Church Online Tips: How to Improve your Church’s Livestream!

Cast your mind back to 2020 (trust us, we won’t dwell in the past too long…) when seemingly every church was thrust into the world of live streaming. Now, four years on, many churches are still looking to embrace live streaming to its full potential. But we know how hard getting it right can be.

So here are 3 you can do to level-up your livestream (and it might not be what you expect…) 

Get your Lighting Right.

We think a good place to start is to make sure your lighting rig is set up to succeed.

If your lighting rig is struggling to illuminate everyone on stage, creating hard shadows or creating an undesirable muddle of colours, then even the most expensive cameras around won’t be able to capture and stream a good-looking image.

That’s why we suggest taking a good look at your lighting, especially your stage wash and key lights. Once you get that nailed in, you’ll be blown away by what you can capture on even the most basic of cameras (including an iPhone!)

Pay Attention to your Audio.

Yep, we’re still not onto video (don’t worry, we’ll get there…)

There’s a saying we like to go by… People will tolerate bad video quality, but not poor audio. If your live stream is struggling to keep people engaged, it might be time to give a good listen to your live stream audio mix.

There are many ways even smaller churches can develop their livestream mix. Many modern, compact and budget-friendly consoles offer more than enough outputs and auxiliary sends to accommodate a livestream. Investing in the training of your sound team is also a sure way to lift the quality of both your live stream and in-person worship experience (which is something we can also do for your team.) 

If you have quite an extensive set-up or large space, you may be considering dedicating an entire audio mixer and engineer for your broadcast. Whilst this can sometimes be a significant undertaking, our team can help you plan out your studio space, creating a powerful and flexible system that seamlessly integrates with your existing set-up.

 Finally – let’s focus on Video.

Investing in your video equipment can help you take your livestream from a basic zoom call to a full-fledged online experience.

If you’re shooting video on an iPhone or old camcorder, you may be disappointed by the less-than-stellar video quality, especially in low-light settings. Upgrading your camera set-up has never been more accessible for churches, with a wide range of excellent options for livestreaming on the market for nearly every price point. 

You want to make sure that as your church grows and requirements increase, you’ve got a video system that’s up for the challenge. Investing in a video switcher with ample inputs and outputs, plenty of high-quality cabling and a reliable encoder are just a few ways you can set your teams and livestream up for success, now and into the future.

So… now what?

With so many moving parts to consider, where should you start? How about giving us a call!

Our team are Australia’s experts in finding production solutions for Churches. Not only are they absolute technical wizards, but they’re passionate about seeing churches create thriving worship experiences, including online.