Tech Forum

Hello - Has anyone been able to port forward to a hardware VPN device? We need a VPN to manage the broadcast cabinet so we don’t have to drive up to reset the webcasting Vidiu devices.

The firewall is under the control of Church Headquarters. They haven't been open to making changes.

We moved from Webcast to Zoom for all of our meetings and have a basic computer on which the Zoom Client application runs. When needed, it can be controlled remotely through Chrome Remote Desktop. I assume Team Viewer and other remote desktop software also work to allow remote access for starting and stopping meetings.

If your building has a PTZ camera installed, you might consider using a setup similar to what we have implemented. Custom software (GitHub Repos: https://github.com/craigkehl/ts-cam-app, and https://github.com/craigkehl/CamCtrlServer) you are welcome to use allows a member of the Bishopric or an assigned priest to control the needed functions of the meeting from a mobile phone. Open Source Broadcaster (also free to use: https://obsproject.com), OBS allows us to easily set scenes for presenting the meeting and switching to either a picture of Christ and pre-recorded hymns or a video of Christ's Atonement during the Sacrament portion of the meeting. A capture device (check Amazon: ours were ~$20) gets the video into the computer. Finally, an RS-232 to RS-422 converter (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08CGXBSTF, ~$10) carries the control signal from the computer to the PTZ camera. If your PTZ camera has an IP interface and IP-VISCA control, you don't need that converter. However, that's pretty much all you need. You don't need to be a developer to set it up, and I would be happy to help you with the details.

Currently, the person controlling the meeting needs to be in the building. But, it's been simple enough for a Bishopric member to start and stop, and it's helped through a few pinches. I once ran a Sacrament meeting while simultaneously teaching my Primary class, when that ward's tech missed church due to a family emergency. When I get a chance, I plan to implement a proxy server through which the computer in the building can establish a WebSocket. This could allow remote control from outside the building, but the main goal is to provide user accounts for the different wards in the building to save customer camera presets.