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Live-Streaming Survey - Part 2
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Survey:
Technology Use During the
COVID-19 Crisis
- Does your parish live-stream Masses on a regular basis?
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If you are not live-streaming Masses, please identify obstacles, problems or reasons: (then skip to question #13). -
When do you live-stream Masses? -
Approximately how many Masses are you streaming per-week? -
Please let us know what streaming and/or conferencing software / services / tools your parish uses: (check all that apply) -
Are you using video conferencing tools for online meetings with your staff members, committees or other parish groups? -
Is anyone helping you with filming, broadcasting or with other aspects of streaming? -
If you know, please specify approximately how many people view your typical Mass? -
If you know, in the case of your parish, approximately how much cost is involved with live-streaming? (Increased broadband, software, equipment, subscription fees, etc.) -
What kind of camera are you using? -
Do you have any comments on the audio or video quality of live-streaming at your parish? -
This Crisis is Terrible! Knowing that and since we are all in this trying to continue ministry and support our people, please tell us about your experience with live-streaming Mass: -
Do you have any comments, tips, tricks or known problems that you can share to help other parishes?
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Question 10
What type of camera are you using?
Comments:-
We use three 4K Video cameras
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High-end webcams from Logitech
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AviPas PTZ with 20 x zoom
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Facebook Live only lets you use a cellphone, but we are recording with a digital camera at the same time for our uploads to the website
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Handycams
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For livestreaming of Masses we use a built-in camera that is avaiable in our sactuary. For livestreaming of other events, we use a peronal laptop.
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Camcorder
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Question 11
Do you have any comments on audio or video quality of live-streaming at your parish?
Comments:
- It is excellent, but we work at it constantly.
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Yes, the parishioners are very happy with live-streaming. -
Excellent. -
It is awesome. -
The quality of the streaming feed is depending very much on a graphic card of my computer. More professional streaming requires better cameras with optical zoom, which requires even more devices to buy, which I cannot afford (at least not on my own). More regular streaming needs to have a dedicated person to operate all the electronics. Right now I do it by myself and I need to prepare everything beforehand. It takes me a lot of time to plan all of it in advance. -
We have direct sound to cell phone and tablet using sound console with microphones plugged directly. Church sound creates loud echo. By doing this we have clear sound. -
The quality would suffer terribly if we live-streamed. we are producing really great material with added graphics, music, messages, etc. people LOVE it. -
Very Poor Live Stream, freezes, and scrambled signal. -
So long as it is directly plugged into house sound system, audio should be great. -
I only have access to the internet via my cell phone. Sometimes it's hard to keep the connection because of random phone calls received while broadcasting. 95% of the time the quality of audio and video is good. -
Make sure you have good sound quality. -
None. -
It is excellent. -
Most people say both video and sound are good. For sound, we have mic'd one of the speakers in the Church. There is a bit of echo, but generally good sound. -
The Live-Streaming seems to work well. -
Some of the feedback that I personally have received is that they don't hear it well and that it looks blurry. -
N/A -
Audio quality very good. Video not bad. -
As long as our internet doesn't go out we are fine. The Facebook Live version sometimes has a quick interruption, but pretty decent quality. We had an initial issue with sound but found a work around for it. Ideally we need to be able to bring the video and audio together directly into a laptop and then stream through eCatholic/YouTube. -
It is always better to wear a body microphone for better quality of sound. -
Initial week posed problem with audio but we worked it out; otherwise video comes in real good. -
Yes. -
It is good for the technology we are using. It would cost, minimally, $10k for a more professional audio/visual quality. -
I think it looks good -
Since our system was established from a few years back, the sound and video were already in place. We just had to make some minor upgrades and sound balancing to get things working. With the camera and Re-stream we have had the ability to upload at 1080p with no issue when before trying to use the software we had it was laggy and somewhat off. -
We have been blessed that the quality of our livestreaming has been very good -- both sound as well as visually. The eCatholic platform has been AMAZING as it allows us to simultaneously set up the broadcast to our website, our Facebook page and our YouTube channel. This broadens the reach to our community and beyond! -
Improved drastically after purchasing a digital camera and microphone. -
Using YouTube and a laptop from our chapel has been working will. Once set up Father can start and stop the stream by himself. -
Cellphones on a stand working fine! -
Sometimes the connection is scratchy, pixelated. -
Good. -
Sometimes audio and video are out of sync, however we've been working with eCatholic support to mitigate. -
People are pleased with it. -
Decent Internet connection. -
People are very happy with it. -
We had some technical issues with the first few masses, learning YouTube live, as we have never done this before.
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Question 12
This crisis is Terrible!
Knowing that, and since we are
all in this trying to continue ministry
and support our people, please tell us about your experience with live-streaming Mass:
Comments:
- We have viewers from across the USA and the World
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Fantastic and grateful response. The people feel pastorally and spiritually nourished. Virtual ministry is an effective ministry. -
Generally good, but there are two sides to this coin: parishioners love it, but it makes me very busy and takes my focus from the liturgy. There is no one who can help me (lack of the computer knowledge), and I'm using my own devices and I don't want anyone to mess with them (if a non experienced person make a mistake, I would have to help them during the liturgy anyway). -
We are getting exceptional feedback & gratitude for our efforts on the recorded Masses. We usually have daily Mass posted by 10am from recording at 8:30. I post Sunday Mass and notify people by flocknote that it is there, although we have 261 people that have subscribed to youtube channel since we began during holy week. -
Depends-- both good and bad comments. Reception sometimes not as excellent as other times. -
We believe the parishioners like the FB live version the best because they are able to 'participate' through their comments (greeting friends as they make a 'joining' comment, Offering virtual peace during the mass, responding Amen, etc at appropriate times) -
People love it. -
It was extremely painful (especially for me!) at the beginning of the crisis because, although we already had the camera avaialbe in our sanctuary, we were not at all set up for livestreaming. Working through that path of setting up, tripping on countless obstacles, etc., was not easy. However, now that we have overcome the majority of those obstacles, livestreaming has been an invluable blessing! The feedback, appreciation and affirmation from our community and beyond has been extraoridinary and humbling at the same time! -
Parishioners and guests view our masses, adorations, etc and often comment positively -
Mostly positive - minus a few negatives due to unrealistic expectations from a few. Without internet in the church poses a challenge for us,...using my phone data makes the service go slower after using up the max. -
I have received some positive comments from parishioners
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Question 13
Do you have any comments, tips, tricks or known problems that you can share
Comments:
to help other parishes?
- Make sure you have good sound. Schedule times that work for people and advertise the time and way to resource the Mass livestream
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Zoom requires some administrative training, which I took. There are settings they have to be made and switched off. You can't use the "free" Zoom for the best security features. Even then, we are watching during the Mass for troublemakers so that we can ban them and remove them. Fortunately, we haven't seen it. It sounds like one Parish took the easy route, didn't configure it, and got in trouble. -
Be sure you hire the right person. Also, we need some mixer to get good quality of music and voice. -
Invest, educate yourselves, and get on board because this is the way the Good News is spread now and in the foreseeable future. -
Since we can not worship with our parishioners it is very important that all the parishes try to invest good quality equipment for the broadcasting of the Liturgical services. -
Yes, I have heard about security breaches on Zoom, they say that all that security protection is available in Zoom—It’s just that people are often careless and do not enable the security measures. Two things we do to keep our Zoom meetings safe from these breaches are: 1- I put everyone in the “waiting room” and I do not allow anyone in that is not a meeting attendee. 2- I assign a password to the meeting. -
Use a dedicated microphone system for your voice. Many priests are too far from the cell phone microphones and it's taking away a lot from the beauty of the liturgy, when there is too much echo or the voice is illegible. If you use your cell phone or small camera, use a proper stand for it, don't move it too much. If the camera or cell phone is carried by another operator, to make the video less shaky, use gimbal to stabilize it. I suffer from motion sickness, and videos where cameras are moved from one place to another, or when it's handled by a person who is shaking makes viewers uncomfortable. Stabilization of the picture and good sound are more important (in most cases) than picture quality. -
Look into streaming from Facebook to your website and also providing a website for streaming services since older parishioners do not do Facebook or Instagram -
Most of what I have seen with other parishes is primarily poor audio, which people do not tolerate well. And the further away the camera is, the more the audio suffers but also then feels very impersonal. (I film closeup and adjust the volume up and down when I edit the videos.) -
If you use Zoom, you must use password, and do not let it become public -
To get the best sound-plug directly into your church's sound system. provide a worship aid, especially if you are live streaming with music, to assist your people. beware of copyrighted material - anything sung and you need a podcast license from OneLicense.net and/or CCLI depending on what music resources your parish uses -
To contact little by little every parishioner by phone and email and let them know they can connect via Facebook live and/or through the parish website if they dont have a facebok account. -
If it is not good quality, the people will go elsewhere. -
We place some of the prayers in the description so people can find them easily. Such as spiritual communion prayer and the pope Francis prayer for protection. -
N/A -
When using ZOOM - you need to make sure that you make it private by adding a login and password for people to get on. -
If you’re using Facebook for live streaming biggest struggle people have is they don’t have an account. The point is you don’t need Facebook account to watch live streams or its recordings at later time. When you go to your parish FB page on your computer you’ll be asked to login, simply click “not now” on the bottom of this notification and you still can scroll/review the page. Besides there is a link you can post on your website which will direct people to only your videos where they can watch all of them including live streaming. If you go to parish FB page from your cellphone there is not “not now” option in login notification, but there is an “x” in the corner. Just click it and you can see all the content of the page. People won’t be able to find your Facebook page from Facebook website if they don’t have the account so it would be helpful to post the link on your parish website. I, for example (besides posted QR code on church’s doors. When people scan them with iPhone camera the notification with information what it is will appear on their screens right away and they can click on it and be directed to the FB page or whatever else you program QR code for. I have posted multiple codes helping people get to our FB page, website, email address and phone number. Also, I see YouTube works pretty well for live streaming, but you need at least 1000 subscribers to be able to do it or you have to download the app and pay for it or use your desktop and build-in camera (low quality usually) or have an external camera. -
No tips etc, but would love a virtual session with other churches to see what they are doing to keep their parish family together and involved. Telling people they can't come to the church building for mass makes it too easier for those who were falling away and we would love to prevent that. -
When Mass is Celebrated and Live Sreamed in a Big Church, the echo will be always a problem, recommendable to use body microphone connected to phone or camera. There are parishes that probably like mine do not have all the technological tools. So, I am using my phone, for live streaming to Facebook and Youtube. There are apps that can allow the broadcasting at the same time to two or more platforms, but for free the video quality is terrible. We will need always to pay to do so. Facebook is for Free and easy. Youtube is more complicated but easy for access for people who do not have Facebook account. However, in our case, I have to use an app (Streamlabs) and I paid for it. It works well, but I am looking for other options. In my situation, maybe like everywhere else, there are no funds, no money to invest in one of the many good programs and apps to do our digital-virtual ministry. It would be wonderful to get information or email telling them the need of it in this times, that can help them to be open to the option of paying for this things. It is frustrating to listen all the time that there is not money. I know we all are in a terrible situation, but that's not an excuse. -
I think we, Pastors, should know the media we are using in order to be able to control it. I used Facebook because I know it. -
One of our priests has terrific technology skills in handling the operation. The hand held camera allows for an assortment of shots as well as using a zoom lens. -
For our video conference meeting we are using WebEx -
If a parish has less tech friendly parish they may want to include very basic trouble shooting tips, especially if they use FB Live in regards to sound. Many of the sound related issues we have found are that people are not aware of the muted video that occurs in FB Live if they have all videos muted. So we have needed to talk people through and actually have a picture on our "support" page helping people through that one hurdle. -
Technical support/communications is not a "nice to have," it i a "must have." Please invest in those resources. The Diocese would do well to set up a team of people to help struggling parishes get set up to offer the same level of access as those who are blessed to have the resources. -
Buy a stand to hold your phone - keeps it steady. -
People like the livestreaming to begin couple of minutes before the actual Mass to settle things and get ready. -
Test, test, test. -
No. -
Getting a good microphone is essential. We have had a good experience with the Yeti Microphone. -
Aside from technology communication, parishes might consider mailing out the updates such as daily mass if any and where - if online, or tv, also if they have a parish website make sure it's updated so when anyone connects for mass or prayer or adoration or even a word of encouragement it's there. this way parishioners don't feel alone and wandering aimlessly tv channel or social media or radio or phone app. I personally feel a personal note by mail would be comforting during such pandemic or even email or a group chat on whatsapp and especially a personal phone call from the parish shephard to his flock. -
Inside the church the acoustic is not really that great if you are using a laptop. To have a good quality sound, better use an audio interface, cable wire, microphone and speaker. -
A decent camera would be the best, but we have managed off a Surface tablet, it works for this temporary situation, need a good internet connection. Practice ahead of time with the equipment, test it all out prior, had to rearrange the sanctuary a bit to frame the video better, using an external microphone for a little better audio quality, we also recorded the mass in case the live stream went down, which it has!