There are lots of ways you can live stream your services. There are advantages to the different ways to do it. For example, if you have somebody preaching for you who is doesn’t have access to the relevant gear, you can live stream from Zoom. Somebody can introduce the service and then pass over to the person speaking on another computer. This is probably the easiest way to stream your service via two people from a distance.
Last week (prior to the harder lockdown) we streamed our service from the church building. We plan to live stream from houses going forward, given that those of us streaming all have the requisite gear to make it happen from our homes. For the occasional service due to have an outside speaker, we will probably live stream via Zoom.
But generally, that is not the way we have done it because we can get better quality stream a different way. So, here is how we have done it.
Gear
- Mobile phone
- Streamlabs app (fyi, you can use this same software on either a PC or Phone)
- Tripod
- Phone rig
- External smartphone microphone
- External light
Setup
Create a YouTube channel. Click through to YouTube Studio and click the ‘Go Live’ tab. Click the ‘stream’ button and follow through the onscreen instructions (NB: you will need to do this for every new live stream you record).
Download streamlabs onto your mobile phone. Link the software to your streaming account (follow the onscreen instructions). What you record through your phone once this is setup should stream directly to your YouTube channel.
Set up your tripod and screw phone rig onto tripod. Onto the rig, screw in your microphone and your lights. Your phone will now act as your camcorder.
Record
To record your live stream, open your streamlabs app. Click the red ‘record’ button at the bottom-centre of the screen. Click the ‘scheduled event’ button. Your stream will now begin recording. Stand close enough to the camera that your microphone pics you up (NB: the example video from our live stream last week, sound was recorded from c. 4-5 metre away. For clearer sound, move the microphone and camera nearer). When you have finished, click the red ‘record’ button at the bottom-centre of the screen and the live stream will end.
The video will automatically archive on your YouTube channel, so if anybody missed the live stream they can access the video later on.
And that’s how we did it. There are simpler setups that will give you less quality sound and video and much more complicated setups that will improve both of those things but require much more gear and involved setups. For us, this was a happy medium.
Hope it helps as you look into live streaming for the next few months.