Re: Video streaming services for a church

[Douglas Handy <dhandy@xxxxxxxxx>]

Peter,

Wow, this is interesting: do you believe that is possible that we do not
> necessarily need to contract another company's services for this? Do you
> think it may be feasible that we can do this ourselves if we have the
> right software, a dedicated / good PC and the right bandwidth?  (just to
> mention few of the elements that we need, of course) ...

Yes, but "the right bandwidth" could be the killer here if you are trying to
stream directly from the church to the viewers.  Do you have any idea how
many concurrent viewers you might have?  You may need a fiber connection to
your ISP depending on your viewer volume and resolution(s) you offer.

I'd start by doing some simple math on what is possible given the bandwidth
you have available at the church, and then consider that volumes may go up
significantly once people realize it is available.  So make sure you can
upgrade your bandwidth, or have a plan for what to do when you saturate your
pipe.

Regarding elements you will need, do you use multiple cameras?  You may want
to consider a dedicated video mixer which can provide a real-time H.264
output stream then pass that to VLC or Quicktime Broadcaster or whatever.
The mixer we use at our church only feeds our projector and in-house CATV
coax as we don't do any broadcasting.  But I believe it also can do H.264
streaming output; we just don't use it.