Overload to webcasting system

[rl_albright]

Today I had a friend contact me about the best way to stream sacrament meetings in his buildings, I pointed him to this website and to using the Meetinghouse Webcasting web interface (webcast.churchofjesuschrist.org), he went to his bishop to ask about this (he is the executive secretary) and the bishop was informed that "we are being discouraged from using the webcasting software to stream sacrament meetings, due to it overloading the system."

This set my spidey sense to 11, and I couldn't understand it at all. Is there a case for this? (My knee-jerk reaction is that someone at his stake level just doesn't want to deal with it, so they are spreading this rumor.)

Please help me figure this out.

[russellhltn]

The webcast system isn't free. It's just billed directly to church headquarters. I have heard some murmuring that there's concerns over the cost, but nothing that has made it's way to actual advice, much less policy.

One of the forum users here is the manager for Meetinghouse Technology for ICS communications. His posts have all been about how to make streaming work - regardless of what method is used.

Frankly, I'd be nervous about other systems. Companies don't do things completely for free. YouTube in particular is known for making changes with little to no warning. Just do a search on YouTube for "mid-roll ads" to see the dust-up from the last set of changes. I think some have reported seeing ads after the stream terminates.

While the church webcast may cost the church money, we can be confident that it will have the spiritual well-being of our members at heart.

[hicksticks2001]

Today I had a friend contact me about the best way to stream sacrament meetings in his buildings, I pointed him to this website and to using the Meetinghouse Webcasting web interface (webcast.churchofjesuschrist.org), he went to his bishop to ask about this (he is the executive secretary) and the bishop was informed that "we are being discouraged from using the webcasting software to stream sacrament meetings, due to it overloading the system."

This set my spidey sense to 11, and I couldn't understand it at all. Is there a case for this? (My knee-jerk reaction is that someone at his stake level just doesn't want to deal with it, so they are spreading this rumor.)

Please help me figure this out.

This seems to go against all available evidence:

• The church has made multiple changes over a series of time to make Sacrament Meeting easier. They added Bishops to presiding officers. Added Sacrament Meeting to meeting type, and most recently added recurring meetings specifically for sacrament meeting.
• The Webcast system obviously meets all guidelines the church has provided for non-interactive meeting broadcasts (easy for people to use, conductive to the spirit of the meeting, etc)
• I personally am in regular communication with my stake president, my FM Manager, and I have a friend that works on the webcast team and no one has discouraged the use of the system - all information to the opposite that the church's own system is a great option for non-interactive meetings.

[bartj]

The official message from the Church sent out by the Brethren several weeks ago was that local units should use reputable streaming platforms that are low/no cost and they feel comfortable with. Options listed in this communication included the Church webcast system, YouTube Live, and Facebook. There are others being used as well including Zoom and Vimeo just to name a few. If you would like to use the Church's webcast system, please feel free to use it. It is built in the Azure cloud services which should have plenty of resources to accommodate our needs. We did have some scaling issues in August as we learned how to handle the volume, but have worked through those issues. The system is not perfect, but it has been very reliable. We continue to monitor things and proactively address one-off issues as they come up. Feel free to send me a DM if you have additional questions or concerns.

[rl_albright]

Thank you for the replies. I have passed them on. I for one, LOVE THE WEBCASTING system, it makes things SO EASY! We just finished our stake conference, in which we had pre-recorded all talks and prayers (except for stake presidency), and had a GA join via Zoom. (And his output was put into the webcast stream.) Aside from a few audio problems, due to how I have things setup, it was a great success.

I tell everyone to use this system due to how easy it is to manage and work with.