Streaming a Seminary Classroom
November 22, 2019
Streaming a Seminary Classroom
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Streaming Manager (Ustream Pro Broadcast)
Modules Used
- none
Overall Satisfaction with IBM Watson Media's Video Streaming
We use video streaming for the online classes that we offer as part of our Master of Biblical Studies curriculum. Our online students can watch the classes live, or they can watch a recording of the class at their earliest convenience. We connect two IP address cameras to the video streaming platform (one on the students and one on the professors), and we control the cameras with an iPad. We also connect to the professor's computer as a Remote Desktop (3rd camera) to show PPT slides that he is showing to the class.
- The streaming platform is easy to navigate from the back end. It does not take extensive training for someone to step in as a video live stream producer.
- I like the functionality to create numerous channels to stream and host varying content.
- Although the platform has the capability to produce a complicated stream with a lot of moving parts, it is also user-friendly enough for an iPhone user to set up a simple stream on his or her phone very easily.
- When using a Remote Desktop source, it is very hard to connect the computer's audio to the stream. It has never worked well for us. And we have often had to use the audio from the room itself as opposed to directly from the computer.
- The chat feature can be more natively integrated into the video source (chats could be overlayed on the video itself as opposed to the side). It would make the interaction more prominent.
- The video editor could be significantly improved. It would be nice to be able to clip more than just the beginning and the end of a recorded video (i.e. if you want to clip a 10 second section from the middle of the video, you need to export the entire recording, import the file into a video editor, edit the video there, export the video out of the video editor, and then import the new file back into the Ustream channel).
Our organization has not benefited from this scalability when streaming live events because we only stream to a limited number of students who are given the password to the channel (the class they are taking). However, we have had a couple of events that weren't password-protected, and the stream easily facilitated the numbers that were watching.
Our organization primarily uses the video streaming platform to stream and record classes (private, password protected), so we do not use or leverage those metrics to better understand viewer engagement.
We have experimented a little bit with the closed captioning feature. Since the majority of our users are watching the lectures with their headphones on (and because there is often a Powerpoint image on the screen from the professor's Remote Desktop), we have found the closed captioning to be too distracting to use consistently.