Computer, Cell phone, or Tablet

• See videos below: Best solution is probably a cell phone up at the front pew . Using Google Meet (see casting info and change as of Oct 1, 2020. A google Meet app is available on both the Android and iPhone platform.

• laptop and a Web cam - most wards who have been doing this outside of our stake, have been using an HD Web Cam that connects via USB port on the computer. The webcam typically comes with an HD - Compressed Microphone built in and so the Video and Audio sync's up perfectly. However, after testing (see video below) the Mic compresses ambient sounds around and gives a directional audio capture straight on from the camera but the compressing has a hard time because it gets confused with the large room echoing and thinks the audio coming over the speakers is ambient noise yet not. We used it in the High Council room at one end and you could hear people at the far opposite end of that room, clearly. If you use a Laptop, I would suggest using an Audio input on your laptop with a 3.5mm cable coming from the 3.5mm jack Output of system audio that is built in at the rostrum or sacrament table. At the Stake Center the 3.5mm plug is under the sacrament table closest to the door to the stake offices. At the Meridian Building and the Heritage Stake building, the 3.5mm audio out is on the side of the podium and is marked as OUT - just don't make cables a tripping hazard and should be tested to make sure your Input on your laptop and phone will work with this.

• Laptops may have fan noise because taking videos and streaming them live require a lot of power and processing speed. It will generate heat and the laptop fan will probably run full speed for some of the time

• Cell phones have good audio and video quality if they are close enough to the subject. Don't place a phone on the podium - nobody wants to look up a person's nose as they talk (see video below).

• The stake has a Projector stand that can be used in helping prop up a phone or laptop, but it still will be below the speaker - so if you are on the side, it is fine to be below the speaker at the pulpit because you aren't inches away from them, perhaps to the side of the Second Center Pew where you are sitting right next to it to control.

• Use a tripod for cameras that you may have. There are cell phone holders that will mount to a tripod. NOTE: that would be the only, and cheap enough expense that someone should be willing to donate to the cause, but that would be all you need.

• Internet Speeds:

  • Stake Center - Cox Internet - 50G down and 10G up

  • Meridian - Cox Internet - 25G down and 5G up (try to cast in 720p for best solution)

  • Heritage Stake center - 100G down and 20G up

• The location where you broadcast must be secure and not open to the entire world - Use passcodes and special event codes that everyone needs to use in order to get into the broadcast

• The use of Facebook and Instagram for live broadcasting has some dangers as well as can exclude people, as well as start some things that an older person who isn't on Facebook or Instagram may not want on their phone - even security issues.

• If you have a GMail account, you can broadcast to YouTube - but you MUST do the broadcast in UNLISTED mode - which requires the web address to that broadcast to be sent out and that is the only way people can see the broadcast - see info about YouTube below

• In the Church Tech forums, early on, people were experiencing Bombing when not using a secure way of broadcasting - basically using an open forum - Zoom was one that took a hit, but also if you don't turn off comments, people get a hold of the links and start typing horrible things in the "Chat" Lock it down and shut it off

• A video will be "Washed" out if the camera has a light shining directly into the camera of the laptop or phone - Avoid the angle of the device to have light directly shining into the lens

  • USB Web Cams are able to minimize that washing affect

• Try to avoid having the curtains on the sides of the chapel in the camera angle - the lens will focus and adjust on the brightness coming through - use the blinders in the curtains to minimize light.

• It is Okay not to turn on 100% of the lights - especially on the rostrum - Don't make it dark and don't turn off all the lights, but notice there are the speaker spot lights - they don't do anything when every other light is turned on, but they do put a nice light on the person at the pulpit if some of the can or larger lights are off - test and see what the Bishop is comfortable with. Don't have too many lights off, your camera will adjust and you will see a "noisy" or grainy video on broadcast.

• The stake provided a broadcast for 2 wards whose bishopric's were reorganized just before our stake conference. During that time we put a picture of Christ on the screen and muted the audio. So it was silent but the picture was there so they knew the broadcast didn't stop or they thought there were problems - less of a headache for you.

• If you use a Bluetooth microphone, please test to make sure it syncs up with you video you broadcast

• Put your phone on Airplane Mode - so you don't get texts or phone calls that will show up on the feed during your broadcast

• Make sure your phone is fully charged

• The Church suggests if a phone is used, put it on a tripod and as close to the height of the person speaking as possible and off to the side, not directly on where the phone or tripod can get bumped or causes a problem with passing the sacrament or gaining access to the phone while trying to block the video and audio of the Blessing and passing of the sacrament.

• The phone will need to be closer than a laptop because the mic isn't as good as a USB web cam

• Look at the Streaming services tab below for some good videos

• A 1080p webcast takes a minimum of 5Mbps - which is most of the available bandwidth at a church house - which is also being used by all members connected to the WiFi in the building. 720 takes just under 2Mbps and is still considered a great picture. The church should not reimburse for data used on cell phones - put the phone into Airplane Mode and use the WiFi in the building

• If the phone screen is facing the audience, put some paper over the screen so it doesn't distract from the meeting to members in the pews. The phone Camera on the back of the phone is much better than the camera facing the person if you are looking at the screen.

• Use a Web Cam. Logitech has 720p and 1080p cameras (if you have them already - don't go buying any) but most of your online HD content should be at 720p to not require too much web bandwidth to broadcast. Logitech is just one brand, we are not saying you Must have a Logitech - that brand has been a solid brand in the past. Many, if not most, "Off Brands" or many of the available cameras you find on Amazon like Wansview, Ehome, Aukey, Nexigo - and many more - there is no experience with these and many people complain about the mic or quality of the camera, be careful - but don't go out and buy one. The Logitech, Microsoft and brands that don't have cut up names that "sound" like a function or webcam are much better to use. We used a Logitech C615 1080p webcam - USB camera in the High Council room at one end and it picked up audio at the other end of the room perfectly - that is an awesome webcam. Again, Zero cost, someone should have a camera to use.

• Use a laptop with as much memory - no less than 8GB - preferably 16Gigabytes with an Intel i5 or i7 or equivalent Mac laptop.

• Depending on the length of the USB cable to the Webcam, put your laptop at a different location and use a tripod to hold the web cam up. This will give you better control over starting and stopping without disruption to the members in the chapel.

• Use a USB extension cable - USB A Extension - a 6 foot cable should give you plenty of distance.

• Streaming takes a lot of processing power - meaning battery life, when streaming, is nothing like real life use of your laptop. You had better plug it in to power. A fully charged laptop that with normal use would last up to 7 hours, just may not make a 1 hour streaming broadcast. But you know your laptop, if you feel comfortable using it on battery for the 1 hour broadcast, that is your decision.

In all casting services, you typically have to start the broadcast or set up the broadcast in order to get a web address to send out for the stream - meaning someone needs to start and send out the link to the cast moments before the meeting starts - so you need to be prepared with lists for people and an email. Think about what technology people have and don't assume they know how to use it. You need to apply the KISS method and then add another KISS level to it as well (KISS - Keep it simple stupid, some are a bit more "PC" and say Keep it simple silly - an acronym used across many business environments). In the Church and Professional environments for the Tech Team, we use all but Facebook to broadcast different things from time to time, but for Official Church broadcasts like Stake Conference we use the Church's Webcast system. This is not available for ward broadcasts. Depending on your skill level and familiarity with the platform, will probably depend on what you want to use, but remember make it easy for those at home.

Zoom will be a great service

Google Meet is a great and can schedule before Sunday

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YouTube: When broadcasting, Select Web Cam Stream when you go into Live broadcasting. You won't need a streaming computer or a really expensive encoding device with an RTMP stream URL and stream code (way above your pay grade) Select Web Cam stream for both phone and laptop use. YouTube will save all videos streamed, please go into the creators studio and "Delete forever" selection to remove the video - Videos are completely wiped and no longer stored in YouTube or in your channel. I would suggest if you don't have a Gmail account for the person who is in charge of this in your ward, to create a generic one - remember - this is temporary and you can delete the account when the church tells us that we no longer can broadcast sacrament services.

YouTube: Unlimited broadcast time

How To video: https://youtu.be/Xka4OLgzW9Q Note: it is referenced that you need 1000 subscribers to the channel - that is a requirement to be able to use your phone, you don't need 1 single subscriber to stream from a computer. Encourage for members to NOT subscribe and reiterate many times that this is a temporary situation and should not be subscribed to.

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Zoom:

When broadcasting you use a Web Cam or phone to send your video. Make sure as the presenter of the meeting you set the settings to MUTE All Microphones and video cameras. This puts it in a Webcast mode rather than a meeting mode. Experience shows that if you don't, someone coughs all of the sudden EVERYONE sees that person sitting there looking at themselves for a few seconds. In another ward in the valley tried doing a Fast and Testimony meeting in a Zoom meeting early on in the Covid lock down and the older people would say "I can't hear anything," and didn't know how to turn up their volume and be talking to someone in the room to help them turn up the volume, all the time they are being seen because their microphone was on which puts them to the front of the pictures for everyone there to see and watch - a Complete disaster and the spirit of the meeting was not close to being there - that ward has yet to attempt to do another broadcast.

Do not turn on "record meeting"

Zoom: Free version of Zoom is limited to 45 minutes total - plan on how you will do this broadcast

How to video: https://youtu.be/s5VU8cmEnTs

Another that the Church uses as an example: https://youtu.be/bTSJ0YDoF7o

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Facebook: Suggestion is to use the Facebook Business page - otherwise everyone needs to be friends of the person who this is broadcasting through and then all of their friends will get a notice that your ward is going live , they may get bothered. If you don't already have a ward Facebook Business Page, set one up and use that account to broadcast, ward members can search and follow - be careful, anyone can search out your business page for the ward and attach into them. Turn off any comments - people should not be commenting during a broadcast. You can have people "Turn On Notifications" so they will be automatically notified that you are live. Remember, ALL of your people in your ward who are at home and allowed to see these, need to be in Facebook. Plus if a member of the ward who should be at the building decides to go to the Facebook page, they can stay home and watch Church from there. This is the least controlled way of broadcasting.

When you are finished, DELETE the broadcasted video - forever. However, in Facebook, if you delete something, they still have it. Use the Facebook Manager App to set this up on your phone

Facebook: approx 90 minute broadcast time

How to video: https://youtu.be/fUUIzNJ2BA8

Another Video about how other church's set up on Facebook with tips: https://youtu.be/aNcIFnx67ys

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Google Meet (Meet.google.com) - ***This Platform is the Best one to use for this need - Unlimited time and real easy to click on a link and get into for the users***

Update: October 1, 2020 - Google announced they will not limit Meet meetings until March 31, 2021 - so Google Meet is still unlimited in time and meetings one can use on the free and paid versions that would have been affected by this change. After September 30, 2020 Google will be dialing back the free access to Meet to be better than Zoom but not too much. Google Meet is a simple way of getting a broadcast up and even scheduling in advance. You will just need to do a Group or a set of contacts that are for home-bound people, where it is easy for you to go to the Google Calendar and setup a Meet broadcast - even setup reoccurring scheduled Sunday meetings and the code to access will be sent out in your Invite to those members through the calendar. You have the ability then to stop the cast so everyone sits there waiting for you to come back in while the Sacrament is being passed and then resume the broadcast when it is time to start back up. Google Meet is a simple and nice way of setting up a broadcast. I would suggest if you don't have a Gmail account for the person who is in charge of this in your ward, to create a generic one - remember - this would be a temporary and you can delete the account when the church tells us that we no longer can broadcast sacrament services.

Google Meet: 60 Minute broadcast time UNLIMITED Broadcast Time

How to video: https://youtu.be/CY_oyeg5UXk

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The church put out a letter about casting other meetings at the ward level

In that letter they mention the use of the Church's Webcast system and this is assuming the special casting equipment that is required to encrypt the broadcast in a way they can decrypt it to send to members is as if how they build buildings today. Stake Centers today have the wiring and capabilities in place that allow for access to equipment much easier than we have in the Stake Center and Meridian Buildings. However, the Stake Presidency does not want the use of that equipment in part because then it basically will require the need to be close to the equipment and since your phone or laptop isn't close enough and there is a limitation on the length of HDMI cable connectivity, the use of much more expensive and the non-use of your laptop or phone then gets us into using the full stake broadcast system for broadcasting your services. I refer the Bishops back to the instruction they were given by the Stake Presidency on how they wish these broadcasts to work.