The StreamSpot Blog

Automate your live streaming to Simplify your workflow to  Amplify your message.

It might sound too good to be true, but in reality, it's the culmination of almost a decade of continuous work to build the best broadcasting platform for churches, synagogues and houses of worship.

One of the most attractive aspects of Facebook for someone managing an organization is the exposure it provides to reach current and prospective users where they already are on social media. It's a robust platform of millions of users ready to consume your content, so all that's needed to convert those users into viewers is 1.) identify your audience and 2.) drive them to your content. [Okay, that's a little easier said than done.] Thankfully, Facebook includes a ton of useful tools and features to help with this, including the ability to "crosspost." Recently, StreamSpot engineers announced they have developed an even better workflow for StreamSpot users to crosspost right from their  MyStreamSpot Portal, making the ability to syndicate to multiple Facebook pages super-simplified. 

Sizing Up the Situation

In today's digitally connected world, everyone and anyone can watch, create, and share content with others. Whether the goal is to entertain or educate, to motivate or inspire, it's easier than ever to watch and share your creations.

Multi-Platform Streaming

It has been said, "if you aren't everywhere, you're nowhere." This holds some level of truth in many industries, and the world of live streaming is no exception.

No matter what kind of content you produce, in most cases, you probably want people to see it. The most important step you can take in making that happen is putting your content where (and how) people want to see it.

Thanks to advances in modern web-video technology, your StreamSpot broadcasts play well on computers, tablets, smartphones, and more. Pretty much any device that can open a standard web browser these days can view a live stream. The days of third-party plugins are gone, and on the mobile front, dedicated apps are becoming less prevalent in favor of responsive, mobile-friendly websites.

It's easier than ever to provide coverage of your event to laptops, desktops, phone and tablets, all with one website. What's left?

There are several times of year when the StreamSpot Team is busiest supporting its customers, providing both fast and accurate responses to support requests, and also proactively monitoring every broadcast on the platform to ensure each is a success. Understandably, many of these busy times of year fall in sync with holiday schedules of our large house of worship customer base, which means that the last few weeks have been dedicated to proudly serving many of our Jewish customers who utilize StreamSpot to stream the High Holy Day services of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur to those who cannot make it, often due to difficulty or distance.

High Holiday services are streamed live to viewers all over the world.  StreamSpot and JLicense have partnered to ensure the music contained in each broadcast is licensed properly. 

In recent months, many of the major web browsers, both on desktops and on mobile, have made the change to startblocking auto-playing video with or without audio. For browsers like Chrome, this is due to a set of polls that Google has taken from its users that showed an overwhelmingly negative experience for videos with auto-play enabled on websites.

Shelby Smith of Osprey Video joined StreamSpot Wired to cover their hardware encoder and capture card product lines. Osprey has 20+ years of experience in the video capture and streaming market, with more than 1,000,000  capture cards sold. Osprey products are widely known for their quality and reliability.

The Osprey Talon series is a popular option here at StreamSpot. On today's show, Smith explained why the Talon line is great for streaming then how it easily integrates with those on the StreamSpot platform.

When asked about Osprey has coming down the pike, Smith gave some clues on their new upcoming line of capture cards, the Raptor Series. Smith teased the affordable pricepoint, along with the sheer power behind it, will be the big draw to their new capture card line.

Smith, along with hosts Jeff Adams and Ryan Campbell, wrapped by discussing what they're most anticipating at NAB this spring, which is just a few weeks away! Campbell perhaps said it best, saying he's excited about the things that he's not even thinking of yet.

We're looking forward to visiting Osprey and many of our StreamSpot partners at their booths at NAB soon!

To check out the show archive in its entirety, take a look at the video below, and stay Wired!

The new year brought new and exciting topics on StreamSpot Wired, from recapping what came out of the Consumer Electronics Show 2018 (AI, a power outage, the dazzling Intel Shooting Star drone light show, and the favorite of host Jeff Adams, the Sony Aibo robot dog) to a great interview to start the new year with streaming guru Michael Wilson of Mid-South Broadcasting. Wilson is a valued expert in the StreamSpot community, as well as many online streaming communities, for his insight and sheer volume of experience in live streaming events for his Mid-South clients. 

Wilson shared his take on what important factors should go in to choosing a streaming provider vs. opting to use a free streaming service, as well as what features are important to his company when live streaming, particularly when streaming high school basketball games. Wilson also shared his own clock-buzzer calls and moments of panic when streaming on location (we've all been there!) and why local recording has become standard practice in his business.

Not to be outdone by the robot dog footage at the top of the show, StreamSpot's own Goldendoodle-in-residence Max made a quick appearance to close out the show!

To check out the show archive in its entirety, take a look at the video below, and stay Wired!