We are not getting the level of support we need from our current live streaming provider and wanted to ask the community for recommendations, etc.
Thank you!
We’ve been very happy with BoxCast! The support, features, reliability you get at a fraction of the cost vs. their main competitor, Resi, is hard to beat.
Another vote for BoxCast. Their support was very helpful a couple years ago when we were getting started. Haven’t really needed any support lately. Lots of source/encoder and distribution options.
A little overview, if it’s helpful - we use their $99/mo. service, embed our live services with Church Online Platform, then archive the sermon portion to Vimeo to embed on our website long term. They have direct to facebook and youtube options, which we usually don’t use to limit distractions or potential interruptions from those platforms. A few members watch with the BoxCast smart TV app (included, or you can upgrade for your own branded app). Here’s our most recent broadcasts, as seen from their own viewing platform: Bethany Baptist Church Most are streaming through a Teradek encoder, one was with the BoxCaster iPad app.
We selected Restream.io last year, mostly for their chat integration with both Facebook and Youtube. (We use both, and have some chat interaction during the service for things like prayer requests and check-ins.) Their service has generally worked well for us and we’ve rarely needed their support. Initially, we found that the ‘go-live’ would sometimes fail to find the pre-loaded event (we would scramble to create a new event on the fly), but that problem seems to have been well resolved. We stream directly from our BlackMagic ATEM Mini Extreme to Restream.
We use SermonAudio and we’re very happy with it. $50/month. We use Wirecast software to stream to SermonAudio. They have web-based editing, so as soon as the service ends, we trim the archived stream and add sermon attributes like speaker, series, scripture passage, and such and post it to our sermon archive. Our post-service work is 5 minutes (trimming and tagging), and their video conversion and audio file creation is maybe 30 minutes. We also upload the PDF manuscript with the sermon. They have multiple viewers, apps, embeds, and even a call-in line to listen to the stream. If a stream is interrupted, it can be restarted. They can simulcast to Facebook and YouTube. If you want a sermon archive that is searchable based on date, series, service, speaker, topic, and Bible text, this is what you need. The company is actively developing its own infrastructure to be cancel-proof/resilient. They are ministry minded and are a sermon/church-specific solution.