Quick Comparison of Church Live Streaming Solutions

One of the powerful communication tools for houses of worship and churches today are live streaming solutions. The video helps you in reaching the largest possible audience like those travelling, relocated for work or school, located in other countries, etc. Live streaming helps churches build audience both physically and digitally without additional cost. Church live streaming solutions are used in many ways by houses of worship. The benefits of using video streaming solutions are-

• Improving understanding of complex information
• Appealing to multiple learning preferences
• Support for ‘multi-modal’ learning, and
• Enhanced comprehension and retention of information

 

Church Live Streaming Solutions -

Video is the heart of any streaming program, and church live streaming solutions are used to host and serve video to reviewers. These services are also known as OVPs (online video platforms) which provides hosting and delivery of videos, from the house of worship to the viewers. There several live streaming platforms on the market, each having a different set of focus, price, and features. It is, therefore, challenging to make an informed decision. Mentioned below are four key elements that require consideration.

• Cost- it refers to the plan and billing frequency options, one-time vs. ongoing, etc.
• Storage/ Bandwidth- it refers to how video can be stored/ streamed.
• Distribution- it refers to how much a given service gets its content to viewers.
• White-label service- it refers to an ad-free, branding service along with your colors and logo as the only thing present.
   

Let’s take a look at specific video streaming solutions for churches as well as other houses of worship.

1. DaCast -

DaCast is one of the renowned live streaming platforms providing on-demand live video streaming for several places of worship including churches.

• Cost - DaCast offers ‘event pricing’ for those who stream occasionally. The starter plan is $19/month, while the Premium plan costs $125/month.
• Storage/Bandwidth - the plans start from 100 GB of bandwidth at 20GB storage for those seeking affordable starter plans. The Premium plan offers increased bandwidth to 2000 GB and storage capacity of 200 GB and the overage costs are $o.o625/ GB which is quite competitive. The custom high volume plans are also available that cuts down per-GB bandwidth as well as storage costs. All bandwidth that is not used in a given month will be carried over to the next month. DaCast also offers even-based pricing for occasional or one-time live streaming.
• Distribution - Dacast uses the Akamai CDN for delivery of videos and live streams which happens to be the fastest and largest CDN in the world, leaving Amazon’s CloudFront CDN way behind by double digits in various tests.
• White label - the VODs and video streams are all white-label and enables you to add your own customized player theme and logo.

 

2. Boxcast -

Boxcast this hosting service offers various features and tools. It specializes in live streaming but also offers VOD functionality.

• Cost - the Standard plan starts at $99/month, while the advanced Plan costs $129/month. The Advanced plan has more storage duration and even offers better analytics and Roku/Apple TV support. The Advanced Plus Plan costs $299 which enables monetization and graphics/scoreboard overlays.
• Storage/ Bandwidth - all the plans include unlimited bandwidth for streaming but the storage is different. Boxcart does not charge per GB, instead retains recorded live streams for a particular time period. The Standard Plan keep recordings of each broadcast for 1 month, while the Advanced and Advanced Plus plan saves a copy for 1 year.
• Distribution - they use Amazon’s CloudFront CDN, but is not quite fast and does even have a number of distribution or server as the Akamai.
• White label - all the plans include white-label streaming.

 

3. Vimeo Live -

The platform offers live streaming as well as VOD platforms.

• Cost - live streaming is offered in $75/month, the custom plans are also available for those who require advanced features.
• Storage/Bandwidth - Vimeo offers unlimited bandwidth and 7TB of storage at just $75.
• Distribution - videos and live streams are delivered through an internal server network which is like that of IBM. The network, however, is not as robust as CDN and buffering complaints trouble Vimeo users.
• White label - all white-label plans start at $20/month which however does not include live streaming.  For live streaming, you need to pay minimum of $75/month.

 

3. IBM Cloud Video -

It provides VOD and live streaming services and was previously known as UStream.

• Cost - IBM Cloud Video is expensive and for professional-grade features like white-label service costs minimum of $999/month. For a decent amount of viewer hours requires a payment of $499/month.
• Storage/ Bandwidth - storage and bandwidth are relatively expensive as the Silver Plan which costs $99/month includes merely 100 viewer hours and 1TB storage. The Gold plan includes 2000 viewer hours and 2 TB of storage and the Platinum plan offers 500 viewer hours and 5TB video storage.
• Distribution - an IBM server is used to deliver content which is not as powerful as the CDN but does suffice for few users’ streaming requirements.
• White label - the white-label service is only available with Platinum and custom-priced plans, while co-branding is included in the Gold plan level.