Live Streaming for single off-site location

[denny14]

We are looking into renting another location to help our current parking problems. We will have a live band for the worship songs, a pastor to handle announcements and pastoral care and project our pastor preaching on a big screen from our current location.

I think I have a handle on the recorded/sneaker net solution (more on that in another post), I need to figure out the live option.

Can someone help me or point me to places to get help with this? I see tons of streaming server sites, but they seem to be going for multiple viewers on a PC. At this time, we only need one viewer, but we want to project it and have it look nice. I am assuming bandwidth is a factor, but have no idea what the limits are.

Any help appreciated.

Dennis Allen

[Jay M]

I'm not an expert on the subject, but if cost is a concern I know that Skype can work surprisingly well.

There are a number of proprietary devices that do what you want, I'm just not familiar with them. I'm sure someone here is, I'm looking forward to their thoughts on the subject.

~Jay

[cmchamp]

What's your IP's upload speed from the main campus?

[denny14]

According to speedtest.net

Download - 23.31 Mbps
Upload - 9.84 Mbps
ping - 13 mS

[tdangelo]

And the audience size or screen size at the video venue is?

[denny14]

We are thinking of 100 people at the remote location and a screen size of somewhere around 9 feet tall and 13 feed wide. Please remember, these are ballpark numbers. number of seats is dependent on how we configure and screen size is about what we have done in main campus for rear projection for our theatrical events.

Dennis

[bpalermini]

We have a service much like what you are describing. I have a couple of questions and comments.

How far away is the second venue? Ours is across the street so we are able to connect it to our main site via dedicated fiber. I'm guessing you can't do that.

Our experience is that there is no live streaming possible or desired. What you really want is to record one location and then on a delayed basis play back the recording at location two.

We also have two worship bands, local pastors doing announcements, etc. There is no way to get them synchronized enough that the second site is ready for the message at exactly the same time as the first.

Do you use graphics/slides with bible verses, etc. to accompany your talks? If so you will need to think about how you will do them at the second site. Switch to them locally or include them in the feed. If you include them in the feed the feed will need to be of higher quality so that the text looks good.

Do you need to use the same message at both sites the same week? If not recording them at site one and sneaker-netting them to site two is a lot easier.

Do both services need to start at the same time? If not sneaker net could work for you even using the same message for both sites each Sunday (although then you might also just be able to do it live at both sites).

You have a nice very internet connection. You might check with your provider to see if the offer a MPLS network to connect the sites together. That gives you a set path for data from one site to another (as opposed to the normal Internet method of variable paths) which will provide a much better stream and easier connectivity between sites. If you can get that you might be good.

We use a video server from 360 Systems. It can record and play a stream almost simultaneously or with any delay required. It's expensive but good and reliable.

[tdangelo]

There is currently no "live" streaming solution that I am aware of which would look adequate when projected for an audience of 100 people.

If the content was hosted on a CDN and the content was being pulled down as video on demand that would offer a better picture ... but may not work regarding the timing of the services as one would need to be delayed from the other.

I would strongly suggest looking at a non-IP based solution. Recording the service locally and then sneaker-nettting the footage to the video venue generally the lowest cost & highest quality solution. Other (more expensive) solutions to look at would be a dedicated circuit between the two locations, microwave, etc.

[denny14]

thanks to all for comments and questions. Here are answers to your questions and a few more of mine.

the second location is only about half a mile down the street.
We do have FIOS in this area, not sure if that helps.
We do a 9:00 service and a 11:00 service. We could record the 9:00 and play that at 11:00 at the second location and I understand that is the cheapest solution but people want to find out exactly what it would cost to do it live.

We do want the same message on the same week. A week long delay just would not work for us.

One question I am getting is about how this is different than the simulcast event we did a few weeks ago from incastevents. Everyone thought that was fine and it did work, but I know it was not a live event. Is that the big deal, the upload?

Thanks for the heads up on the graphics that go along with the message. We don't do much of that, but we do need to have that capability.

I see that verizon fios offers different business connections, but I don't know which one makes sense for our application.

hope this information helps

thanks