Zoom or Church Webcast System for Stake Conference?

[mevans]

We're going to be having a stake conference in September. We're discussing the best way to do this. We haven't used the church webcast system, although our FM group says they should be able to get the box. My question is: what are the merits of using the church webcast system versus just doing a Zoom meeting from a computer (and getting an appropriate input video driver than Zoom can recognize on the computer)? The audience will be stake members in their homes, so people could be watching be on a computer, tablet, phone, etc.

Thanks for any thoughts. I know we need to practice with whichever solution we select.

[russellhltn]

I don't think zoom would be appropriate for distribution. Not unless you get the paid version that is designed for web casting. Too much risk that a participant will jump into the conference and become disruptive. You could originate it with zoom so you could have speakers that were not in the chapel, and use the RMTP output to feed the church webcast system for distribution. But again, you'd have to have a paid version of zoom.

[lajackson]

I would use the Church webcast solution. If the FM Group is not able to get you a Terakek VidiU encoder, run the free Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) on a laptop. The Church webcast system now supports over 3,000 connections. This assumes you will originate from the stake center with very few leaders and speakers and almost zero congregation in attendance.

However, if you are holding your stake conference because of a change in the presidency (the most likely reason right now), your stake president will need to coordinate with the visiting authority to determine if he will be physically present (not likely). And if that is so, you will probably be asked to plan on using Zoom, in which case you will need a paid account, unless the Church is setting up the conference for you.

But if your stake is holding the conference without a visitor, I would go with the Church webcast solution.

On the other hand, you might consider using Zoom with everyone, including the stake presidency and speakers, at locations other than a Church meetinghouse (i.e., at home). For that you will need a paid Zoom account (unless you use the free Google Meet). Zoom can be managed by the host to mute all participants and not allow screen sharing. If you originate with Zoom, you would want to distribute either via the Church webcast system or through YouTube, the first option being preferable.

So the first decision by the stake presidency is to determine who will be involved in the conference, whether or not you will originate from a meetinghouse, and if you do, whether you will need to include any participants who are not at the originating location.

[russellhltn]

However, if you are holding your stake conference because of a change in the presidency (the most likely reason right now), your stake president will need to coordinate with the visiting authority to determine if he will be physically present (not likely). And if that is so, you will probably be asked to plan on using Zoom, in which case you will need a paid account, unless the Church is setting up the conference for you.

If you have a "visiting" authority, there's a good chance the church will be helping out. Most likely, they'll be using a church zoom account and feeding the church webcast system.

[mevans]

Thanks for the info. I'm checking to see what the presidency knows from the visiting authority (there is a change in the presidency). All I've heard so far is "September" and I don't even know a date.

[dbaresrc]

I second the Church webcast event process. While this assumes you have a Vidiu / Teradek unit, there is a way to use a Zoom meeting that integrates into the Church system. You'll need a paid Zoom account but you only need to get an individual account. Using the Church system, you have complete control over the event. You don't have to worry about people turning on their cameras or audio disrupting the event. You can even integrate speakers from other locations into the meeting. There's one feed from your building (whether using your buildings cameras [if you have them] or a laptop / webcam set up. You'll want an Ethernet vs WIFI connection to the building internet (turn off the WAPs) for bandwidth purposes.

I have a full write up of the configuration and implementation process in another thread along with an equipment list. If you want to see it, go here.

If you want more help, PM me and we can talk or exchange email.

Thanks

Carlton

[mevans]

Thanks for pointing that out, dbaresrc. We just had our stake conference webcast yesterday and it worked really well. I was going to come back and post about Zoom.

The church had originally recommended we use the Teradek. Well, the Teradek I got from the FM group had a firmware failure. I tried and tried to do the firmware reset as they describe on their website, but I could never get the box to respond. Teradek tech support said we had to send the box in for service. I'll let the FM group figure out if they want to do that.

Next, the FM group said that one of the church's A/V architects they work with had recommended using OBS (free software available for Linux, Mac, and Windows). I did a test stream to the church webcast system from my home and it worked great. Then we tried it out at our stake center and had a lot of problems. It turns out that's because the stake center only has a 2 Mbps up connection, which the church people said isn't enough (they recommended 10 Mbps up). Then we were trying to see if our FM group could get a faster internet connection at the stake center within about a week. About that time, the church people said they could host our meeting for us and that they do this for stakes that don't have a good enough internet connection for streaming. Apparently, Zoom over a slow connection works well enough, but webcasting over that same connection does not work well. It may be due to different protocols and the fact that there's typically very little movement on the video during a stake conference, so maybe that's less data for Zoom to transmit.

Anyway, due to our limited bandwidth, the church team said they'd host our stake conference. We still set up the event in our stake's web portal and gave them the stream information. I picked up along the way that if you have the correct Zoom account that you can stream directly from Zoom. It was a casual comment that I clarified. That's really good to know. Before we encountered the bandwidth problem at the stake center, I was using OBS to capture a Zoom window, as I had no idea that Zoom could do it directly. The church event team streamed the Tabernacle Choir music selections from their Zoom meeting where they had greater bandwidth. We did some practice runs with the church team prior to the event to test things. The church webcast system worked really well and the church team we worked with was really good and helpful.

I'll let our new stake presidency figure out if they want to ask the FM group for more bandwidth at our buildings. They'll need to determine if we will be doing more webcast meetings. I imagine the church event team is only available for stake conferences or multi-stake meetings...and maybe only stake conferences that have a visiting general authority.

Even with the limited bandwidth at our stake center, if we have a member with high-speed internet who is willing to stream the meeting (and we have the correct Zoom account), we could have the member stream it to the webcast system from the member's home and connect over Zoom to the stake center. If you're asking for any members to volunteer, they should check to see if they have any data caps on their home internet service. I found out my cable company is now metering our internet data and I almost went over one month recently. I'm having to watch it much more carefully.