CREATING A 24/7 CHURCH SERMON AND WORSHIP CHANNEL

[bcoyle]

Hi I'm a member of a church in Nevada. We've been around since 2000 and have been streaming since the start of covid. Over the years, we have recorded our services and have them uploaded to youtube and our website. We have class's, events etc. We use OBS for our sunday streams.

We have the software also able to do scheduled shows (24/7). It's powerful enough to do about anything we wish to do. It uses OBS for the encoder/compositor front end.

We would like to chat with people that have either experience with this or wish to give it a try. We would like to chat about what people would want to watch. Also talk about copyright problems.

Basically, chat about how to run a successful church channel.

 

[AaronD]

I don't think I'll do this yet, but I do have a concern about security patches. Especially the ones that require the host OS to reboot in order to apply them, which would of course kill the stream for that time. That then opens up some more questions:

• Do the viewers have to jump to a different URL every once in a while? Hopefully not.
• If the reboot is fast enough, despite installing patches taking longer than usual, can it resume the same stream?
• Can a different machine seamlessly take over the same stream, so the first one can take forever to reboot?

Virtual machines *might* be part of that answer, but it's not straightforward. Both the VM and the host need patches, and of course when the host reboots, it pauses all the VM's. There are ways to "surf" a running VM from one host to another without pausing it, but that's not straightforward either, and the VM itself still needs a periodic patch and reboot too. If a copy of the VM can patch and reboot, and then be given enough information to seamlessly take over the same stream while the original is just killed, that might work...

Or maybe there's already a solution that solves everything. But I'm pretty sure it does NOT involve off-the-shelf consumer-grade Windows!

---

Some distros of Linux do have a mechanism to apply deep system patches without rebooting, but my understanding is that it's not straightforward either. Otherwise, you do have to either reboot periodically to apply those patches, or open yourself up to get hacked, because people study those patches to see how to get into a machine that doesn't have them yet.

---

The streaming machine may or may not be an attractive target, but that's usually not the point. Usually, the attack on you is either:

• Looking for something/anything on your private network (*) that might be useful, and the process of finding that there really is nothing of interest, has already wrecked the system.
  • (*) It's not necessarily about that machine at all. It's just a way to get on the network and continue snooping from there. Same as using the secretary's computer to get into a large corporation: the secretary has nothing of interest, except for the open door.
• Or it only wants to take it over to launch an attack on someone else, which also wrecks it for your use.

So: EVERYTHING needs to be kept up to date with the latest security patches, or kept away from the internet entirely. Now what does that do to a 24/7 stream...?

 

[bcoyle]

I don't think I'll do this yet, but I do have a concern about security patches. Especially the ones that require the host OS to reboot in order to apply them, which would of course kill the stream for that time. That then opens up some more questions:

• Do the viewers have to jump to a different URL every once in a while? Hopefully not.
• If the reboot is fast enough, despite installing patches taking longer than usual, can it resume the same stream?
• Can a different machine seamlessly take over the same stream, so the first one can take forever to reboot?

Virtual machines *might* be part of that answer, but it's not straightforward. Both the VM and the host need patches, and of course when the host reboots, it pauses all the VM's. There are ways to "surf" a running VM from one host to another without pausing it, but that's not straightforward either, and the VM itself still needs a periodic patch and reboot too. If a copy of the VM can patch and reboot, and then be given enough information to seamlessly take over the same stream while the original is just killed, that might work...

Or maybe there's already a solution that solves everything. But I'm pretty sure it does NOT involve off-the-shelf consumer-grade Windows!

---

Some distros of Linux do have a mechanism to apply deep system patches without rebooting, but my understanding is that it's not straightforward either. Otherwise, you do have to either reboot periodically to apply those patches, or open yourself up to get hacked, because people study those patches to see how to get into a machine that doesn't have them yet.

---

The streaming machine may or may not be an attractive target, but that's usually not the point. Usually, the attack on you is either:

• Looking for something/anything on your private network (*) that might be useful, and the process of finding that there really is nothing of interest, has already wrecked the system.
  • (*) It's not necessarily about that machine at all. It's just a way to get on the network and continue snooping from there. Same as using the secretary's computer to get into a large corporation: the secretary has nothing of interest, except for the open door.
• Or it only wants to take it over to launch an attack on someone else, which also wrecks it for your use.

So: EVERYTHING needs to be kept up to date with the latest security patches, or kept away from the internet entirely. Now what does that do to a 24/7 stream...?

Hi. Very thoughtful questions and concerns. Thank you for taking time to pose these questions. I'll try to answer each question. I may not know the answer, but will give it a try.

Basically , all my streaming experience is with youtube, so can't answer for twitch/X, etc

Background info:
When streaming to youtube, you normally Ask it to start a session, which it does with a new url link, different from the last one. In a standard sunday service, you might schedule one at 9 and one at 10:30. These show up on your channel as live pending. At 9, the operator starts the stream and when ended, manually closes the stream., and now the 10:30 is pending and you do the same for the 10:30, closing it. You now have two youtube videos of your 2 services.

I tried this a year ago and this seems to work, but no guarantee that it hasn't changed.

I have 2 computers with obs on them using the same youtube key.
1. I start computer #1 streaming. It goes live.
2. I start computer #2 streaming and i get a message on computer #2 from youtube saying "bad boy, already in use".
3. I stop computer #1 streaming and youtube seems to say, ok, still got a stream , will use computer 2

So seems to switch from current computer to the new stream.

If I'm streaming to youtube and I stop streaming for a while, youtube will close the live stream, so absence does not make youtube's heart grow fonder. So if you are down for too long, the live stream dies and you get a new url the next time.

If you "GOT" money, you can stream to a re-stream service and when you are no longer streaming to it, it can play a video or graphic, saying "ill be back". Essentially it's in the cloud and runs all the time. If you want to do this locally, you then need 2 computers.

Now, lets say we change this to 23.5/24 and scheduled downtime, say 6am in the morning once a week, then borrow the secretaries laptop and run obs with a jpeg or video to fill in the missing stream.

Also, not mentioned in the question is "power down". For short periods, you want a UPS to keep your cpu/roputer/modem alive. And if really serious , a backup generator. Of course again, money. But if serious about 24/7, you will always need a budget and volunteers.

Q1: If the reboot is "FAST", despite installing patches taking longer than usual, can it resume the same stream?

Basically Yes, I don't know how much time it takes youtube to decide to stop then live stream, so maybe the question would be: "how much time do I have"

a. Obliviously, you change the update,re-boot to manual and NOT in the middle of a running program.
b. You can use computer #2 to keep the channel alive, get computer #1 going again, shut off #2, start streaming on #1
c. If you JUST do it fast enough (no second computer) , you can restart the same stream, i.e YouTube has not closed the stream.
d. There has been some talk about using AWS and running everything from the cloud. (more money)

Q2: Can a different machine seamlessly take over the same stream, so the first one can take forever to reboot?
yes, see above. Yes for youtube, others ??.

Q3:
Or maybe there's already a solution that solves everything. But I'm pretty sure it does NOT involve off-the-shelf consumer-grade Windows!

a. My 24/7 runs on a laptop, running windows,works fine.
b. There are commercial programs that run in the cloud, some free or free for lower tiers. (Budget again)
c. Streamlab?
d. Hardware: commercial - BIG cost and BIG maintenance fees.
e. For church, you want stable, powerful and cheap to own and run.
f. What features do you want for the software?

---------


Q4: The streaming machine may or may not be an attractive target, but that's usually not the point

This is always a IT question and I agree with you, keep your machine updated.

Suggestions.

a. Separate network from your normal network.
b. AIr gap etc

Really, up to IT to keep you safe and that implies scheduled downtime and OS updates.

-----------

So: EVERYTHING needs to be kept up to date with the latest security patches, or kept away from the internet entirely. Now what does that do to a 24/7 stream...?

A: Requires scheduled downtime
B. Maybe second machine
C. Cloud services like AWS
D. Services like Re-stream that take over when you aren't streaming.

-------------------------

Addition concerns:

1. what is the software learning curve.
2. What skill level is involved to program the schedule
3. Are there enough skilled church volunteers to run and maintain
4. Will you need to create a training class for your volunteers.
5. Can the software go to live for special events vs per-recorded material. (is there away to switch)
6. Do you need a separate ISP network line to avoid bandwidth conflicts, ie. people watching youtube videos.


--------------------------

So, lets assume that you can physically run a 23.5/24 channel, what would you want it to look like and do you want to make the effort to create one?

It's ok, if you just like chatting and are just interested in the subject.

I do appreciate you taking the time to comment.

 

[AaronD]

Wow! Lots of detail! And no way I'm going to respond to all of it! I can still see one gap though:

If you spend the money to have a cloud restreamer that fills in your stream when you're away (rebooting or whatever), then that service presumably has whatever it takes to keep themselves secure with legitimate continuous uptime. (likely a variation of "surfing VM's" across countless physical machines in an all-connected data center) If you do that yourself to save the 3rd party service fee, then that responsibility falls on you. So if you do it yourself:

It doesn't really help to have your own single-machine restreamer that stays up 24/7 and never reboots, because *that* goes out of date just like anything else, and thus becomes the attack vector. You've only moved the problem, not solved it, and added some complexity for hardly any benefit at all.

Now if you had *two* restreamers, so that one can run while the other reboots, plus a way to switch back and forth, then we might be getting somewhere.
And at that point, maybe the content machine can stream directly, and the other is simply a "BRB scene" (which can itself be a scheduled program if you like), with the appropriate handoffs in both directions while the main one reboots and comes back.
Or, maybe you have a re-run machine and a live machine, the live one is off most of the time, and part of the live process is to patch and reboot the re-run machine while you're live, and patch the live machine before shutting it down...

Then of course the question is: "How do those handoffs work, to make it (appear) seamless in both directions?"
(a static image and no sound for a brief moment, would probably help a lot, but there's still the data stream itself that has to be switched while everything stays happy)

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

Ah the joys of high availability
- doing it right gets REALLY expensive, such that even many (most) multi-national enterprises give up (general mission critical apps), and say close enough [been there, done that]

In this scenario, the cost of even close to true high availability is not likely to be justified . So the discussion quickly becomes, what is good enough?

Personally, I'm a very strong believer in local systems/control (vs public cloud), ... but.. in this case, I suspect a cloud restreaming service makes more sense
- they have the processes in the background to update systems/containers, etc. way cheaper to pay for them to maintain such, than doing it oneself (most likely). Forget admin/secretary laptop... never going to be reliable enough (unless already using enterprise class desktop admin approaches, and even then...)

Beware changing channel from an interactive/participatory one (ideally, maybe you aren't there now?) to simply consumptive (watch at ones convenience)

As for what is in effect a broadcast channel
- you have to decide what you want the backup stream to be?
a duplicate of the primary stream? easy if pre-recorded, much more complicated if 'live', and _really_ expensive if one goes to level of avoiding any single point of failure (ex. physical path diversity)
then again, if pre-recorded, much easier to simply pre-upload, and let streaming service (restreamer or YT itself) handle delivery as you schedule. This avoids all real-time dependencies on your side (computer, internet, etc) other than possibly monitoring


Our HoW uses Facebook for various reasons. so that is my experience. I am not intimate with specific YT settings/options, though I suspect many are similar, so take all following comments with that in mind

Background info:
When streaming to youtube, you normally Ask it to start a session, which it does with a new url link, different from the last one. In a standard sunday service, you might schedule one at 9 and one at 10:30. These show up on your channel as live pending. At 9, the operator starts the stream and when ended, manually closes the stream., and now the 10:30 is pending and you do the same for the 10:30, closing it. You now have two youtube videos of your 2 services.

In Facebook, what you describe is also the default behavior... HOWEVER, there are options.

I tried this a year ago and this seems to work, but no guarantee that it hasn't changed.

I have 2 computers with obs on them using the same youtube key.
1. I start computer #1 streaming. It goes live.
2. I start computer #2 streaming and i get a message on computer #2 from youtube saying "bad boy, already in use".
3. I stop computer #1 streaming and youtube seems to say, ok, still got a stream , will use computer 2

So seems to switch from current computer to the new stream.

In FB, one can specifically configure a backup streaming source. Others are bound to be similar... not unique nowadays at all. What you describe above for YT seems like a hack from days gone by, hopefully YT has a better, more specific (and therefore secure) backup stream source configuration options.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9854503?hl=en
https://support.restream.io/en/articles/2014602-set-up-a-backup-stream
https://softron.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022264494-HOW-TO-Stream-to-YouTube

If I'm streaming to youtube and I stop streaming for a while, youtube will close the live stream, so absence does not make youtube's heart grow fonder. So if you are down for too long, the live stream dies and you get a new url the next time.

in FB, that behavior is a configurable setting (stop/end livestream on disconnect)

If you "GOT" money, you can stream to a re-stream service and when you are no longer streaming to it, it can play a video or graphic, saying "ill be back". Essentially it's in the cloud and runs all the time. If you want to do this locally, you then need 2 computers.

Now, lets say we change this to 23.5/24 and scheduled downtime, say 6am in the morning once a week, then borrow the secretaries laptop and run obs with a jpeg or video to fill in the missing stream.

Yea, that laptop will inherit all the issues one would expect...

Also, not mentioned in the question is "power down". For short periods, you want a UPS to keep your cpu/roputer/modem alive. And if really serious , a backup generator. Of course again, money. But if serious about 24/7, you will always need a budget and volunteers.

and separate internet connection, to physically separate local point-of-presence [oops, forgetting the term for ILEC (POTS carrier) local switching center ... ... anyway] .. this gets tricky, and isn't always possible depending on local infrastructure

Q3:
Or maybe there's already a solution that solves everything. But I'm pretty sure it does NOT involve off-the-shelf consumer-grade Windows!

You have to ask yourself, what is more important? uptime/close to 24/7 operation, or sticking with local Windows OS.. sorry, I'm a Windows expert, and I know you have to pick one. There are ways to get real high uptime with Windows, but it will cost you WAY more than a restreaming service... by a lot.

a. Separate network from your normal network.
b. AIr gap etc

Our streaming machine is a dedicated device on a segregated network (own firewall)
Air Gap is pointless, as you need Internet...

So: EVERYTHING needs to be kept up to date with the latest security patches, or kept away from the internet entirely. Now what does that do to a 24/7 stream...?

A: Requires scheduled downtime
B. Maybe second machine
C. Cloud services like AWS
D. Services like Re-stream that take over when you aren't streaming.

-------------------------

The above doesn't address the source material.

Let's assume the vast majority is pre-recorded... a machine to 'stream' that content can be relatively lower-end, as the computationally hard part was the original Recording. I would NOT use OBS Studio for this, as the would entail re-encoding (playing video file/capturing what is played, encoding/streaming that) which would lower quality. There are free low-weight tools to simply 'play' video file straight to streaming service​

Then, and as noted above, YT is not my area of expertise, but you need to ask yourself how 24/7 channels are handled, and what do you want to happen with your 'live' livestream (ie service, other)?

Do you want typical Sunday service to be automatically available as own video in channel library? or do you expect to have to upload a specific recording afterwards? or ??​

I'd be inclined to upload all pre-record content to YT... then schedule their delivery directly on YT ... and livestream services/other as you have been. *IF* after proper due-diligence, it turns out that isn't feasible, (and my assumptions are close enough to accurate) I'd be inclined to next consider a low-power (Rasberry Pi? or micro PC, or old computer) setup specifically to stream the pre-recorded content. And whatever that system is gets patched/rebooted during service/other livestreaming

Now, redundant livestreaming would get expensive/complicated, if avoiding single points of failure (cameras, NDI? HDMI video switching network, sound system, ISP, etc)

For typical, low (no) budget HoW, I'd be leaning towards
- pre-recorded streaming PC #1 from HoW itself
- pre-recorded streaming PC #2 from alternate location/ISP (your house? cloud VM? lots of possibilities)
- Single (existing) livestream setup and simply accept risk of livestream interruption

6. Do you need a separate ISP network line to avoid bandwidth conflicts, ie. people watching youtube videos.

If you want something highly reliable, then a single ISP connection is a single point of failure. Fortunately, AT&T upgraded our connection from DSL to fiber a few years ago (no cost... ancient POTS lines) so bandwidth a non-issue. And much more reliable connection since upgrade (and preventing office staff/volunteers from powering off gateway) but ymmv/depends

So, lets assume that you can physically run a 23.5/24 channel, what would you want it to look like and do you want to make the effort to create one?

Personally, I'd be asking the reason/justification for a 24/7 channel in the first place. seriously, Just because it can be done... doesn't mean it should be. Is there enough viewership to justify effort? is a channel a way to provide video content for folks unable to select individual videos on their own? is the (basic) content already available elsewhere?
then again, if more a science experiment than true worship enhancement plan, then sure, go for it. and as such, expect and be okay glitches from low-budget experiment. But a truly reliable year-round channel? that is going to cost money, time, etc.

It is sort of like livestreaming with poor audio quality. You can, but folks will tune out and go elsewhere. A sort of similar situation would be the case, I'd think, of an unreliable channel ? but I could easily be wrong...

 

[bcoyle]

Wow! Lots of detail! And no way I'm going to respond to all of it! I can still see one gap though:

If you spend the money to have a cloud restreamer that fills in your stream when you're away (rebooting or whatever), then that service presumably has whatever it takes to keep themselves secure with legitimate continuous uptime. (likely a variation of "surfing VM's" across countless physical machines in an all-connected data center) If you do that yourself to save the 3rd party service fee, then that responsibility falls on you. So if you do it yourself:

It doesn't really help to have your own single-machine restreamer that stays up 24/7 and never reboots, because *that* goes out of date just like anything else, and thus becomes the attack vector. You've only moved the problem, not solved it, and added some complexity for hardly any benefit at all.

Now if you had *two* restreamers, so that one can run while the other reboots, plus a way to switch back and forth, then we might be getting somewhere.
And at that point, maybe the content machine can stream directly, and the other is simply a "BRB scene" (which can itself be a scheduled program if you like), with the appropriate handoffs in both directions while the main one reboots and comes back.
Or, maybe you have a re-run machine and a live machine, the live one is off most of the time, and part of the live process is to patch and reboot the re-run machine while you're live, and patch the live machine before shutting it down...

Then of course the question is: "How do those handoffs work, to make it (appear) seamless in both directions?"
(a static image and no sound for a brief moment, would probably help a lot, but there's still the data stream itself that has to be switched while everything stays happy)

Simple request: I get notified by email that i have an update/question/answer when you do a "REPLY" instead of just typing an answer and can respond quicker instead of constantly scanning all my watch threads.

Anyway, a couple of situations.

1. No downtime, use something like AWS (amazon) to run 24/7

------------------------------------------------

PLANNED MAINTENANCE DOWNTIME (23.5/24)

2. Use cloud based services like re-stream.

Re-stream is designed to listen for your incoming stream. When it detects it, it restreams to youtube or whatever.
a. You shutdown your stream for maintenance. Mostly OS updates and reboot.
b. re-stream detects lost of stream from you and switches to the jpeg you provided which is "be back Soon" or some videos you prepared.
c. Your computer finishes then updates and reboots.
d. You restart your scheduling program.
e. Restreams detects new ingest , stops streaming your "be back message" and then streams your newly detected stream to youtube, twitch/X etc.
f. Youtube has a constant stream and never closes your stream.

3. Do it yourself using second computer to fill in the gap.

a. Have an obs copy on 2nd computer with a static "be back scene"
b. Stop streaming on main computer
c. Start streaming on backup/static image computer
d. Do patches, reboot
e. Reload you scheduler
f. Stop streaming on computer #2
g Start streaming on computer #1.

FYI: There is always the danger of losing the internet, because it's just down, technical problems, lost of power for 6 hours/whatever.
You might end up with a new url for your users. Always that risk.

 

[AaronD]

Simple request: I get notified by email that i have an update/question/answer when you do a "REPLY" instead of just typing an answer and can respond quicker instead of constantly scanning all my watch threads.

Weird. I get an email regardless.

And I've seen some complaints about quoting the whole thing, so when I'm responding in general and it's not ambiguous to whom, I tend to just post without the reply.

Maybe one of these settings would make that work for you? It'd give you more emails in general, but I also have a filter in my email client...

 

[bcoyle]

Ah the joys of high availability
- doing it right gets REALLY expensive, such that even many (most) multi-national enterprises give up (general mission critical apps), and say close enough [been there, done that]

In this scenario, the cost of even close to true high availability is not likely to be justified . So the discussion quickly becomes, what is good enough?

Personally, I'm a very strong believer in local systems/control (vs public cloud), ... but.. in this case, I suspect a cloud restreaming service makes more sense
- they have the processes in the background to update systems/containers, etc. way cheaper to pay for them to maintain such, than doing it oneself (most likely). Forget admin/secretary laptop... never going to be reliable enough (unless already using enterprise class desktop admin approaches, and even then...)

Beware changing channel from an interactive/participatory one (ideally, maybe you aren't there now?) to simply consumptive (watch at ones convenience)

As for what is in effect a broadcast channel
- you have to decide what you want the backup stream to be?
a duplicate of the primary stream? easy if pre-recorded, much more complicated if 'live', and _really_ expensive if one goes to level of avoiding any single point of failure (ex. physical path diversity)
then again, if pre-recorded, much easier to simply pre-upload, and let streaming service (restreamer or YT itself) handle delivery as you schedule. This avoids all real-time dependencies on your side (computer, internet, etc) other than possibly monitoring


Our HoW uses Facebook for various reasons. so that is my experience. I am not intimate with specific YT settings/options, though I suspect many are similar, so take all following comments with that in mind

In Facebook, what you describe is also the default behavior... HOWEVER, there are options.


In FB, one can specifically configure a backup streaming source. Others are bound to be similar... not unique nowadays at all. What you describe above for YT seems like a hack from days gone by, hopefully YT has a better, more specific (and therefore secure) backup stream source configuration options.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9854503?hl=en
https://support.restream.io/en/articles/2014602-set-up-a-backup-stream
https://softron.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360022264494-HOW-TO-Stream-to-YouTube

in FB, that behavior is a configurable setting (stop/end livestream on disconnect)


Yea, that laptop will inherit all the issues one would expect...

and separate internet connection, to physically separate local point-of-presence [oops, forgetting the term for ILEC (POTS carrier) local switching center ... ... anyway] .. this gets tricky, and isn't always possible depending on local infrastructure


You have to ask yourself, what is more important? uptime/close to 24/7 operation, or sticking with local Windows OS.. sorry, I'm a Windows expert, and I know you have to pick one. There are ways to get real high uptime with Windows, but it will cost you WAY more than a restreaming service... by a lot.


Our streaming machine is a dedicated device on a segregated network (own firewall)
Air Gap is pointless, as you need Internet...


The above doesn't address the source material.

Let's assume the vast majority is pre-recorded... a machine to 'stream' that content can be relatively lower-end, as the computationally hard part was the original Recording. I would NOT use OBS Studio for this, as the would entail re-encoding (playing video file/capturing what is played, encoding/streaming that) which would lower quality. There are free low-weight tools to simply 'play' video file straight to streaming service​

Then, and as noted above, YT is not my area of expertise, but you need to ask yourself how 24/7 channels are handled, and what do you want to happen with your 'live' livestream (ie service, other)?

Do you want typical Sunday service to be automatically available as own video in channel library? or do you expect to have to upload a specific recording afterwards? or ??​

I'd be inclined to upload all pre-record content to YT... then schedule their delivery directly on YT ... and livestream services/other as you have been. *IF* after proper due-diligence, it turns out that isn't feasible, (and my assumptions are close enough to accurate) I'd be inclined to next consider a low-power (Rasberry Pi? or micro PC, or old computer) setup specifically to stream the pre-recorded content. And whatever that system is gets patched/rebooted during service/other livestreaming

Now, redundant livestreaming would get expensive/complicated, if avoiding single points of failure (cameras, NDI? HDMI video switching network, sound system, ISP, etc)

For typical, low (no) budget HoW, I'd be leaning towards
- pre-recorded streaming PC #1 from HoW itself
- pre-recorded streaming PC #2 from alternate location/ISP (your house? cloud VM? lots of possibilities)
- Single (existing) livestream setup and simply accept risk of livestream interruption


If you want something highly reliable, then a single ISP connection is a single point of failure. Fortunately, AT&T upgraded our connection from DSL to fiber a few years ago (no cost... ancient POTS lines) so bandwidth a non-issue. And much more reliable connection since upgrade (and preventing office staff/volunteers from powering off gateway) but ymmv/depends


Personally, I'd be asking the reason/justification for a 24/7 channel in the first place. seriously, Just because it can be done... doesn't mean it should be. Is there enough viewership to justify effort? is a channel a way to provide video content for folks unable to select individual videos on their own? is the (basic) content already available elsewhere?
then again, if more a science experiment than true worship enhancement plan, then sure, go for it. and as such, expect and be okay glitches from low-budget experiment. But a truly reliable year-round channel? that is going to cost money, time, etc.

It is sort of like livestreaming with poor audio quality. You can, but folks will tune out and go elsewhere. A sort of similar situation would be the case, I'd think, of an unreliable channel ? but I could easily be wrong...

Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I started this thread as more of a if you could, how would you design it and would it be worth while. Personally if I take down the streaming channel for an hour to do maintenance and youtube closes the stream and the user has to log on to a new url, , it seems good enough.

I don't think you are held to the same standards as broadcast tv. I answered the questions as best I could and welcome all the clarification and help as I can get. That's the great thing about forums. Please feel free to poke holes in anything I say. I'm not the expert and there is so much to learn. LOL

My take on "lIVE" is that on yotube , you schedule the live/sunday services as a separate event. 2 services, 2 scheduled events.

So your comment about if you can, should you , is totally valid. Totally agree with you.

Another questions , if you can, how much work is it and is it worth it.

So why have a scheduled stream. Basically , the answer "MIGHT be" have to do with your audience demagraphics.

Please realize, I'm sky blueing and thinking out loud

SO your church started in 2000 and you recorded every sunday for 24 years. You uploaded each one to your website or youtube.

Are people going to watch a 20 year old video using VOD? Probably not. I know ,I look at the upload date and prefer new uploads or curated playlists, or mixes of my favorites. So, does this old material go to waste? Maybe

A 24/7 doesn't have to be 24/7, it can be 6pm to 9pm, i,e, nightly

A sunday service being maybe an hour or so is curated. The paster picks a subject and talks about it for 8 weeks. It may get uploaded and archived on the church site. Does anybody go back to watch them a year later? Basically , the pastor is 'CURATING"
subjects or books of the bible.

So, maybe curating is our answer. I don't know.

Really the question is : assuming you have the content and the means to run a 24/7 ish channel, how would you use this to spread the gospel?

There are technical questions that might need to be answered when the time comes, but if no one is interested in watching ......

 

[bcoyle]

Weird. I get an email regardless.

And I've seen some complaints about quoting the whole thing, so when I'm responding in general and it's not ambiguous to whom, I tend to just post without the reply.

Maybe one of these settings would make that work for you? It'd give you more emails in general, but I also have a filter in my email client...
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wow,thanks, I didn't know