Stake Conference Advice, 2 languages

[kc7smo]

New to the STS position, my first Stake Conference is coming up. I'm looking for some advice on a couple of things. First, we have two languages in the stake, and will need to have two streams. In the past, they have fed an English stream out of OBS into Zoom, and had translators in the Zoom meeting translating to Spanish. All Spanish participates used Zoom. The English participants primarily used Zoom, but would hit the 500 person limit, and need to be overflowed to YouTube.

Is there a better way, or is this as good as anything?

We have three Mevo cameras, has anyone used the multicam mevo app alone, or is OBS better?

Any advice or input on using multiple cameras and multiple languages for Stake Conference would be apprecaited!

Thanks

[russellhltn]

All Spanish participates used Zoom. The English participants primarily used Zoom, but would hit the 500 person limit, and need to be overflowed to YouTube.

I'd suggest sending the English speakers to YouTube. Otherwise, a late-arriving Spanish speaker may not be able to get their language because Zoom has reached it's limit.

[Wattsuk]

Mevo multicam is a good app (VERY user friendly and quick to master) but how are you planning to output that video to Zoom?

A single mevo can be used in USB webcam mode or NDI to interface with zoom, multicam is more tricky.
The workaround is to use virtualcam/RTMP server.

If it's essential to utilise all 3 mevo cameras then you may be better configuring them as NDI cameras and then use OBS to bring the video sources together to output a mixed signal into zoom.
If you are experienced with OBS then this is no problem, it's a powerful tool, but has a much steeper learning curve to master compared to the multicam app.

You can still connect 3 different mobile devices to the 3 mevo cameras individually to control their various functions if you need any PTZ type functions etc.

This is also dependant on what computer you are planning to use for OBS/Zoom. If you are running 3 cameras, that will be a high workload for the CPU/GPU. Limiting the resolution and bandwidth can ease the burden somewhat.

My only advice to you is to keep it as simple as possible. Stability and reliability is key, multiple angles and perfect video quality/editing on the fly are secondary concerns for a church broadcast.

You may even want to utilise 2 Mevos, one as the primary device and a second as redundancy, connected to a separate network (mobile LTE for example)

[kc7smo]

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.

I've tested with ndi for input from mevo to obs, and it works great. The only issue with ndi is that I can only get one camera in that way, ndi can see them all but only lets you select one. Have you been able to have multiple ndi cameras on one machine?

I think we are going to end up using obs virtual camera to push to zoom, and an rtmp stream from obs to YouTube. This will work, but requires us to push two streams out, which is pushing our upload bandwidth limits.

I have tried having zoom push a stream to YouTube, but zoom degrades the video quality so much that is rather send a stream directly to YouTube.

Any way to use one outgoing stream to both zoom and YouTube, besides zooms live stream option?

[Mikerowaved]

Any way to use one outgoing stream to both zoom and YouTube, besides zooms live stream option?

There are several companies that will take a single stream and multi-stream it to a number of different platforms. The bad news is, you won't find any that will push to Zoom. It's because Zoom will not accept the industry standard RTMP stream format; they will only accept their own proprietary format generated from their own apps.

[Wattsuk]

Thanks for the input. I appreciate it.

I've tested with ndi for input from mevo to obs, and it works great. The only issue with ndi is that I can only get one camera in that way, ndi can see them all but only lets you select one. Have you been able to have multiple ndi cameras on one machine?

I think we are going to end up using obs virtual camera to push to zoom, and an rtmp stream from obs to YouTube. This will work, but requires us to push two streams out, which is pushing our upload bandwidth limits.

I have tried having zoom push a stream to YouTube, but zoom degrades the video quality so much that is rather send a stream directly to YouTube.

Any way to use one outgoing stream to both zoom and YouTube, besides zooms live stream option?

On the NDI front, I have successfully connected multiple Mevos this way, yes.

The only limitation I know of with NDI limiting to one camera is if you are using the webcam or virtual input function. That will limit you to one source.
You should only need that function if you are feeding straight into Zoom.
If you are pulling directly into OBS you can get multiple Mevo for sure.

Yes, zoom highly compresses audio and video. There are some ways to mitigate it by selecting HD video and checking the box to enable original audio.
Although they are restricting bandwidth more than they used to, that's for sure. I think if you are using Webinar and you are the only video feed then you should get the decent 720p feed.
May be worth studying this some more and testing before you commit to a solution.
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articl ... p-HD-video

If you are prioritising absolute quality then a RTMP directly to youtube is still the way to go.

Thinking outside the box about your bandwidth issue.
You could have the translator(s) at a separate building? They could use their machine to view the youtube stream, screenshare it to zoom and add the translation as necessary.

[Mikerowaved]

Thinking outside the box about your bandwidth issue.
You could have the translator(s) at a separate building? They could use their machine to view the youtube stream, screenshare it to zoom and add the translation as necessary.

Great idea. Just expanding on that, chances are you're stuck with DSL from CenturyLink at your building(s), because the installation of cable to the church premises is pretty cost prohibitive. (Been there.) A member's home with Comcast or CentraCom cable as an ISP, however, should have enough BW to do exactly what Wattssuk proposed above.

[BrianEdwards]

I cannot speak to our Stake Center setup, but our two last Stake Conferences have had Spanish-language translation done as described above. Once from a separate building, another time from a member's home. We brought up the Webcast broadcast (which is what the Stake was using), logged onto Zoom and screen-shared, and then started the translation. Spanish-speaking members went to the Zoom link, everyone else the Webcast broadcast. Sufficient and simple.

[awchan13]

We just had Stake Conference last month with 2 language translations. We setup the zoom broadcast through the Stake Media Closet. We then setup up the 2 interpreters in 2 different clerk's offices and added them as panelists in the zoom webinar. So, when the feed was playing, the viewer could select which person they wanted to hear from. It worked perfectly over zoom. The English listeners were directed to the YouTube feed which allowed the non-English speakers plenty of space to watch via zoom. We also had the in-building translation units set up next to the Clerk's computers so they could talk into 2 mics (one to zoom and one to the FM transmitter system). The FM transmitters were connected with 20' extension cables so we didn't have issues with range in the building.

[Zandervix]

We have a Spanish branch in our Stake, and have done this numerous times. We stream to YouTube through a Teradek.

For Conference, we use two Teradeks (one from another building), one for English, one for Spanish. Camera and audio feeds come into the clerk's office and is split. Simply put, first split goes directly to the the English Teradek, second split goes to our 'translation' room.

Our translation room setup has the video come into a splitter - and splits to a TV (so the translators can see), and to the Teradek. Audio comes in directly to headphone for the translator. Where the translator sits is a mic set-up that goes into a small audio mixer, then into the Teradek. Our in-house FM transmitter mic is attached to the same boom stand as the broadcast mic.

Our first couple of times doing this, we had everything coming into a computer (via capture cards), run into vMix for switching, and back out to our splitters. Our most recent Conference was put into a BlackMagic Atem for switching, and out. In both cases (either vMix or BM), we used the software for lower thirds as well as hymn lyrics.