Live broadcast to off-campus sites

[Steven]

Our church is currently operating on three campus (each of the satellite campuses is about 30mi from the main campus). These satellite campuses are called "video venues", because unlike traditional churches, rather than having a live pastor, a video is played of the main campus pastor (or whoever is teaching that weekend).

Thus far, we've been playing the previous week's sermon from a DVD. So someone who goes to the main campus weekend 1, then heads to a satellite on weekend 2 will get the same sermon. This setup is awkward for additional reasons, but I won't bore you with extraneous information.

We would really like to be able to have a live broadcast from the main campus to each of the satellite campuses. We are currently pretty well set up with our video equipment, but our main problem is the actual transmission from main to satellite. We've looked at what NewTek (Tricaster) has to has to offer, and have ruled it out for various reasons. We've been looking at V-Brick and Optibase solutions, and have been leaning toward Optibase at this point. I will post a detailed list of the Optibase solution at the end of the post.

Our biggest concern right now is ongoing cost. The initial outlay of cash will be in the neighborhood of $20,000 - not a really big deal. The biggest concern is the need for a MPLS data carrier (XO Communications) to handle the incredible amount of information being transmitted. We'll require at least a 3.5MB bandwith, though 4.5MB is preferred. All videos will be in standard definition, MPEG-2 compression.

This is where the problem lies. XO (and Sprint, who offer a similar service) are looking to charge about $1600 per location (main or satellite). For three locations, this price comes to about $60,000 per year - we could hire one or two staff members for that kind of cash. Each additional campus (two are in the currently works) adds an additional $20,000 per year - this amount is too much, particularly because we would be required to sign a 3-year contract for the data service.

My question is this: do you know of any other alternatives to an MPLS data carrier? ATM and frame relays are insufficient for the amount of data we will be sending. We need to transmit full, 45 minute long sermons, several times a week, to several locations. Our main location is, unfortunately, unable to have fiber optic cables installed (something to do with the street and the city, we have no weight in the matter). XO and Sprint seem to be the only MPLS service providers in our area, but their monthly expense will be too much for us.


Any suggestions or recommendations? Thanks.


_________________________________________
Optibase Solution:

Host (Main campus) one time expense:

• Optibase MGW230SD video encoder for streaming
• Q2300 VPN/Router/Firewall
• MPLS service (4.5MB is needed)
• VLC Broadcast version media server software
• Standard PC (we already have this)

Client (satellite campuses) for each additional campus:

• Optibase Videoplex Xpress Decoder for incoming stream
• MPLS service (4.5MB is needed)
• VLC Broadcast version media server software
• Media PC with at least 3TB storage, tons of RAM

[ I put this in the wrong forum. This is the distribution forum. This thread should be in the broadcasting forum. My apologies. There are so many forums, it's hard to keep track sometimes.]

[waynehoskins]

Would a microwave STL be cheaper?

[Steven]

I don't know too much about Microwave. I do know that some of our future campuses will be quite far away (up too 50miles, one even out of state). I'm not sure about the range capabilities of microwave. Like I said, I don't know much about it.

Thanks for the idea, though, I will be sure to look into it.

[camthecameraman]

Call me ignorant but what about a slightly delayed cast, i.e. not streaming, just a file download, still a fat pipe etc but none of the "limitations" of a live stream?

[tedanderson]

From an economic standpoint, do the people at the satellite campuses bring in enough in offerings to justify the expense of a live feed? It seems to me that the expense would be worth it if the satellite locations make their trips to church 30 miles shorter.

[Steve G.]

Could you make all the other campus services an hour or two after the main service? Than you could record to tape and have drivers ready to bring them to the other campuses. All you nead to do is get 5 tape decks and put a feed to each one - at the end of the sermon, you have the drivers bring them right away to the other campuses.
Or if you have saturday night services at the main campus that would be even better!

[Paris MkVI]

I can't remember the tech details, but Wave Church in Virginia Beach, Virginia is doing live two-way using some tech and T1 lines, I think. Their web site is wavechurch.com. E-mail is .

[Steven]

Before we switched to a week delay, campuses would get our Saturday night service on DVD and view that. However, the quality of our Saturday night service is quite low, compared with our Sunday services. The pastor has preached the sermon once already and has had time to make adjustments for time and quality.

We've thought about delaying the campus services (and thus the sermon) by 15-30 minutes, but there are a number of other issues associated with that. The services are at 9am and 11am. The 9am sermon is done about 10:10, so the first service at another campus can't start until 10:30. This also relies heavily on internet, which is kind of a bad thing. The good thing about the XO system is that it is a direct line from the provider to our facility, so no internet involved.

We've also toyed with the "pony-express" idea, but as we add more campuses at greater distances, we'll run into the same broadcasting problem. By 2010, we expect to have 8 campuses.

[Steven]

Thanks for the help.

We've ruled out the possibility of microwave. The distance is too great, and there are tons of LOS (line of sight) obstructions (namely, a big hill).

I've been in contact with Wave Church, and a few others who are doing things similar to us. Hopefully, we'll figure something out.

[Gracetech]

The method i had worked out before we lost our senior pastor that was pushing the video venue vision was to use standard internet connections to stream the sermon.

The way it would work is that at our 8:30 service the sermon would be encoded and feed the extension campuses with a 30 min buffer. I know it sounds like a lot of buffer but that makes it feasible to use standard broadband connections. With a 6Mb connection the entire service would be downloaded and ready to play at the correct times for all the extension campuses. The encoder to be used was Windows Media Encoder. WME is a pretty darn good encoder especially when you look at it from the receiving end. If you needed to start the sermon before the file was through streaming in then that wouldn't be a problem as you can start the file at any time and because the sermons where so long that they would finish downloading around 15min into the sermon on a bad day. If the connection failed then that would be a problem and the file would just stop playing where the connection dropped out.

Honestly i prefer the delayed presentation but for time sensitive stuff it does pose issues. You can either push a file to the extension campuses for presentation on Sunday or send a tape/disc for playback.

BTW: WME is a free software and only requires a decent computer with a capture card or in some cases just a firewire port.

crt

[jlhyde]

If there is a cable system that serves the entire area you might be able to lease a sub-band channel from them. Also, Sunday morning is not a high volume time for satellites so you may be able to strike a deal to lease an hour or two of satellite time each week for a year or so. Look around, with the DTV transition you might be able to pick up some used uplink gear for a reasonable cost. Dish Net and Direct TV have hundreds of channels they have no programming for. Perhaps they will lease you an unused channel? Just some thoughts .