design is beautiful — perfectly formatted for the iPhone. And the video is of EXCELLENT quality. And I love that the services are archived, so I can catch up on past weeks. Congrats on a job very well done!
Eric Granata says
This is where I see online campuses and mobile apps for churches headed…where the people in attendance and the remote participators are able to communicate and interact as one body.
I wrote more about this here:
http://churchtechdump.com/post/81434786/do-church…
Bill Whitt says
Eric — I checked out your post on your site. That's exactly what I was imagining when I was talking about integrating interactive technology live into the service!!! Your ideas are right there with me.
With that being said, I know there are a grand total of 4-5 people in my church with iPhones, so here in rural West Virginia, I'm not sure integrating iPhone apps into the service would ever fly… but a man can dream, can't he? And even if you have a large user base, you'd have to worry that people without iPhones might feel out of place or inferior.
In the grand scheme of things, though, I think anything we can do as communicators to keep the brain from slipping into passive mode (alpha waves, to be precise) is good. People learn and apply best when their brains are engaged, and the types of ideas mentioned in this thread are a good start at brainstorming how to do that with emerging technologies!
Eric Granata says
Are they using Quicktime Broadcaster to make this happen on the iPhone?
ianbeyer says
We're using Flash Media encoder and the preview version of Wowza Media Advanced Server v2.0, using Amazon EC2 for bandwidth. The Wowza image on EC2 is ready to do iPhone right out of the box, all I have to do is point FMLE to it and go. Because of the low cost of EC2, it doesn't matter if we only have 4 people using it. It costs us 13 cents an hour for a server that can handle about 1200 iphone connections (at 250Kbps stream), and about 1 cent per viewer-hour. If we maxed the server out, it would cost us about 10 bucks an hour. And then we shut it down when we're done. Every sunday, morning and evening.
philldo says
Way to innovate. I will definitely check this out this weekend. I am also curious to how they pull it off.
human3rror says
I'll keep you posted if i get anything more…!
Eric Granata says
Anybody ever figure out how it's being done? Word on the street is that LifeChurch.tv is getting ready to do something like this, too. Good times.
human3rror says
Yeah, we'll be doing it at North Point… we'll document and share it.
ianbeyer says
Check out my blog at http://blog.ianbeyer.com for deets, I've been doing a series on streaming. We're streaming iphone now too.
Eric Granata says
Thanks fellas. I'll visit your blog, Ian and eagerly await John's post as well.
human3rror says
this is sweet! great blog, btw.
stephenbateman says
That is soo cool. Is this in the playbook for NPOnline?
human3rror says
perhaps perhaps… 😉
yes.
ianbeyer says
We started streaming our services to iPhone on a test basis this morning, and it was successful.
Our stream is at http://live.cor.org/iPhone, or http://live.cor.org for browsers.
ianbeyer says
I'm "ianbeyer" on skype – ask away 🙂
(ETA: I'm also cyberentomology on twitter)
kalmans says
I overcome the problem but dont know why.
The problem appeared and appears after a ADSL failure from my IP provider.
(The Youtube problem is limited to the Iphone, while it doesnt affect any laptop linked by same WIFI).
In order to solve the problem I enter the Router with Explorer and I change the connection to a different username to connect (actually I make a new connection to a different provider) and after a few seconds I return to my account. Then I can watch youtube’s movies normally.
It looks like I make some kind of reset or flush of the ADSL card from the telephone company.
I dont know the technical reason for solving the problem, but it works.
Important: while my Iphone (or others) fail with youtube at home, it (they) work fine with others WIFI spots.