Getting Started Live Streaming
Congratulations! Live streaming is a huge part of making events more accessible, inclusive, and memorable.
Because everyone deserves to share amazing moments, whether it’s a worship service, presentation, or concert.
How to Live Stream a Church Service or Concert
How do you live stream from a synagogue or church? Set up a phone, hop on Facebook Live, and that’s it, right? Nope.
Over the last two years, we’ve all had our fill of grainy Zoom meetings, connectivity issues, and distorted audio. How many times have you wanted to log off because the audio and visuals are a mess?
That’s not how it has to be. Done properly, a quality live stream can:
So it’s truly worth investing in the right equipment.
Many people try to set up their live stream on their own. It’s a creative endeavor that can be quite rewarding, and it gives you an opportunity to build the perfect setup for your space, whether you’re live streaming from a church, a music venue, or a corporate setting.
Building Your Own Live Stream
To build a high-quality live stream, you need to start with high-quality equipment. This is not the place to look for savings, because budget equipment will immediately affect the quality of your live stream.
Quality cameras are essential, and the foundation of a quality live stream experience. The ideal camera for a live stream will have excellent resolution, even when zooming, a large field of view, and tracking capabilities.
Your viewers should not have to tolerate grainy footage. And in fact, they won’t! Viewers typically abandon low-quality live streams within 90 seconds.
Best Camera for Live Streaming
Our Choice: PTZ Lumens
A PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) camera is the perfect tool for live streaming church or corporate events. PTZ cameras film in vivid 1080p, with 30x zoom, which means that your visuals will be crisp and clear, whether the stream is being viewed on a tiny smartphone or a huge home TV.
PTZ cameras, true to their name, pan, tilt, and zoom, which means they’re the real workhorses of your live stream toolbox. A quality remote-operated PTZ camera typically costs $6,000, and an engaging stream typically makes use of two to three PTZ cameras working in tandem.
PTZ cameras are perfect for churches, synagogues, and corporate events, because they capture dynamic footage and track speakers and presenters. They can seamlessly switch between the pastor, the choir, and guest speakers, or between a presenter and their slideshow, so that the at-home audience doesn’t miss a thing.
Best Camera for Live Streaming Concerts
Our Choice: Cinema Cameras
For paid ticketed events, however, it’s wise to up the camera quality further. Cinema cameras capture footage in 4K resolution, making live music, theater, dance, and more look absolutely incredible. Because if your audience is paying to view your stream, it needs to look great. It’s that simple. Cinema cameras range start at $30,000.
Optimizing Your Footage for Live Streaming
To get your video footage from the cameras to your live stream, you’ll need a live stream encoder.
An encoder converts the RAW video footage into a digital format that can be streamed on any platform, such as YouTube, Facebook Live, Instagram Live, or a private branded streaming page. An encoder is the ultimate tool for live streaming church services, because it allows you to stream across multiple platforms in the optimal format.
A cheap encoder can result in choppy, laggy footage or other streaming malfunctions. A reliable encoder typically costs between $8,000 and $10,000 and requires specialized technical knowledge to use it fluently.
Producing a Quality Live Stream
A live stream operator has specialized training, and can ensure high-fidelity footage while ensuring that your stream is optimized for several different platforms.
Your live stream operator will also troubleshoot issues in real-time as they arise, manage camera zooms, pans, and switches, prepare and execute your graphics, queue, and so much more.
They’re a technical maven and producer, all in one. An on-site live stream operator can run you up to $1,800 per event, but a remote live stream operator is a more budget-friendly choice. A remote live stream operator typically charges $200 - $500 per event.
Live Streams Can Increase Charitable Giving
Many of our clients are houses of worship. A live stream ensures that all congregants can participate in a weekly service, even if they’re homebound, managing health issues, or otherwise unable to make it to a service in person.
A worship live stream not only makes worship more accessible to those who need it, but it also creates a stronger sense of belonging and community.
Most houses of worship are sustained by their communities. But giving to one’s faith community can be difficult if you’re watching online. Not to mention, if you’re watching on Facebook or YouTube, it can be tempting to scroll your feed while listening to a sermon.
The most successful live streams are hosted on branded web pages with built-in donation capabilities. A branded streaming page allows your viewers to stay focused and engaged, and makes it easy for them to give through a single secure portal.
Plus, it’s a great way to keep an archive of streams in one central location, so that your community can come back to meaningful teachings and memorable moments – any time!
Putting together a branded web page involves paying for a domain ($20-$300), web hosting ($250-$350), site management ($500-$1000), and donation management (typically 10% of all donations received). In short, it’s pricey.
How Much Does it Cost to Live Stream Church or Other Events?
To put it all together, running a livestream on your own can cost a lot.
One-Time Costs
Cameras: $18,000 - $60,000
Encoder: $8,000 - $10,000
Ongoing Costs
Remote Livestream Operator: $200 - $500 per event
Branded Streaming Site: $770 - $1650 per year, plus 10% of all donations
Overall, you’re looking at an initial investment of up to $72,150 just to get started. And that’s not even getting into installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting costs.
D.I.Why?
At the end of the day, LiveControl just makes sense. For a refundable equipment deposit of $1499, we send you up to $40,000 worth of proprietary camera and live stream equipment that has been specially optimized by our team of engineers over countless hours. So you can capture and stream incredible footage.
Our House of Worship Plan includes discounted non-profit pricing, and uniquely-engineered PTZ cameras that capture footage in 1080p. They’ve been extensively tested and proven in countless settings, and they’re popular with clients across fields. Our Pro Plan takes that to the next level, including Cinema cameras that stream in stunning 4K.
Once your equipment is installed, simply schedule your event in the LiveControl dashboard, and we’ll do the rest. Seriously – set it and forget it. We’ve got you.
We make live streaming church more affordable.
Here at LiveControl, we’re committed to producing pro-grade live streams for our customers. And the numbers speak for themselves: we’ve produced over 25,000 church and house of worship live streams in the last year alone.
Many of our customers come to us after they’ve already wasted countless hours researching how to put together a quality stream on their own. Why waste time when we can do the tough stuff for you?
We’re your production partner from start to finish.
When your church service or other event starts, we’ll be there, behind the scenes, making sure things look and sound perfect. You won’t have to worry about camera operators, angles, or fidelity. Our remote camera operators will take care of that for you. No more ‘lights, camera…uh…you’re on mute!’
Our remote production team monitors your event and makes real-time decisions to optimize your live stream. So you can capture the new b’nai mitzvah, and the faces of their proud parents. The christening and the priest. The full congregation, the deacon, and the choir. Our production team ensures that no meaningful moment gets missed. We work with you every step of the way to capture priceless memories.
Live streams start at $199/event. For a year’s worth of worship services, that's just $10,348. We just saved you $63,102 that you can invest back into your congregation and your community. Plus peace of mind that your streams will look and sound incredible.
Step into the future.
Picture this: you log on to watch a stream and the first thing you see is a super-blurry close-up of someone’s face while they squint at the screen and go ‘hey, is this thing on?’ Yeah, those days are in the past. We’re ready when you are. Drop us a line to get started!
