I’ve been asked to help set up a broadcasting session for a weekly church meeting (a sacrament meeting but without the sacrament part, just talks and prayer). This is just a temporary measure during these COVID-19 times. I know there are a lot of other churches out there that do regular weekly broadcasts, and even record them. But our policy is to avoid that in favor of in-person meetings… usually.

For this project, there are three requirements
– live broadcast only (not recorded)
– easy to use (avoid login accounts)
– limited and controlled distribution (not trying to broadcast to the world, just for our local congregation)

My own requirement is that the setup should be simple enough that I can explain it to someone else and they can replicate it so I can go on vacation.

NOTE: If you don’t need all the details and just want a summary, skip to the end.

Due to current COVID-19 regulations, there can be a live audience but no more than 100 people in Oregon gatherings (as of August 2020, and the numbers keep changing). Our usual attendance ranged from 150 to 180, so depending on how much interest there is we would be splitting things up.

Audio

Fortunately, the building had an update a few years ago and there is an audio output on the side of the podium. So we can use the mic on the podium (or other xlr mics can be plugged in to the system) and it should play out through the standard sized 3.5mm line out. The catch is, I _think_ the plug is a female mono line out, but many newer laptops have gone to just having a single 3.5mm port that combines stereo audio out with a mono mic in for a stereo headset. So we might need a splitter cable to make it work (and ideally a line in rather than running it in to a mic in 😛 )

I checked the laptop I intend to use (and a couple others) and they just have the new combined port like many do now – TRRS style with two stereo out and one mic in. Unfortunately that means I need a splitter to allow using a patch cable to hook the line out from the podium to a mic in on the laptop. I picked one on Amazon for about $6 and ordered two.

I looked for a quick reference on audio jacks. Found https://www.headphonesty.com/2019/04/headphone-jacks-plugs-explained/ but it is a little ad-heavy.

Update: didn’t get that to work well. The splitter I bought didn’t work, and I returned it. The other ward tried, got some audio and it sounded bad. If I’d had access to the wiring for the stage I might have tried harder, but I think it all runs through a locked cabinet so I have no way to verify wiring. Back in Halo, we would occasionally have audio trouble and I developed a policy to check the wires first before worrying about the software part. My solution was to use the microphone built in to the webcam, which has been simple and reliable.

Update (November-ish): The other ward didn’t get the built in microphone in the webcam to work with their laptop. Might be a driver issue. I also found that the webcam didn’t work well with a 6+ foot extension USB cable – I could get audio or video but not both. Fortunately with my Win 10 laptop it works fine when plugged in directly.

Video

Even though most laptops have built in cameras (and mics for that matter), most are garbage. An external camera can have better optics and higher resolution. Also, an external camera can be positioned at a good height and angle. I am thinking a webcam of at least 1080 resolution with a 6 foot or longer cord would help. It may help to also position the camera 6 inches up from the podium and at the right or left corner rather than straight on, to be a little more natural. Most webcams are optimized for being about arm’s length away from the speaker, and that would be about where the corner of the height-adjustable podium is.

Update: I made the choice to mount the camera on the corner of the podium. There were a couple reasons. One was that the microphones on the camera work better when closer. Another was that I prefer the framing to center on the speaker and get them as large in the stream as possible. It doesn’t matter what the stage or podium looks like, so I intentionally left that out. Some people may prefer a view that includes more of the stage, like if the camera was on a tripod on the first row. But if the remote audience is watching through a small device like a phone, then having the camera zoomed out will make the speaker even smaller. My years in telepresense taught that the closer to life-size a person is then the more engagement you will have between speaker and audience (i.e. people will pay more attention and not let their minds wander).

Encoding

We need a laptop to connect to the internet and encode the streams. There is an RJ45 Ethernet connection on the side of the podium, so that should help reduce latency and other issues.

Streaming service

There are a lot of choices here, so I need to do a bit of digging. Requirements are to prevent recording, allow enough participants, not require an account to get access and thus be easy to use, not require a client installation, and of course reliability.

• Zoom – the option-of-the-year for video conferencing. We have access to a paid account that would allow up to 99 participants and can be configured to not allow recording (need to verify). The paid account also allows longer meetings. Users can have an account and install a client, but can also participate from just a browser window.
• YouTube – Need to look in to live streaming options. No account required.
• Jitsi.org – free and pretty easy. Not sure about limits on number of users (read 75 but experience suffers over 35). Will need to check on recording restrictions.
• Facebook Meetings – Requires Facebook accounts to participate, which some people don’t have.

Not on the list – Google Meet, GoToMeeting (paid), BlueJeans (paid). May consider using a password to help keep the meetings small (Jitsi supports passwords). We could also consider ‘live streaming’ apps (Jitsi can live stream to YouTube through a Google account).

Retrospective from Aug 23 (update)

I think it is worth writing down what worked for us this week.

We used Zoom and sent out a link through email and Facebook the day before. I configured the meeting so that anyone joining would have audio muted and video muted. I disabled chat too, to avoid distractions. I may have missed a setting though, or Zoom was just messing up, as at some point during the meeting one participant kept popping to the main window instead of the speaker, but that was only temporary.

The camera we bought worked well. I went with the Vitade webcam as it had two microphones, high resolution, and auto-focus. The mics worked well to pick up the prelude organ music, though a little too well early on when it was picking up a lot of chatter from the chapel before the meeting started.

Unfortunately, I don’t think there is much that could be done about the webcam picking up chapel chatter before the meeting. I had hoped the dual microphones on the webcam which claimed some echo cancellation would be more directional. People often have the idea that you can block sound, but on a scale this small it is difficult to do anything but slightly muffle it. So the simplest approach is to ask those in the chapel to be reverent before the meeting.

Reportedly the auto-focus was a little too active on the first speaker but better on the second. I’m not sure what could have been done for that, as it could have been caused by the speaker moving a bit or maybe by the camera trying to focus on the microphone. The cheaper model of the camera had a fixed focus, but I didn’t pick that as I didn’t want to try to adjust things during the meeting

In addition to the camera I took a personal Windows laptop with its power supply. I had an Ethernet cable and a spare camera as well but didn’t use those. What I did use was a roll of blue painters tape. I used that to tape the camera to the right upper corner of the podium and the cord down the side. I also taped the power cord for the laptop down. The painter tape has the advantage of not damaging the finish on the wooden podium, though next time I would take scissors to avoid ragged rip lines.

Summary

A short checklist for what worked:

• Get a decent webcam with microphone
• Do a test meeting ahead to time to try out audio and camera angles
• Consider cord lengths. The webcam has a cord that is just long enough to reach down the side of the podium to the laptop, so consider a USB extension cord.
  • Also, grab some tape to manage cords. Blue painters tape works and won’t leave sticky stuff on the woodwork
• Check the Zoom settings for the meeting, and set as much ahead of time
  • The available settings in the zoom.com website are different than what you see in the Zoom client.
  • Go to zoom.com, sign in, then under Personal/Meetings for Upcoming meetings pick the scheduled meeting. This shows the Meeting ID and link for sharing
  • The Meeting view lists Meeting Options, but at the bottom is an “Edit this Meeting” button. On the Options page
    • For Video set Participant to “off”
    • For Meeting Options check the “Mute participants upon entry” (VERY IMPORTANT to reduce interruptions)
    • Suggest unchecking the “Enable join before host” and “Automatically record meeting”
    • We did not enable the Passcode or Waiting room options, which allowed participants to easily join
    • Consider adding Alternative Hosts if you want someone who isn’t sitting at the laptop to be able to manage the meeting
  • Once in the meeting, there are additional settings. On the bottom bar, look for the Security shield.
    • Lock Meeting (unchecked)
    • Enable Waiting Room (uncheck)
    • Share Screen (uncheck)
    • Chat (uncheck)
    • Rename Themselves
    • Unmute Themselves (uncheck)
  • Also in the meeting, you can open the sidebar for Participants and get an attendee count and see if anyone is unmuted or sharing their camera.
• Start the meeting early and let the attendees listen to the prelude music. Giving attendees a chance to connect before the start can work out some technical problems and avoid a bunch of panicked messages 5 minutes in to a meeting.
• Check the network. Fortunately the WiFi was good enough for this meeting, though if the Ethernet port had worked I would have used it.
• One more tip: have a moderator with the host account who can deal with issues, like muting someone who somehow join unmuted (that seems to be a Zoom quirk).
• (December addition) Start the meeting from a different device, like a phone. That device can use the same account and becomes the Host for the meeting and to act as the moderator. This allows that device to be elsewhere in the meeting (like in the audience) and to mute mics or turn off cameras for people who join and might inadvertently cause a disruption. This device can even unjoin the audio stream and mute its own camera to save bandwidth.

Update: I created another post for alternate meeting configurations that have started coming up, but will keep updating this post with ‘normal’ meeting information.