IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming Brings Church to Travelers and Homebound Members
November 02, 2019

IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming Brings Church to Travelers and Homebound Members

Beth Jinkerson | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Streaming Manager (Ustream Pro Broadcast)

Overall Satisfaction with IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming

My church uses IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming to webcast all public assemblies for Bible study and worship of the church that meets at 138 Providence Road in Oak Ridge TN. We are a congregation of about 145 members drawn from Oak Ridge, Clinton, and Knoxville and surrounding rural areas. The webcast serves members who are homebound or otherwise unable to attend in person. We also make the assemblies available to interested people around the world.

IBM’s video streaming service is cost-effective for us since we are such a small congregation. We are able to use open-source free products to support our video stream, making this a uniquely accessible approach to a service that is of primary importance to our mission statement.
  • This service allows multiple viewers to either set up a free, ongoing account or watch anonymously without getting an account.
  • Whether or not the viewer logs into an account or views anonymously, they can participate in the chat room, another feature of IBM’s software. Here, one can ask questions, make comments, and ask for technical support. Our webcasting team also uses this chat room feature to manage/test technical details related to webcast quality and other specific settings for the stream (I.e., sound, image, camera focus, etc.).
  • The ability to auto-record is another useful feature for us. The company offers a generous 1000 hours of recorded content per month, which is more than enough for our roughly 4 hours of streaming per week on average. This makes it possible to save an entire year of worship and study time for playback.
  • Occasionally, we experience a form of static that lasts for about 1 to 2 minutes. It appears in the live stream and in the auto-recorded file, but not in the live worship assembly. It occurs roughly 1 in every 4 hours of webcast time. I wish there was a way to trace the source of that recurring static. The diagnostic tools could be more robust.
  • It would be nice if the chat room allowed a user photo/avatar for each user to personalize that a little more.
  • I have wished for a way that an admin could use a “laser pointer” on the video window to point out something on the feed that other live viewers could see.
  • It would be wonderful to have a mini-tutorial for viewers who are not technically savvy that would inform them of how to get to the site and explain how they can use the software. For example, how they can see and type in the chat room, how to maximize the screen and make it smaller. Some of our viewers are in nursing homes or otherwise limited in capability to learn to use this on their own.
Our organization is not large, in fact, it is small. We appreciate this service more based on the fact that we are able to use such a powerful capability despite our modest size. We find that this supports us at our current size, yet offers a huge growth potential if we change our model of webcasting in the future.
I cannot comment on this since we are so small that I am unaware of having benefitted from this so far.
Yes, we have made use of this powerful tool to remain aware of our regular viewership. We report numbers of viewers regularly to the managing team.
We have not yet made use of this, but are reviewing it as a possible growth move for us.
This software is ideal for any size church. The ability to purchase a modest number of viewer-hours per month for a reasonable cost (no-ads) is hugely important for non-profit organizations. Being able to live-stream, record and watch from the archives is also great. Finally, the chat room allows for a more interactive experience than traditional tv broadcasting.

IBM Video Streaming Feature Ratings

Lead generation
Not Rated
Video personalization
Not Rated
eCommerce
Not Rated
Support for advertisements
Not Rated
Video SEO
Not Rated
Video access controls
10
User management
10
Video link sharing
10
Internal video
10
External video
10
Player customization
10
Embedded videos
10
Video quality / Bandwidth controls
8
Mobile compatibility
10
Streaming quality reports
8
Per viewer tracking
10
Per video tracking
10
Video analytics dashboard
10
On-Demand video
10
Live streaming
10
Impact of streaming on network
10
Video upload & format support
10
Video library / File management
10
Video portal
10
Audience polling
Not Rated
Audience Q&A / Live chat
10
Video comments
10