Streaming encoders at Lancaster Bible College (Lancaster, PA) handle the critical step between video production and online delivery.
Since late 2019, the percentage of churches streaming in some form or fashion has risen from 32% to over 90%. Most churches stream every service, but do techs and volunteers really understand what is happening in the encoder? It just works… until it doesn’t. A better understanding of encoding can lead to better decisions on the front end—to avoid problems—and in troubleshooting when problems show up. It also empowers tech teams to improve reliability, quality, and stewardship of resources while reaching the world with their message online.
What Is Encoding, Really?
Encoding bridges the gap between the AV content being produced in the church and the streaming platform on the internet. A simple live streaming flow is:
Camera → Switcher → Encoder → Internet → Platform → Viewer
This highlights the difference between video production and video delivery. Video production involves the cameras and the switcher, while video delivery is what happens after the switcher. How is the content being delivered to the audience? For many churches, one channel of delivery is a projection screen or LED wall. Another could be a closed video system to a café or children’s ministry. And another could be an encoder for delivery to a live streaming platform. One video production system; many delivery channels.
One way to think about the encoder is like an electrical transformer. Your house is not connected directly to the high-powered electric lines running down the street. The transformer takes that power and makes it compatible with your home’s capabilities (not to mention avoiding killing you and your family). The encoder provides this critical transformation for our video signal.
Why Encoding Exists at All
For the sake of our discussion, I’m going to base my examples on 1920x1080 resolution. Uncompressed, this video signal would require about 1.5 Gbps in bandwidth. I think it’s safe to say that most churches could not support uploading sustained 1.5 Gbps on their internet connection, let alone having that amount of data clogging up their internal network. This is why the encoder is so important. It takes that Niagara Falls of video data and reduces it to a manageable garden hose of about 5 Mbps. For those keeping track, that’s about 0.33% of the original bandwidth. This is what makes live streaming possible.
An Encoder’s Job Is to Turn a Flood of Video Data into Something the Internet Can Actually Handle
Codecs, Containers, and Alphabet Soup
Encoding turns a “Niagara Falls” of video data into a garden hose-sized stream suitable for live streaming.
Behind this conversion is a CODEC. The CODEC contains the instructions for compressing and decompressing the video signal. The two most popular for our purposes are H.264 and the newer, more efficient H.265. While H.265 is objectively better, many encoders still use H.264 because not every device and platform is compatible with H.265 yet. We will continue to see greater adoption of H.265 over time due to its quality and efficiency advantages.
Once the encoder has created the compressed data, it needs a way to send it to the streaming platform. The most ubiquitous protocol is RTMP (real-time messaging protocol), but there are newer, more robust protocols like SRT (secure reliable transport) and RSP (resilient streaming protocol) that work better on unstable networks like the public internet. The platform you choose will most likely determine the protocol you need to use. Understanding the reliability and stability of your bandwidth and internet connection can help you determine the right platform and protocol for your environment.
The other factors that you can control based on your environment are resolution, frame rate, and bitrate. The resolution and frame rate of your stream will first be based on your video system. If you are shooting in 1080p30, there is no reason to stream in 4K60. However, you may decide to stream at a lower resolution and frame rate to lower your bitrate. The bitrate, as alluded to above, is a measure of the amount of data being sent per second. It correlates with quality, but it’s important to understand that the higher the resolution and frame rate, the higher the bitrate needs to be to achieve the same quality as video at a lower resolution and frame rate. So, all these factors need to be balanced with the available bandwidth of your network and internet connection. Bitrate follows the law of diminishing returns. Small increases in bitrate at the low end will make significant improvements in quality, but large increases at the high end may not be noticed at all.
A Slightly Lower Bitrate That’s Stable Will Always Outperform a Higher Bitrate That Drops Frames
What about your audience? How are they watching the stream? If most of your audience is watching on a phone, 4K60 at the highest possible bitrate is not necessary. However, if you have a house church watching on an 80-inch display, perhaps a higher quality stream is warranted.
Hardware vs. Software Encoders
Hardware encoders are dedicated devices designed to do one job well. They’re stable, predictable, and ideal for volunteer-driven environments. Once configured, they often run for years with minimal intervention. Some have physical buttons on them to start and stop streaming and recording, but today, all will have a web-based interface to change settings and operate the device remotely.
Software encoders run on computers (a well-known example: OBS). They’re flexible, powerful, and cost-effective, but they also depend on operating systems, updates, background processes, and user discipline. A poorly timed system update could mean no streaming. Neither option is always the right one. The best choice depends on your budget, streaming platform, skill level, and tolerance for complexity.
Where Most Church Streams Break
While upgrading cameras, lighting, and audio can certainly help quality, many streaming problems are on the other side of the encoder. A stable internet connection is key, and upload speeds matter tremendously more than download speeds. Many internet service providers advertise their download speeds in big, bold numbers and hide their comparatively low upload speeds. It is much better to use a lower bitrate that your connection can sustain reliably than a higher bitrate that causes instability in your stream.
It is also important to keep in mind that you are sharing your network with every other device connected to it, including all those using your public Wi-Fi connection. This brings up two relevant tips. First, never use Wi-Fi to connect your encoder to the network/internet; use a wired connection. Second, have your IT director carve out some dedicated bandwidth for the stream. This will give priority to the stream if the network is congested.
Bitrate follows the law of diminishing returns: early increases improve quality quickly, while higher bitrates deliversmaller, less noticeable gains.
Practical Wins
Knowing how encoding works helps you understand what matters most. This aids in prioritizing future purchasing, troubleshooting problems, communicating with IT and vendors, and delivering a more consistent streaming experience for the online audience. More importantly, it can reduce stress by clearing up what you can control and what is out of your control. It also helps to inform volunteers what is safe to touch and what is off-limits without asking them to get an engineering degree.
Like so many things in church tech, most people don’t think about encoding until it isn’t working. No one applauds a stable bitrate or a clean RTMP feed. But without encoding, the church’s message has a hard time reaching beyond the doors of the church. You don’t need to be an engineer to understand encoding—but understanding it makes you a better steward of the tools God has entrusted to you and your church.
