Sharing our experience with Virtual Sacrament Meeting Broadcasts

[russellhltn]

For a short time, I considered putting an old cell phone on the end of a goose-neck stand, and attaching the stand to the pulpit. However, I would have no control over the phone during the meeting, so I gave up that idea.

I had it on a tripod in the second row just off to the side. The amount of zoom probably depends on the phone's sensor, but I was able to go from the stand to a nice closeup of the speaker from where I was.

The hardiest part was the audio cable. The second hardiest was the phone holder with a tripod mount. I found the latter in my local Walmart in the photo section. It was bundled with a small pistol-grip/table top tripod. But at less than $8, it was worth it for the adapter.

The actual event was easy. Start the feed early, "Pinch zoom" for control, mute button right on the home screen. Long press on stop/start to "go to black". Because of the cheap tripod, I tried to minimize any repositioning.

You might be able to work around the audio cable with an external mic. The app does support Bluetooth mics.

Although, what you could do, is just mount the phone like you said, start the feed early. Leave it on a fixed zoom setting. and then turn off the broadcast at the appropriate time before the sacrament is passed. No control is really needed. That should solve the audio problem. Your mount could be nothing more than a selfie stick duct-taped to a microphone stand.

[mrbitsch]

I would point out the one piece of direction that we have received from the First Presidency regarding the broadcasted meetings: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.or ... 091020_CTA

"Since a sacrament broadcast does not include the administration of the sacrament, consider initiating the broadcast following the sacrament,or alternatively, holding the sacrament portion of the meeting last,so those viewing the sacrament meeting virtually see the program without interruption."

Not a requirement, but a suggestion, however that doesn't leave people at home wondering what's going on for 12 minutes. (although that time would provide them the opportunity to do the sacrament at home)

[dbaresrc]

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we've been broadcasting sacrament meetings for quite a while and have a process in place for the ordnance. It involves a file share while the ordnance is occurring (which takes care of the video) and muting the audio. The file is attached. If you're interested in more information on how we're running meetings, just ask.

[lajackson]

I was able to do a successful broadcast over the church webcast system using my old cell phone (Pixel 1) and the Larix Broadcaster app. That's right, just a cell phone on a tripod. It doesn't get much simpler then that.

How did you connect the phone to the Internet? WiFi? Hot Spot? Regular data over cell tower?

[russellhltn]

How did you connect the phone to the Internet? WiFi? Hot Spot? Regular data over cell tower?

The Liahona WiFi, although the app can use most any method you have available. It was designed to use "WiFi, EDGE, 3G, LTE and 5G".

With the small turn out and 30-40 minute meeting, I don't think the members are putting much of a load on the WiFi. That may change as we start getting back to the old normal.

I hope to have a document posted tonight showing the setting I used.

[lajackson]

How did you connect the phone to the Internet?

The Liahona WiFi, although the app can use most any method you have available. It was designed to use "WiFi, EDGE, 3G, LTE and 5G".
...
I hope to have a document showing the setting I used posted tonight.

Outstanding. I have my recommendation for tomorrow evening for the stake presidency.

I am considering using the regular stake webcast system at the stake center. I just need to figure out how best to avoid the sacrament ordinance.

[lajackson]

I hope to have a document posted tonight showing the setting I used.

That would be wonderful. Please include whether or not you needed to use the high bandwidth setting when the Webcast event was scheduled.

[russellhltn]

Please include whether or not you needed to use the high bandwidth setting when the Webcast event was scheduled.

No, I used the guide found in Webcast Network Health and Encoder Settings to choose a bitrate.

[bsillito]

For two of the buildings, we use a Zoom meeting (one for each building) linked into the Church webcast system via the High Bandwidth Encode option. This way, there is only one input and we don't have to worry about others turning on their cameras, audio etc. If you are not familiar with the HBE option, let me know. We have a laptop in each building with a basic web cam attached to it. For one building we are using an external mic to get the audio. At the other building, we can get a feed directly out of the audio cabinet into the latop (via a USB sound card). Each ward has several people trained to "run" their ward's sacrament meeting. I created a graphic that says the sacrament ordnance is occurring and it is loaded on the laptop. At the end of the sacrament hymn, the person mutes the Zoom meeting audio and selects the "file share" option to broadcast the sacrament graphic rather than the camera. The ordnance is effectively muted. When the ordnance is over, the person unmutes the meeting audio and re-engages the web cam and members see the rest of the meeting. At the end of the day, the last ward is trained to put away all the equipment.

@dbaresrc - can you send me the link on how to set this up? Apparently I don't participate in these forums enough to PM you.

[enelson5]

I've been putting together notes on how I put the entire setup together here https://github.com/TechnoSwiss/broadcast_pi

1) Is there some reason you decided to compile ffmpeg rather than point to a repository and download a precompiled binary?

2) I like your approach except for the Youtube part of it. I think I'd be more comfortable pointing an RTMP stream to the church's broadcast service. I'm assuming that the Raspberry Pi + ffmpeg solulution can be used to push an RTMP stream to a church-scheduled broadcast URL instead of flv stream to a YouTube URL, correct? Since the zillion ffmpeg command line options can be a bit intimidating, I'm wondering if you could break down what they all do and maybe include the option syntax for an RTMP stream URL?

...is getting the chapel audio piped into the broadcast. We have a rather complicated system for this that we use in the stake center for stake conference, but for these sacrament meeting broadcasts we're going really simple and just using the "Record out" connection that I believe are present on most buildings in North America.

Have you found that the "Record Out" level is high enough? I've got a couple of buildings with older sound systems in them, and the "Record Out" levels aren't adjustable and possibly too low. I'd rather not have to add an amplifier into the audio path, so I'm wondering if there's any broadcast volume adjustability in your solution? I see an ffmpeg switch in your example that says, "volume=20dB", so it seems possible.