I've been working on getting it set up so we can stream our church services live over the web. I've got some audio streaming software set up on one of my servers and I think its working well enough to give it a test go tomorrow (Sunday). Until I can see what kind of load the stream will put on the server, I have it set to a maximum of 15 listeners for this test.
If anyone is available to give it a test listen for me, I'd appreciate a quality and ease of use report. Looking at the service schedule, the sermon looks like it will be early in the service with communion and music after that.
The main thing I'm concerned about now is that the sermon itself sounds good, and in particular that the volume is loud and clear, without being overdriven and distorted. I know our music time will sound bad because we don't have all the instruments running through the main mixer board so the only way to pick up the music is through the little pulpit mic in the middle of the stage.
The stream itself is only at 24k so it will not be exactly "hi-fi" but for voice only, it should be adequate.
The service starts at 10:45 am central time and I expect the sermon itself to start about 11:00am. I won't be able to listen to the stream output so I won't know for sure how it sounds. Any reports will be appreciated. Although it will sound bad, if you want to listen to our music (and my poor bass playing abilities), the last four songs are scheduled as the last thing in the service. I expect the last four songs to start about 11:45 or so, after the sermon and communion.
I have a page set up on our church site HERE if you want to listen in.
Hey Web! I got the player up, it was playing a little while ago but now I got nuttin. What I did get were some background talking and there was a recorded song playing for a minute or so. There was a bit of what sounded like wind noise when the drum beat hit. I will keep listening.
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Sometimes, when i'm lonely... i crawl into a laundry basket and tickle my ears. But, Some times I don't...
Thanks Sparky. My wife decided to stay home today so I had her listen too. She said the same thing that it would play for about 6 minutes then lose connection. I'll have to try to figure out why its doing that.
Web, I truly admire you dedication to your faith and your church, and I don't say this to incite any emotion, in fact I think it's more jealousy on my part. I just don't think I believe anymore. I worked so hard for 15 years to build a future and Wal-Mart, 9/11, the econmy and ill fated decisions of trust on my part have just about left me with nothing. I am glad that you believe. I need to figure out why nice guys finish last. Sorry, bad week, but feels good to let some of this out knowing that you aren't going to judge me for it.
I believe that the finish is yet to be. I believe that there will be a judgment day and at that time, we will truly know how the nice guys finish.
There was never a promise that being a believer will be easy, or a guarantee of worldly success. God did promise us though, that if we truly seek him, we will find him through Christ and that by knowing Christ, we will be saved.
I hope that you will be able to continue to seek. It may be that the recent events in your life will end up helping you to be even more secure in your future than you ever were before. If you believe that there is an eternity, then spiritual security there is much more important than financial security here. Forever is a really long time. Compared to forever, our time here as tax payers is very, very tiny.
I know you are right Web. I know it. I just feel like the entire world is crashing in on me, I owe everyone money that declaring bankruptcy would not help, and I have been praying harder than ever before and it just seems to get worse. I don't get it. I don't. But again, you are right, even though it is hard to get up out of bed, I can look at myself in the mirror knowing that I was completely honest in my business dealings, screwed no one and personally have no formal enemies. Now I have a lot of companies upset with me, but they have never attacked me personally.
CP, maybe you should start tuning in to Web's church's podcast on Sunday mornings. I listened to it only briefly (sorry, not my cup of tea) (but the bit I heard came through loud and clear), and the preacher was talking about how God provides for you what you need, not what you want.
Personally, I believe in yin and yang, in balance. In anything bad, there is always something good, and vice versa.
So take a look at anything that gets you down and try to find the positive in it. You're already on your way there.
The only faith you absolutely have to have is faith in yourself.
Yuck . . . I am cutting out the sermon from the recording to put the recording on the website and it sounds terrible. I didn't realize the sound guy left a CD running in the background. Our sound board bleeds just a bit between channels so there is that crackling bass Sparky mentioned and just a little bit of scratchy sounding music in the background. Its not audible over the live speakers in the sanctuary, but the auxiliary outputs on the board pick it up. We'll have to be more careful about that in the future.
Yay, I believe the problem with the audio dropping has been found.
When I set up the config file, there is an option to terminate connections after x minutes.
I thought I'd activate it and set it high just in case I went off and forgot about it and left it running. So, I set it to 300 minutes.
I made a post in the streaming software forums and one nice guy replied and said that the config file is wrong. The setting says "minutes" but it is actually seconds. So, because of that, it was disconnecting after 5 mintues and would finish out the buffer which is about 1.5 minutes and thus disconnecting listeners after 6.5 minutes.
It's almost sunday, while I don't attend services, some poeple have inquired and if it helps anyone at all, I am more than happy to bump this to the top for web, and anyone else
Yes, it is all set up and working great. Its really nice to have our own "space". Being somewhat separated from everyone, yet able to see the stage helps to avoid the distractions of the congregation.
We still have to pull the new "snake" through a pipe in the floor from the stage to the back. Right now, we just have a borrowed one laying on the floor strung around the room. This new snake won't be fun to get hooked up. It is a 24 channel which means 24 mic connections. To get it through the pipe, all those connectors on one end, or the big box on the other end will have to be taken off and resoldered back on after it is pulled through. Thats a LOT of little wires to deal with.
Its working out nice, though. I think even the people that were like "Ah, we don't need that" are coming around and seeing how much better it is for us, and how much nicer it looks to get all the equipment hidden.