Also, see article, “How to Live Stream Your Church Service for Free.”
North Valley Baptist Church was started in Santa Clara, California 34 years ago. The church is located in the center of the Silicon Valley. If you were to tell Pastor Trieber 34 years ago, he would be able to preach to people around the world LIVE, he would not have believed you. Yet now, 34 years later, he preaches to people around the globe – both live and throughout the week via archived video. The sun never sets on the ministry of North Valley Baptist Church. There are people watching the services, almost 24/7 and 365 days a year. We receive emails on a daily basis from people who watch our church services – To God be the Glory!
We have people regularly ask us how to set up a live streaming video ministry for their church. I hope to give you the basics of how to live stream your church service.
Equipment Needed to Live Stream and/or Record Your Church Services
In order to set up your auditorium, you will need some equipment. Here are the items you will need. I will list what equipment we use, you may use different types of equipment. This is just to give you an idea of what you need. There are much cheaper solutions for smaller churches. There is a PDF at the end of the article describing our old (cheaper) set up.
A Decent Computer
- We use: an Intel Core 2 Quad 3.2 GHz Processor with 2 GB of RAM running Windows XP
- This is free software for encoding the church service live. Window Media Video can be watched on both Mac and PC.
A Video Capture Card
- We use: the Aja Xena LHi (We use this because we work with an HD signal)
Video Cameras
- We use 3: (2) Panasonic HVX200 HD Cameras and (1) Sony HDR-FX1 Camera
- We use HD Cameras because we have HD LCDs in the auditorium we use as well.
Audio Input
- We mix our audio separately from the auditorium mix. We have a separate sound board for the internet video.
Streaming Server (if you are going to live stream your services)
- There are many different companies that would like your business. We have a man in our church that has set up a streaming server. He does a very good job for a very good price. He also does this for other churches. I can get you his contact info if you would like.
Video Mixing Board (if you have more than one camera)
- We use: the Edirol V-440HD (once again, we use this because of the HD signal)
(3) LCD Screens
- We use: (3) Samsung SyncMaster 215TW (one for the live streaming computer and two for the video mixer)
Setting Up Your Equipment to Live Stream Your Church Service
Below is a diagram of how to set up your auditorium for live streaming. Once again, you can change out the pieces. It doesn’t have to be exactly like our set up. If you want, you can have one camera and audio source and go directly to your encoding computer.
Church Live Streaming Diagram
Encode the Church Service Using Windows Media Player
Once you have the video and the audio hooked up to your encoding computer. Use Windows Media Player to encode your church services. We’ve found that around 300kbs is a good bit rate. This allows decent quality and also enables many different users to watch the services. If your bit rate is too high, many will not be able to watch your services. Windows Media Player pushes the video stream to our streaming server and saves the file automatically to add to our archived services.
Send the Video Stream to a Streaming Server
Your streaming service provider will supply details on how to do this. The streaming server allows multiple people to watch your service simultaneously.
Create a Link on Your Web Site
Once you are done, create a link so others can watch online. If you are unable to do live streaming video, you can still follow the above steps and then post your church services online for others to view later.
I hope this is a help to you. Please let me know if you have additional questions, I don’t have all the answers, but I will do my best to help.
Additional Resources:
Check out North Valley Baptist Church’s Live and Archived Video!
Download a PDF of our old (cheaper) live streaming configuration
How to Live Stream Your Church Service for Free
Michael Moyer
26 Comments
Interesting! I will definitely start pushing this to our Media guys at the church. We have all the equipment to do this already, we just need to start doing this.
Thanks for the guide/walkthrough.
what if you only have a budget of $500…..LOL
You could live stream for A LOT cheaper than what is listed above. For instance, you could use one camera (borrow it from a church member) and go directly to the computer. I just attached a PDF to the bottom of the article which lists our set up in the old auditorium – much cheaper!
Hey Bro. Moyer,
Could I get your e-mail address? I have some additional questions as to your settings for streaming and such. Very informative and helpful blog!
Hi. Great article. I found u via twitter and saw this article listed. Thanks for sharing. Been an admirer of your ministry work from up here in NY for a long time. We started podcasting back in 2005 and began video 2 yrs ago using Ustream. It’s worked well for our small church. I have a small old Sony 8mm running into a MacMini. We use Quicktime Pro to record video that is exported to a 320×240 and uploaded to blip.tv which cross posts to our website, twitters it and re-syndicates it all over! HD is our next step but we are thankful to do what we can so far! God bless brother.
Very helpful infromation! Thank you so much for your help and input into our ministry!
Thanks for taking the time to share through this great blog, Mike.
A great all-in-one solution is the Tricaster – it’s about $5k, but it mixes, streams, does titles, overlays, and is very easy for volunteers to use. Here’s a link: http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/tricaster.php
No I don’t work for the company – we use one at our church – try to work it into the cost of a building project – Most pastor will not want to spend $5,000 for a little black box.
Thanks Mike. We have just launched a similar service for small churches(live.livingstreams.tv). They will only need a webcam and an internet connected laptop or desktop using a web browser to start streaming their services live. I feel this is a very vital tool for spreading the gospel and discipling christians and I commend you for your pressing on to establish this ministry in your church and writing this guide and this blog
- Mike
We have Sony HD camera’s but we also use the Canon HV20 HD consumer grade camera, if you know how to work the HV20 in manual mode, the HV20 is a great camera for this type of operation. You can pick up the next generation HV20 which is the HV40 for about $900. This is a great HD consumer grade camera. We have been on UStream since mid August and have a local area network connection to our Mac laptop, fortunately with no disconnects. We have an audio mixer box (very inexpensive) straight from our sound board for the audio, and it was very easy to setup. If you look at several of our services, we use one camera, but vary the shot (slow zoom in and out and not keep the camera in one place). This helps keep the viewers attention. Awesome post and great blog to get the information out to other Baptist churches that would like to have a “live” web presence but did not have the information.
I’m not sure what server you are using for your encoder and what you are paying per month or per event, but our church is streaming through US Church Stream and it is a complete turn key system with instant archiving as well. All we supply is the video/audio gear and a volunteer. We have about 12 months worth of worship services archived on our website so you can see how their system works at LoganStreetBaptist.org We only pay $19 per week. I think the stream is done at a bit rate of 300kbs but I don’t know, you can check it out to be sure. Just thought I would pass it along as another resource. I know that the church is very happy with it.
I ahve just taken over the media ministry for my church. One thing I would love to do, is to broadcast live via the internet. The problems I am having are as follows.
1. We have a very limited budget to get this done.
2. I have no idea where to begin as I am not very savy when it comes to this.
Is there any way you can possibly send me detailed step by step dummy instructions to set this up and do you know of any churches or organizations that are maybe upgrading and want to eihter donate there old equipment or a least sell it a a very low price.
Thank you for your time and consideration
James Wallin
Media Ministry Director
Community Congregation Church
James,
I think the easiest and cheapest way to broadcast live would be to use livestream.com or ustream.tv – I wrote a post about it here: http://www.mediaministryblog.com/2009/09/live-stream-your-church-service-for-free/
I’m like some of the others who’ve posted. Most churches aren’t complete with the knowledge or funds to set up an elaborate infurstructure like the one diagrammed. If you can do it, GREAT! But, if your church is still learning the ropes, investing in this type of gear and entering a monthly or weekly contract is way to constraining and, if I were the Pastor, I’d be very concerned about the learning curve and outlay of resources to support this ministry initiative.
I’m suggesting ustream or livestream to get started with a small firewire enabled external camera to get up and running. If someone in the congregation has such a camera, and a computer, the only real issues is a high speed internet connection. After a few weeks or months of trial and error, then and only then would I consider showcasing the need for upgraded equipment.
Again, if you can spend the $5000 or more for some of what’s was mentioned above, go for it. But, if you’re like 90% of the churches and pastors I know, you’ve got to crawl before you walk.
Pastor Girton (www.thelovingchurch.org)
The Church Has Left The Building
Pastor Girton,
I totally agree. Most churches will not be able to start out with something as extravagant as this. That is why I wrote another blog post about how to do it for free. http://www.mediaministryblog.com/2009/09/live-stream-your-church-service-for-free/
Evening,
I am interested in setting up a streaming server for our church. We are willing to buy a server and have a t1 connection. Can you send me details if its possible to set up? we have about 30 viewers.
Thanks!
FYI Just stopped using Livestream.com we loved it until a rated R movie trailor with sexual context was being shown as ads.
Used ustream, but too many little ads distrubing through sermon.
We are now looking into Watershed by Ustream, paid version. But would like to keep inhouse if possible
Michael: Thanks for the great post on streaming live video. We presently broadcast our Sunday service live to 2 TV and 2 Radio sources, but would like to expand than ministry to live streaming video (with a limited budget).
You mentioned a guy in your church that had a streaming server. Contact info?
Hi Mike,
I’ll email you our live streaming server guy’s contact info. He does a great job at an amazing price.
Thank you so much for all the information you have put on your site. What a blessing! I read in one of your posts that you encode at approx. 350 kbps. Did I read this correctly? The quality on your videos are exceptional (HD) and I was wondering if it is because of your encoder or frame rate, etc. Thanks again.
Very informative article! Please send me the contact info for the server guy, as well. We currently broadcast our services four times a week on the local cable channel, but have been wanting to add streaming to the mix. Just need a little push in the right direction. Thanks again!
Randy,
I’m glad to hear this article has been a help! I will email you the contact information for our server guy.
Daniel,
That is correct. We have very knowledgeable laymen in our church that work on encoding video for a living. They have done a phenomenal job setting up our streaming encoder.