Issues with new Zoom -> meet.churchofjesuschrist.org

[caillines]

We also just do one broadcast for the entire Sunday and use the same streaming key to YouTube Live. All we need to do each Sunday is just push "ON AIR" and we are live. I could not imagine going back to using a laptop. This would be plagued with many more technical issues and currently anyone can put the "ON AIR" button.

I'm not quite sure why we would want to restrict who can watch or make it more difficult for some. The broadcasts have been great for inactive and non-members. It seems that everything is moving to access only for those who are active or at least gatekeeping only for active members.

That's a pretty cool setup you have with the Atem. Did you hit up Facilities Management for that, or did it come from the unit budget?

[joeneuman]

It came from our budget. $300 for ATEM, $80 for monitor, $320 for Camera, and another $200 for hardware. I think we are going to add a Raspberry Pie with the Zoom web app.

[jameswwassmer]

None of our meetings are appearing in the new church meet webpage. I have a church Zoom account through which meetings are scheduled in Zoom, but they are not populating on the meet website either published or unpublished. I even edited the meeting parameters to see if that would help, but no joy. I have converted the meetings to a webinar but still, no joy.

[russellhltn]

None of our meetings are appearing in the new church meet webpage. I have a church Zoom account through which meetings are scheduled in Zoom, but they are not populating on the meet website either published or unpublished. I even edited the meeting parameters to see if that would help, but no joy. I have converted the meetings to a webinar but still, no joy.

Have you tried creating a new meeting as a test?

[jameswwassmer]

I haven't tried that yet. However, even if that is successful, my Zoom sacrament meeting attendees are mostly elderly and are technologically challenged. Just changing to the Church licensed Zoom account and new meeting ID's and Passcodes was a major undertaking. I may postpone creating a new meeting schedule when we change meeting times in January. I think I'll go ahead and try a new meeting but with Relief Society in mind. Thanks

[russellhltn]

I think I'll go ahead and try a new meeting but with Relief Society in mind.

Unless there's something I'm missing, you can create a meeting for any reason just as a test. I don't think anyone else would be aware of it.

[jameswwassmer]

After some trial and error, I was able to get our Relief Society and next years sacrament meetings to be visible. The current years sacrament meetings are still not populating but since our Zoom audience is made up of elderly with limited tech experience, I'll leave it as is until January. Thanks for all the tips.

[brad_p]

It sounds like you're a stake leader or technology specialist setting up broadcasts for all of the wards yourself. I don't have access to the system, but are wards able to set up their own broadcasts? It seems like a lot of work for someone in the stake to manage all of the ward meetings every week – and it's possible that some wards don't have members who need a broadcast at all.

Yes, I'm a stake STS. That is a good question, I don't believe the church has a mechanism to let ward members manage this.

Just a side note, I do believe it's most efficient and cleanest to have the STS set up and manage all broadcasts for the wards. It's far more reliable that way, and it's not that much work. I require about 90 minutes of setup the week prior (this includes creating broadcasts, updating links, and setting up hardware in three buildings). Then about 30 minutes the day of to manage attendance reports and the occasional weird thing that goes wrong. Each ward has a camera assistant to control the broadcast. As far as time commitment for callings, that's pretty light compared to others.

I've seen stakes try to offload all the broadcast work onto wards, and I've personally never seen it work well. One or maybe two wards may figure it out, but the rest of the wards in the stake won't.

[russellhltn]

I've seen stakes try to offload all the broadcast work onto wards, and I've personally never seen it work well.

Curious. In our stake the wards are doing their own. The STS (me) wasn't involved except to get them to work out some bugs getting them connected.

But then, I'm not sure what they're using. My ward is using YouTube.

[joeneuman]

As I studied 29.7 it became less clear what is meant in the letter when it says:

"Zoom has been approved as the tool for conducting local broadcasts and has
built-in settings to ensure users are following principles outlined in the General
Handbook"

What principles are they referring to? If anything I can see how using Zoom will make following the principles more difficult.

1) Are essential workers or otherwise required to work on the Sabbath.
Stream recordings of ward and stake meetings should be deleted within one day after the meeting.

How will we accommodate these members if the broadcast is not recorded?

2) Streams and virtual meetings should not distract from the Spirit. Generally, only one device should be used to capture the meeting. Both the device and the person using it should be inconspicuous.

Right now we don't use a computer to do our broadcasts. We use a video encoder and stream directly without drawing any attention to the person holding a handheld remote. Someone pushes "ON AIR" in the morning and the stream just goes through all 3 sacrament meetings. Using Zoom we would need to use a computer and monitor the meeting to make sure it's working and hope the computer doesn't crash. Each ward would need to individually come in early connect a computer, log in, and start the Zoom meeting and then break it down after each ward.