Streaming Video...

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First things first, you will need to decide when and how you want to present your broadcast. The three options are:

Live Broadcast: There’s always a little extra buzz when something is presented in a live format. There are also a number of challenges that might keep you from using this option. First, you will want to make sure that you have an internet connection with a faster than average upload speed since you will be transfering a lot of data. You should be able to purchase a faster upload package from your internet service provider. The bigger concern is if you have any technical issues with your computer, internet connection, or video equipment, the live feed will not work. In addition, a live broadcast is raw meaning there is no option to do any editing. Finally, a live broadcast can only happen once.

Simulated Live: A simulated live presentation has the appearance of a live broadcast, but it has been recorded from an earlier service. The best part about a simulated live presentation is that it can be shown multiple times. This allows you to schedule multiple internet campus experiences which could be on the weekends, or even on weekdays. If you’re trying to reach people nationally and internationally you should consider broadcasting the service taking time zones into consideration. Of course whenever you schedule the experience, you will still have your online staff available and all of the attendees online creating a true community experience.

One of the challenges with a simulated live experience is preparing the video. If you only have Sunday morning services that can make it difficult to have a simulated live broadcast ready in a timely manner. As an example, if you record your 9am service and you want to have an online service at 11am, you only have 2 hours to do post-production edits and upload the video, which might not be enough time. If you recorded a Saturday evening service you would have plenty of time to get the video ready for Sunday morning. The amount of time to encode the video also comes into play. It is possible to encode the video at the same time you are recording, but the video quality won’t be as high. If you want to encode the video after the service it could take an hour or longer. You can of course use video from the previous weeks service, but that will take away from the live nature of the event. If people are attending because they are out of town, or sick, they don’t want to see the same service they attending in-person the week before. In addition, you might want to offer your video in several video quality levels, along with an audio only option. The faster the internet connection a person has the better the quality can be. Allowing the visitor a choice will improve their overall experience. If you ask your guests to sign-in you could let them save there video quality setting for future visits.

On-Demand: Offering your service in an on-demand fashion allows people to watch it whenever it fits their schedule. This isn’t really the best idea for the current weeks message because you want people to see it at the same time and build community. It might be a good option if you want to show video from previous weeks. It’s also a great way to show promo videos highlighting a series you in, or featured videos about the campus.

You can of course use any combination of these. Depending on how you want to present the video to your audience, there are a number of companies that provide streaming video services. There are free solutions as well as paid services. We can walk through the pros and cons of each option as we get started with the project. It will likely be neccessary to take advantage of multiple options to get the functionality you are looking for.