There is a fair amount of material on the web for streaming a worship service. Besides doing a podcast for those who want to listen anytime, we have set a goal for ourselves to be able to audio stream, and possibly video stream the service. I would appreciate some suggestions, guidelines, and/or a procedure on how to set this up. D. Klein http://www.sussexcrc.org/

Were can I find guidelines and procedures for streaming worship services?
Posted On
February 9, 2010Updated On
January 16, 2012Let's Discuss…

Hi Duane,
Our church too is starting the research for the tools, software, and methods to stream live audio and video on the web. We are also reworking our website (not evident on line as yet) so that it is more of a a portal to our community of faith and would like to include podcasts and RSS feeds.
Our technology budget is not large and so we are trying to get the most for the least.
If you don't mind, could we share our research so that each of us doesn't have to spend inordinate amounts of time on this phase?
Thanks,
Greg B
Third CRC Administrator
www.third-church.org
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Be sure to check into Ustream.tv (or Watershed, their ad-free paid version) or LiveStream. The latter is what we've used for the Synod webcast the past couple of years.
Both are easy to use and have free versions. So you can just sign up and test it out with your camera. If you have a USB-enabled camera that will stream (my 6-year old Sony camcorder does it, so I imagine many do), you can try it out at home before trying to figure out how to patch in the church audio, etc.
Both allow for recording content and downloading it after it's been recorded. If you decide to use a paid service and the archive hosting fees are too expensive, consider downloading and re-uploading to a different service (we use Blip.tv for the Synod archives for that reason).
Ustream even allows you to webcast from your iPhone. My dad did this for a funeral so that overseas family could 'attend'. Sounds crazy, I know, but to those people it meant the world.
Any other churches using Ustream for their services?
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We have just started streaming our services via Ustream. We are fortunate in that we have a Tricaster Pro into which we feed video from 3 cameras, PowerPoint slides from the projection computer and sound from the sound board. The Tricaster makes mixing all these inputs feasible. The Tricaster also uses Adobe Flash Media Encoder to stream live to Ustream.
Our experience with Ustream has been good so far. The stream has ads on the lower part of the screen occasionally but they haven't been too obtrusive.
Some of our shut-ins have quickly grown fond of the streaming feature of our web site and have asked us to please continue doing it.
One of our challenges is dealing with copyright issues. Special music often uses pre-recorded accompaniment. We are still researching ways to deal with that.
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I would be interested in what you find out about the copyright issue. Currently we record the entire service but cut out the sermon, for posting on the web. The only reason is because of copy right challenges. If anyone has more info in regards to this, I would love to hear about it.
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I'm not too familiar with the details of webcast licensing, but here's a helpful link:
http://www.christiancopyrightsolutions.com/dn2/pt/blog/default.aspx?id=8...
...from the people who sell WorshipCast. I couldn't find anything on CCLI's site about it, which seems strange.
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To be honest, it is still not clear to me ho the laws work and it may be different in USA compared to Canada, which where we are. Currently we record the entire service. Members can get a copy on CD/tape/mp3 upon request. The sermon part is posted on the internet. We currently do not post the entire service behind username/password anylonger and it seems to be OK. I am to afraid to run in to trouble with copyrights etc. You can see it at www.fellowship-church.ca
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Hey guys, What your talking about is fair-use of copyrighted materials. YOU ACTUALLY HAVE A LOT OF LATITUDE with fair -use. Go to wikipedia under fair- use it explains how it works in the USA and Canada. Basic rules are not written in stone, but are based on common sense. Wikipedia is completely free so Quote away.
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If your not streaming to the public and it is for educational pupose, it is ok. People also don't look good going after church;s with lawsuits. By the way has anybody questioned the need for copyrights for material that is supposedly designed to help people find Jesus? I'm sure glad God didn;t copyright the Bible.
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I'm curious if anyone's tried converting a CCTV feed for internet streaming. We've got a CC camera in the back of the sanctuary. Right now I'm looking at using a Viewcast Osprey 100 for capturing the composite video and Flash Media Encode to encode it for Ustream.
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Kyle - You may want to check out LiveStream, particularly for it's Procaster tool that handles encoding from a wide range of devices. Here's the user guide. LiveStream is what we've used for the Synod webcast for the past couple of years.
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Yeah, I had Livestream in my "you need to check this out" set of browser tabs after your previous post :-) Sure looks pretty awesome - can't wait to give it a try!
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CCLI now offers a streaming/podcasting license for worship. The license seems pretty reasonable.
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Are there any legal issues regarding streaming live video on-line without first receiving some sort of waiver form? I do not know what the proper protocals are, but I have heard that many Christian schools do not post pictures of children in their newsletters until their parents have signed some sort of liability waiver or permission form. Anyone know details?
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Question: Are there any 'template' vision, mission, policy, procedure, legality, guideline etc. documents out there regarding the whole area of worship service audio-video recording and web streaming (did I miss anything!)?
We'd love to hear from you!!
Ray
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Are there any guidelines or policy regarding privacy regarding live stream, video or photo on church website
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