Several months ago I stumbled upon what I think is the best solution for broadcasting your church service. For many churches, the technicalities of online streaming video is way out of their league and budget. Truthcasting is a phenomenal solution that brings simplicity and economy to the table. They offer free bandwidth, storage, and archiving of videos and podcasts of your services forever. The only cost to the church is the purchase of a Mac mini. The retail is around $700.00. This is a one-time fee that gives your church the hardware you need to get this running. You own the equipment and have a turnkey solution almost immediately.
The process is simple. You record your services on DVD (with no singing for copyright purposes) and you insert the DVD into the Mac Mini. The TruthCasting software rips your service into a streaming video and podcast MP3 and uploads it automatically to their server. The only thing your video person needs to do is title the sermon, and enter some other information about the service. Lastly, you post a link on your website to your very own TruthCasting channel. For more information check out their informational video here. Also, check out this interview we received from TruthCasting.com READ MORE
A few short years ago, the time and expertise it took to host video content on a church website was available to a few, technically saavy congregations. YouTube launched it’s video sharing site in February of 2005 allowing user generated content to quickly find it’s audience. However, the technical limitations (most video sharing sites limit video length to 10 minutes) and social ills associated with YouTube and other sites have prevented sermon content from taking advantage of this distribution platform. TruthCasting, a new place to view and store your full sermons online, offers a bold approach and an innovative solution. Mister Nifty took time to track down one of the founders of TruthCasting, Matt Frazier, and ask about the future of online sermon broadcasting.
Why would the pastor of a small/medium-sized church have interest in putting their sermons on the internet?
The same reason pastors spend hours to prepare weekly sermons for their congregation. If the prepared content is valuable enough to gather a group of 300 individuals every week, when given the chance, that same content will find it’s world wide audience. TruthCasting gives people ease of entry into this kind of distribution without the need of having video professionals in their community. Suddenly, the pastors of small churches will find their sermons consistently viewed around the globe where they never imagined having influence.
How does it work?
We provide a digital media converter and publisher we call a RELAY that will upload video files to a custom channel in the TruthCasting network. The RELAY will automate all the complicated steps to a simple process for the novice. Simply title, label, and tag the sermon for key search words and the RELAY does the rest. Within a couple of hours of the sermon being taught, it is available in video or MP3 format.
How much does the service cost?
The service is totally free. The RELAY will be shipped to you close to the retail cost of a Mac mini, and then there are no fees for storage or usage. We see value in the number of churches that make use of the free service TruthCasting provides.
Well, that is certainly different from other organizations that do the same thing you do. How else are you different?
Our primary difference lies in the service provided with the RELAY. For the first time, we have tied together, what used to be a time-consuming, 5-step process for professionals who know things like compression rates and coding ftp sides of websites. Now, the non-technical pastor can fill out questions in an online form, hit submit, and let the RELAY do the rest. No technical training, to valuable time wasted, and no service fees.
What about copyright concerns with music and graphics?
We want to work with churches to respect the copyrights of music and graphic artists. That practically means that churches should post video from where the pastor’s content begins, and not include traditional time of music. The nature of copyright law makes it difficult for anyone to provide blanket protection from infringement violations. So, we see ourselves helping in the education effort of what constitutes a copyright violation.
What equipment does it take?
For the church that is already publishing content to DVD, this is a no-brainer. They will plug the RELAY into their network and can begin filling their channel with archived or current content right away. For those who aren’t capturing their content on video yet, they can be broadcasting globally with a simple direct-to-hard-drive video camera, any computer to drag and drop the video file into the RELAY, and an online connection.
See TruthCasting for yourself at www.truthcasting.com
To get your church set up with a channel on the TurthCasting network, contact the team at TruthCasting by sending an email to michael.ames@truthcasting.com or by calling 214.440.4040
