At its most basic, internet streaming is about taking an audio feed and a video feed, using an encoder to convert them to a format streamable over the internet, then getting that feed to a service provider who will host your videos in ways that people can easily access them. That's the short version. The variety happens in how you capture the feed, how you convert it and what host you choose.
Making decisions about encoders and streaming providers
The Moody Church in Chicago recently went through a redesign of its streaming process. “We started audio streaming in 1999 and have been streaming video since 2003,” explains Michael Arman, the church's technical coordinator. “But two years ago, when the church went through a complete rebuild of its website, we took the opportunity to reevaluate. We were with a content delivery provider that was fantastic, but they were expensive. We wanted to take the opportunity to explore different technologies.”
Moody Church hired 5Q Communications in Atlantic, Iowa—a virtual company that specializes in churches and parachurch organizations. 5Q introduced the Moody Church to Amazon's Web Services (AWS) and they decided to test drive the service because of the huge cost savings.
“You pay only for the loads that you use,” Arman clarifies, “which greatly reduces the operating costs. We're paying 85% less than we were with the content delivery network.”
A content delivery network or content distribution network (CDN) is a system of servers containing copies of data placed at various nodes of a network. The tradeoff in using a CDN or another streaming provider is usually about distance. The more hubs the provider has, the shorter the distance to get from the server to the person at their computer (or handheld). Moody chose to stream from Amazon's server farm in Virginia—since that was the closest location to Chicago. They determined to evaluate this setup over six months to see if there were any issues. For Moody, the switch produced little negative feedback. So Moody deliberately keeps the church's streaming lean (300k and 500k video streams) with a 22k audio stream for parts of the world that are still on dial-up.
At the same time, Arman chose to upgrade the encoder. “We had been running a Windows media encoder from a PC [that] wasn't very volunteer-friendly,” he says. “We liked the idea of having an appliance with a smaller footprint instead of another computer in the booth. We tested out a number of demo units and chose Digital Rapids TouchStream. It was easy to install and has a nice graphic overlay. We appreciated the Touchscreen user interface and the elimination of logging into a computer.”
Arman continues, “I'm glad we had the opportunity with the web redesign to look through our whole process and catch up on the new technologies that are compatible with portable devices. I was not an ex- pert when we started this. We relied on 5Q to coach us on what was out there; I gave input on the user aspect and it was a good partnership. [I] would not have wanted to try this on my own at all.”
A distributed approach for a distributed church
“There are a couple of reasons that we stream media,” explains Nathan Clark, director of digital innovation at Northland, A Church Distributed in Longwood, Fla. “Philosophically, we don't think it makes that much sense to tell people that church is a place you go. In the Bible, the church is defined as God's people. So then it only makes sense that our wor- ship services would be accessible no matter where you are.”
Predating its online services, Northland had been capturing video for IMAG and archival purposes. “Much of what you see online is the same thing you would see at our locations. The difference is in the way we distribute,” Clark clarifies.
“If you have 1,000 people watching a 1MB live video, that's 1GB in bandwidth to supply. We let the CDN handle the infra- structure to handle that traffic,” explains Clark. “Their infrastructure also reduces latency for our international congregation. If someone is in Egypt, they can connect to a video signal coming from Europe, which is more stable than one from America would be. That's another big reason we use a CDN for the worship service.”
And he adds, “We also serve handheld content through a Wowza Media Server 2 (beta). We liked the quality, the ease- of-use and the flexibility. Even more, we wanted to avoid using a traditional server, plus, Wowza works really well with Amazon's Web Services. Amazon Web Services allow you to tap into the massive server structures that power technology as advanced and robust as amazon.com—for a fraction of the cost of a local server or dedicated host.”
Launching an internet campus
“We are blessed to have a decent footprint when it comes to social networks between our staff and members of our church,” explains Stephen Brewster of Cross Point Church in Nashville, Tenn. “We wanted to do something unique to us, to meet the expectation that we felt exists.”
Cross Point's staff began the conversations in brainstorming meetings as they programmed the experience. As a team, they determined what they wanted it to feel like, look like and how they wanted to engage people. The next step was to determine how they could resource and equip themselves to do that within their space “We knew where our strengths were and where out limitations were,” says Brewster. “Content creation is what we do week to week, but we needed to hire in expertise to handle the technology. We connected with Clark [formerly Clark ProMedia] out of Atlanta and went down for the day to cast the vision. They, in turn, helped us equip and develop a plan.”
Clark retrofitted Cross Point's existing space with a combination of rental and permanent gear—including the construction of a studio space in the church's backstage green room equipped with two digital SLR cameras with video capabilities. This non-traditional camera system provided the church with broadcast-level video recording at a fraction of the cost. A local electrical contractor was called upon for expertise in securing local resources and labor—a move that proved both efficient and cost-effective.
“We try to be good stewards of finance. We created our experience on a thin budget,” adds Brewster.
Cross Point uses a Kulabyte streaming system and is currently partnered with 316 Media as a streaming provider.
“The results of launching the campus have been super positive,” Brewster shares. “One thing that we do unique to our space is a live Q&A with the communicator that immediately follows the message. We started streaming in the evening—when there is less traffic. After every service, the communicator will sit down in the studio we've built in the back and answer the questions that come up in the chat and on Facebook and Twitter. Community is a big part of our DNA. We needed something more than just responding in text chat. The response to that 15 to 20 minute segment has been amazing.”
The difference between internet streaming and streaming to another campus (multi-site)
“The biggest difference in streaming for an Internet campus and streaming to another site is in the quality and reliability needed for the live experience,” explains Jason McKelvey of Acoustic Dimensions in Dallas, Texas. “In the early days of multi-site campuses, the only choice was ‘sneaker net.' A Saturday evening service was recorded, put on tape or hard drives and driven to the other campuses. This was very hard on the communicator, because they couldn't reference the day, time of day, or, in some cases, even events of the week.
“When the distance between sites and budget allow for it, fiber is a great solution,” McKelvey continues. “Fiber between two sites allows for the video, audio and communications to be converted and sent without quality loss or delay, bi-directionally. However, this solution is dependent on the availability of a fiber path or existing dark fiber to rent, because laying dedicated fiber is extremely expensive.”
McKelvey adds, “Fortunately, video encoder manufacturers are now producing low-bit-rate, low-latency, point-to-point hardware devices [rack-mount pieces] that connect remote campuses at a quality much higher than using your standard streaming service.”
Note that in point-to-point, you aren't using a streaming provider, the stream is carried via your Internet provider to the other campus. You have to make sure you have the bandwidth to ensure quality.
Does it ever fail?
“There are a lot of possible points of failure,” explains Clark. “If tech goes down in your room, people know it went down. But if the stream fails for people who are watching, people don't know why. Is it you, or them? There is no way to close the feedback loop.”
“It is not uncommon to need to call your streaming provider,” adds McKelvey. “You have to keep that in mind when working with volunteers to ensure they know who to call and how to resolve issues. These are typically the same types of issues you would encounter with Internet or cable service at your home. Bandwidth drops at peak times. Sometimes, you can ‘buy your way out of that,' but it can be expensive.”
Things to consider before streaming
“Technology for technology's sake is such a dangerous game, because you are never going to finish. If newest and best is the goal, then you won't reach it,” comments Clark. “I encourage you to define success. If the entire experience is anonymous,
is that a success? If there are 3, 30, 300, 3,000 people? We've had people start house churches, find new faith, and have their faith strengthened. There are inmates who connect every single week and have church together. We welcome them by name in the services and let them know we are glad they are worshipping with us. There are lots of measurements.”
Arman highlights, “As far as whether or not to stream, one big question that comes to my mind is legality. Churches need to make sure they procure the proper licensing to legally stream many parts of a church service—especially the music. There is no inherent provision with a standard CCLI license that covers Internet broadcasting, whether it is live or on demand. There are some great resources that can provide ‘blanket' licensing for that. Christian Copyright Solutions is the one we work with. Another issue is making the congregation aware that they will be streaming live if you plan to include shots of the audience. Consider creating ‘no show' zones that people can sit in where cameras will never cover. And note that if children are a part of the service in any way, you may need parental waivers to al- low a child to be on the stream.”
Brewster adds, “Make sure you figure out exactly what you are trying to accomplish and articulate that very clearly to your partners—and stay diligent. It really is like building any other campus. Though the Internet feels less tangible, you will have consistent attenders, visitors and community there. You have to approach this with the same intentionality as a physical campus, then stay connected.”
