Best Way To Broadcast a Live Video Chat

[pian0dude]

Hi there,

So a request came in to me recently.

Could we have our pastor on a mission trip call in to our church on a Sunday morning via Skype (or some other service) and see our church and address us on the projector.

So immediately my brain started working. Knowing what I know about our setup at the church and what is required for a Skype session, I began to think of all of the possible ways to do this.

Here is my problem...

1. The "desktop" computer we have that drives our projector and media shout stuff is up in the balcony of the church. The projector is right next to the LCD for this pc. The project itself is something like 175ft away from our screen up in the balcony.

2. We have no video input mechanism down on our stage.

So, I felt I could safely answer the question of "yes we could do it" with a YES, however, I think he'd probably want to see the church, which would require a webcam of some sort on the platform down below pointing out at the congregation. So then I started thinking... hmmm... how could I get a laptop with a webcam down at everyone's level to beam it's content up to the projector. This is where I hit a road block. We have wifi in the sanctuary and we have an ethernet switch up in the video booth in the balcony.

I'm looking for a solution that I may be ignorantly over looking, not an expensive gadget to buy,etc... and not just telling my pastor to shoot us a video and I'll play it through media shout ;-)

The other alternative would be to have said laptop down with us and then use a different projector specifically for this and try and angle it properly to project on to our screen or maybe a blank spot on our wall.

Any ideas out there in the creative community?

[russhutto]

Wondering if something like tokbox.com would work. You can invite more thatn one person to a video call. And you might be able to project both of them onto the screen.

I don't know. Pretty interesting. though you'd still need some sort of camera or something.

[pian0dude]

thanks for the feedback. It's not the provided I need. We will use Skype for that.

I was more how I could possibly get video from down on the platform up to the projector without any already existing video inputs, etc.

LIke if there was a cheap gadget or something that could beam a signal up to the projector or something.

[sethdekkenga]

Not sure what OS you're running, but with your network you could have a laptop with a webcam on-stage being remotely operated or screen-shared by the computer in your media booth. If you're using mac, then it's pretty easy to do a screen share and drag that to your output monitor being sent to the big screen. Noticing that you mentioned MediaShout, I'm guessing you're running Windows, so you would need to use RDC or a VNC client or something like that.

Assuming you have a great internet connection, the concern would be your pastor's. I would consider having something recorded at least for backup, but nothing would beat the authenticity of being able to connect LIVE with him!

I'm not sure if this helps at all, but I'll look forward to hearing how you put this together!

Blessings!

[yod1948]

Not sure if this is the answer, but you can now broadcast live from your cell phone to a website.


qik.com

[russhutto]

Originally Posted by pian0dude

thanks for the feedback. It's not the provided I need. We will use Skype for that.

I was more how I could possibly get video from down on the platform up to the projector without any already existing video inputs, etc.

LIke if there was a cheap gadget or something that could beam a signal up to the projector or something.

Ah I gotcha I misread your OP.

[yod1948]

I was more how I could possibly get video from down on the platform up to the projector without any already existing video inputs, etc.

LIke if there was a cheap gadget or something that could beam a signal up to the projector or something.

you mean like a wireless transmitter?

They have those on eBay

[sethdekkenga]

Hey, just curious if you got something figured out. I'm not sure if you were thinking of doing it this past weekend or another Sunday coming up. Blessings.

[pian0dude]

Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Will post back if/when I come up with something that works decent.