Issues broadcasting with Webcast and Teradek

[jepthy]

Our Stake Center recently had a camera installed, so we can use the Teradek and the church's webcast system to broadcast meetings.
We are testing using recurring meetings to broadcast Sacrament meetings. I have run into a few issues, and am wondering if there are any suggestions.

1. Teradek is no longer auto configured, and does not appear to start on its own.
2. Reoccurring meeting appeared to skip a week and wouldn't broadcast this week.
3. Is it possible to end the meeting through the web interface, rather than stopping it on the Teradek?

Issue 1:
If I recall correctly, the Teradek and church webcast system used to support auto configuration. From what I can tell, this is no longer supported. I have figured out how to set up an Encoder URL in the Webcast platform, and am now able to broadcast using the Teradeks. However, in the past with with auto configuration it used to start the Teradek broadcasting automatically. This no longer appears to be the case. We have to go into the Stake Technology Closet and click the red button on the Teradek in order to start the encoding and the broadcast. Not many people have a key to where the Teradek is stored, so I was hoping we could get it to start and stop automatically. Is this feature now disabled? It also appears that you need to reboot the Teradek each time you schedule a new meeting in the Webcast platform, in order for the Teradek to work. Any advice to allow wards to schedule and broadcast meetings without having to have physical access to the Teradek would be great. This is of additional concern when we broadcast Stake Conference from our local tabernacle. It will be hard for me to be at the tabernacle to turn on the Teradek, and at the Stake Center to broadcast the meeting as well This is where the auto start really helped us out.

Issue 2:
I had set up a reoccurring meeting for a wards sacrament meeting. We used it twice with no issue. Then this week it wouldn't work. The meeting was still in the Webcast system, but it didn't start automatically and there was no way to start it. The Teradek seemed to work. We clicked the red button to start broadcasting. It tried, but then defaulted back to "ready". I set up another meeting to test, and it worked just fine, and the Teradek broadcasted just fine. I did notice that the reoccurring meeting did not seem to go into the "pre-meeting" mode on the Webcast site... I.E. where it starts buffering, etc. The Test meeting did this, but the reoccurring meeting did not. Towards the end, I noticed that the Start Date for the reoccurring meeting was set to 8/15/2021 - today is 8/1/2021. The meeting was originally setup on 7-18-2021. I wonder if it didn't start because it thought the next meeting was 2 weeks away. Has anyone seen this before, where a weekly reoccurring meeting jumps ahead by two weeks?

Issue 3:
We are using the Teradek and Webcast meeting to broadcast sacrament meeting. We don't want to broadcast the Sacrament ordinance. Is it possible to end the broadcast from your computer, rather than having to leave the chapel, unlock the IT closet, and click the red button on the Teradek? We tried this last week by clicking the "End Event" button on the Webcast portal. It seemed to work. However, this week we ran into Issue 2 listed above where the broadcast for this week and next were skipped. Not sure if this is related or not.

Thank you for any advice or help, it is much appreciated.

[Biggles]

We haven’t used the Teradek/webcasting system for some time now, but I used to control the start and stop by using the VidiU app on an iPad.

[mmacconnell]

I have two Ward's using this and same here. They use the VidiU app on their phones to stop and start the broadcast.

[russellhltn]

1. Teradek is no longer auto configured, and does not appear to start on its own.

The autoconfig never had a auto start. It works if the Teradek pulls the info after the pre-roll starts. I'm not sure as pressing the start button is enough. You may have to boot/reboot at that time. The preroll for sacrament is pretty short. Something like 10 minutes.

3. Is it possible to end the meeting through the web interface, rather than stopping it on the Teradek?

Those with access to the website can cancel it. I'm not sure what that does to reoccurring events, I know it tends to immediately wipe any recording.

[Mikerowaved]

Our Stake Center recently had a camera installed, so we can use the Teradek and the church's webcast system to broadcast meetings.

I'm not sure if you heard, but the church has asked us not to use the Meetinghouse Webcast system for weekly worship service meetings. It's fine once or twice a year for stake conferences, but too costly for weekly meetings. For these, they suggest using Zoom Webinar (via the church's enterprise Zoom license), YouTube Live, or other free webcasting service where the webcasts can be deleted in keeping with the church's counsel.

[jepthy]

I had not heard about not using the Webcast system for Sacrament meetings. Thank you, I will look into that. I did notice when setting up a meeting they have you choose the type of meeting, and “Sacrament” is one of the options, so I figured it was okay.