Nearly two thousand users of the social network Facebook monitored the transfer of the Holy Mass by priest Martin Golob from Bohinj, who, by extraordinary measures, donated Holy Mass with the help of modern technology. It will be possible to see Macho on Facebook every day at 7 pm.
On Thursday, the Slovenian bishops adopted extraordinary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus at a correspondence session of the Slovenian Bishops’ Conference, which are valid from today until revoked. These include “the cancellation of all masses in the churches, the sacraments, the devotions of the people, and the parish celebrations. The celebration of weddings and baptisms is delayed, and funerals are held only with strict instruction.”
V molitvi povezani. ❤️
Posted by Martin Golob on Friday, March 13, 2020
Priest Martin Golob, who becomes an online star with his role, took advantage of modern technology and sent a public message on Friday evening at the Parish Chapel in Bohinj via Facebook.
Almost 2,000 network users viewed the donation in a live broadcast, and thousands of people saw the donation as a delay. The pigeon will retaliate via Facebook every day at 7pm.
Church live streaming basics
The first thing you need is a good connection to the Internet. How much upload bandwidth you need depends on the video resolution and framerate you set on your camera. Also important is the bitrate you use to encode the video and the audio for streaming. Let’s step through it.
1. Choose a video resolution and framerate in your video camera settings
Those options are located somewhere in the camera’s menu (see the camera’s user guide). The video resolution you select determines the size of the video image. The higher the video resolution, the larger and more detailed the image. So the higher the resolution setting, the more upload bandwidth you need to live stream because the image is bigger and is better quality.
Common video resolutions for Church live streaming include:
- 1920×1080 – Called full HD (high definition)
- 1280×720 – Called HD
- 640×480 – Called SD (standard definition) with a 4:3 aspect ratio (i.e. more square like older television sets)
- 854×480 – Also called SD but with a 16:9 aspect ratio (i.e. widescreen)
A higher resolution live stream needs more upload bandwidth and viewers need more download bandwidth to watch the stream. If your viewers don’t have high-speed Internet connections, they could experience problems watching a high definition live stream. If you have the option to stream both a high definition and a standard definition stream at the same time (called multi-streaming) – that’s definitely a nice feature.
Common frame rates to use are 24 fps (frames per second), 30 fps, or 60 fps. The same principle applies here. The more video frames per second, the better “quality” image you get. But just like video resolution, a higher frame rate means the video signal contains more data, which adds up to needing more upload bandwidth to stream it well.
If you’re planning on using more than one camera, make sure you use the same settings on each. Here’s a tip. For better looking video, select the progressive and not interlaced video in your camera settings. It’s often indicated by a letter, such as 720p for progressive or 720i for interlaced.
2. Set the audio and video encoding bitrates
After you’ve set your camera’s resolution and framerate, you need to choose the bitrates to use when encoding the signal before it’s streamed. The bitrates you choose determine the amount of data that’s packaged in one second of audio and one second of video being streamed (or recorded). And of course – the higher the bitrate, the more upload bandwidth you need.
When live streaming Church services to the Internet, you’re probably using a separate hardware encoder or a software encoder to process the live stream. You set the audio and video encoding bitrates in the hardware encoder settings (or in the software encoder settings) NOT your camera.
Typical audio bitrates are 64 kbps and 128 kbps. When live streaming to YouTube, Facebook Live, or other CDN such as StreamingChurch.tv, they usually provide recommended encoding settings like the audio bitrate, so check with them. For example, YouTube supports audio bitrates up to 320 kbps. You can read this blog for more about audio codecs and bitrates, and we did this bitrates demystified video that talks all about bitrates and resolutions. Here’s a nifty demo video that shows how important it is to choose the right bitrate. Notice how more movement and elements added to the video affects the quality, which means a higher bitrate is needed to get a good sharp image when there’s a lot going on.
Here are video bitrates that work well for most Church live streaming situations:
- 5 Mbps for full HD (1920×1080)
- 3 Mbps for HD (1280×720)
- 2 Mbps for SD
3. Calculate your upload bandwidth requirements
To calculate the minimum amount of upload bandwidth for Church live streaming, add the audio and video bitrates and then multiple by 1.5 or by 2 for some extra headroom (i.e. 5 Mbps x 1.5 = 7.25 Mbps).
Test your network’s upload bandwidth speed on different days and at different times to get an average. There are plenty of free Internet speed tests online you can use, such as the Google Fiber speed test. Then determine if you need to order more from your Internet provider. Not enough bandwidth will cause your live stream to drop.
4. Choose a Live streaming platform
You could start with a popular free platform. For example, if your Church already has a Facebook or YouTube account, you can live stream to those platforms for free. If you’re ready to step up to a live streaming hosting service with more features (for a monthly subscription fee), here are some popular ones to investigate (remember to check for any overage charges): DaCast, Wowza, Vimeo live streaming, Boxcast, Streamspot, and Stream Monkey!
There are also Church specific live streaming services that offer a range of features, like multi-streaming, embedded players, options to collect online donations, chat so that online greeters can interact with viewers, interactive Bible resources, online bulletins, and multi-streaming just to name a few. Some popular services include: StreamingChurch.tv, SermonCast, Streaming Video Provider, Sunday Streams, ChurchStreaming.tv, and Worship Channels.
Create a live stream on Facebook
- Go to https://www.facebook.com/live/create.
- Click Create Live Stream.
- Choose where you want to post your live broadcast.
- Select Use a persistent stream key if you want your stream key to be permanent. If this isn’t selected, you won’t be able to use this stream key again after the stream ends.
- Copy and paste the server URL and stream key or persistent stream key into the settings of your streaming software and start the video stream from your encoder. A preview screen will appear.
- Write a description and title for your live stream.
- Click Go Live Now. If you want to schedule your broadcast for later, click Schedule a Live Video.
Source:
– https://siol.net/novice/slovenija/martin-golob-masa-facebook-520809
– Church live streaming guide
– How do I go live on Facebook using streaming software?
