End of Webcasting in July 2022: Please transition to Zoom

[bretbassett]

For questions and answers regarding the announcement that went out on Oct 6th regarding the decommissioning of the church's webcast service please see the attached PDF document.

[russellhltn]

Personal commentary:

Each unit is eligible for ONE Church Zoom account.

Each account can either host one webinar or two simultaneous meetings. Each meeting can have breakout sessions allowing for more meeting rooms.

As pandemic restrictions relax, any streaming will under the guidelines set out in the General Handbook. This will undoubtedly reduce the size of the audience - in some cases to zero as "Streams and virtual meetings are not meant for the convenience of those who could reasonably attend in person." See Section 29.7 for details.

[lajackson]

A point of clarification concerning the attached End of Webcasting pdf.

Under the question "What features can my church Zoom account provide?" please note that if one ward is holding a sacrament meeting and is using the Zoom Webinar function, the other wards in the building can hold other meetings only if they are using a different Zoom account.

A Church Zoom account will run up to two regular Zoom meetings simultaneously, with additional meetings available using breakout rooms, or it will run only one Zoom Webinar.

Since each ward has its own Zoom account, the only limitation should be your meetinghouse Internet bandwidth.

Also please note that if you choose to stream multiple wards throughout the day using the same stream and Zoom Webinar, the same limitation applies. The account streaming the sacrament meetings cannot be used for other meetings on the same account and at the same time that a sacrament meeting Webinar is taking place.

[Wattsuk]

Curious about the push towards Zoom and seemingly avoiding YouTube?

I'd imagine for most of us, the easiest transition without changing hardware is to move from webcast to youtube.
Very simple to reconfigure a Teradek or Mevo for this.

I'm sure there must be reasons for this that i'm not aware of.

Attendance data capture seems the only benefit of zoom over youtube.

The advantages of youtube over zoom are many.

Anyway, a few months to go yet. I hope the discontinuation of webcast ultimately encourages us to a more standardised approach across the church. The lack of coordination and disjointed support from ward to ward, stake to stake and FM group to FM group have been challenging as we all try and figure this out.

[Mikerowaved]

Curious about the push towards Zoom and seemingly avoiding YouTube?

I agree. They have published some guidelines for those wishing to use YouTube Live here:
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/help/support/meetinghouse-technology/virtual-meetings/youtube-live-overview

[bretbassett]

Curious about the push towards Zoom and seemingly avoiding YouTube?

The church virtual meeting team is not trying to move people away from Youtube. You can use whatever solution works best for your unit. You have free access to Zoom webinar, but if Youtube is preferred by any given unit, you can certainly use it. As point out above, there is more info in Tech Forum and in MHTech on how to use Youtube for Webinars.

The church is shifting it's investment from webcasting to Zoom's webinar features because Zoom provides both a webinar feature and a much needed interactive meeting functionality which neither Youtube nor webcasting provides.

[Mikerowaved]

The church virtual meeting team is not trying to move people away from Youtube. You can use whatever solution works best for your unit. You have free access to Zoom webinar, but if Youtube is preferred by any given unit, you can certainly use it.

Thanks Bret, we really appreciate the clarification.

[awev]

Who has taken the time to read the End Users License Agreement (EULA) or the Terms of Service (ToS), say for YouTube or Facebook? I will not agree to YouTubes conditions for posting content that I create - as I would be agreeing to let any other YouTube user use my content any way they desire, and I give up any rights to assert my copyright - just read through it. Facebook is not much better, if at all - you agree to let them use your likeness, name, and so on, any way they want, without compensation, so they could use your company name in adverting, and suggest you support something that you don't, all without consulting you. And lets not forget that the church has a licensing agreement with Zoom now, so each unit can have two meetings (with breakout rooms if desired) running concurrently, or one webinar.

I understand that not all content creators/streamers needs to have at least a thousand subscribers to stream live, yet I am not sure what the requirements are. Also, if we are forced to stop in-person meetings then being able to conduct the second hour by Zoom, and not telling someone that that have to switch from YouTube to Zoom, means one less thing to confuse the end user. A good number of people in a prior ward, and in my current branch, did not grow up with computers or the internet, nor see a reason to start now - they might be willing to do the phone dial in thingamajig, yet that is about it, if you write out step-by-step instructions (don't email it to them, either they don't have email or it goes unread).

I will give YouTube and Facebook props for implementing streaming standards, so current hardware can work with it a bit easier, yet you can still get things into Zoom, just means one extra step and piece of hardware.

[Wattsuk]

Curious about the push towards Zoom and seemingly avoiding YouTube?

The church virtual meeting team is not trying to move people away from Youtube. You can use whatever solution works best for your unit. You have free access to Zoom webinar, but if Youtube is preferred by any given unit, you can certainly use it. As point out above, there is more info in Tech Forum and in MHTech on how to use Youtube for Webinars.

The church is shifting it's investment from webcasting to Zoom's webinar features because Zoom provides both a webinar feature and a much needed interactive meeting functionality which neither Youtube nor webcasting provides.

Thank you Bret. Much appreciated. The second point of consolidation is a great one!

[Mikerowaved]

Who has taken the time to read the End Users License Agreement (EULA) or the Terms of Service (ToS), say for YouTube or Facebook? I will not agree to YouTubes conditions for posting content that I create - as I would be agreeing to let any other YouTube user use my content any way they desire, and I give up any rights to assert my copyright - just read through it.

I've read through them. Since nearly all of our stake's YouTube videos change to "Unlisted" 60 seconds after they end, and are deleted after I've had a chance to check them for any quality problems, other YouTubers don't have access to them.

Occasionally, I will leave a webcast up longer, such as a funeral service, so people who couldn't view it live have a chance to see it. But after a week or so, I take them down also.