Technical Tips for Livestreaming
You may be worshipping through livestream broadcasts into your living room, but you're among literally thousands of others watching at the same time. That's incredible when you think about how God may be using technology to spread His truth. Consider these tips for making your online viewing experience optimal for your household situation.
- Check how fast the internet connection is coming into your house. Review your internet provider invoice and run a speed test.
- Use your most up-to-date device. You can count on older devices to cause more issues.
- Is your modem/router up-to-date? Use its 5 Ghz channel rather than the 2.4 GHz channel.
- Consider using a hard-wired ethernet connection to your modem. This nearly always provides a better connection than WiFi. If using WiFi, get as close to the signal as possible. The further away you are and the more walls between your device and the signal, the weaker the strength will be.
- Limit the number of things running on your device. Close down other programs and apps.
- Turn off other devices in your home while you are streaming. These other devices can consume additional bandwidth—especially video games.
- When viewing on a mobile device (iPhone, iPad, Android phone or tablet) use the NHC app rather than a browser.
- If the stream doesn’t start when expected or pauses at any point, try refreshing your browser window or restarting the app.
- Many browsers and anti-virus programs won’t allow videos to play automatically or will mute the sound. Ensure these features are turned off or temporarily disabled.
- If something is not working well, try a different platform. New Hope Church typically streams to the NHC website, NHC app, Vimeo, Facebook and YouTube (this may be a good option for watching on a smart TV that has a built-in app).
- If the livestream is not working, try watching the video recordings at a different time of the day.
We hope these guidelines help. Keep in mind that especially during the COVID crisis, there are many thousands of other churches and individuals all trying to do the same thing on Sunday mornings. This can certainly affect individual viewing experiences.
We've shared these tips to help you have a positive and engaging worship experience. Thanks for understanding that we’re unable to address specific questions or provide individual technical support.
Tim Bodkin is IT Lead at New Hope Church. He has more than 20 years of IT experience and 15 years in ministry. He enjoys helping people understand technology and make better use of it to proclaim the gospel.