ListenToChurch Integrated Video Conferencing

This is a video conferencing system which allows you to hold virtual church services with each
participant connecting via a custom meet.listentochurch.com URL to broadcast the result into your
audio stream.

This service is freely available as part of your plan.  

Thanks to those who so graciously assisted with testing and troubleshooting this.  Also thanks to those who paid initial setup costs.

Getting Started:

1. You can retrieve your ID by going to https://listentochurch.com/manage.  From there you can email yourself the Mount details.  This email will include a 9 digit number starting with 81.
2. You’ll need to keep this number as it will be used every time you want to broadcast to your stream.
3. Go to https://meet.listentochurch.com and create a new meeting or join an existing one if
   you’ve created one already. You can use the random text it generates or enter your own
   
4. You’ll need to allow access to your microphone and camera if you wish to broadcast.
5. You’ll see a popup at the bottom of your window which gives you the choice of entering a
   password. If you’re using something like “Demo” for the meeting name then we’d recommend
   entering a password but if this is a temporary meeting and you use a random string then it’s up
   to you. You can access this box again by pressing on the i in a white circle at the bottom of the
   screen. 
   
6. Share the newly created URL and password with your presenters.
7. To call out your conference to your stream press on the + sign on the bottom of the screen. You need to have moderator rights to be able to perform this. Moderator rights are given to the first person in a conference.
   
8. Enter the number you’ve received as part of your account setup (step 2). Please be aware that you must not be actively streaming from elsewhere or this will not work. Once you have the number entered click on Telephone. 
   
9. Next click on Invite. That will join another your audio stream into the meeting. Please be aware that this might take up to 1 minute to finish connection. 
10. Once the stream broadcast user is online you can control them by clicking on the 3 small dots on their box. From here you can kick them off. 
    

Playing Whatasapp and CloudVeil Messenger messages into you stream

There are two methods to play audio recordings into meet.listentochurch.com

1. This is the easiest option but will have lower quality.
   1. Click the Share your screen option in the lower-left corner of the page.
   2. Select Share audio.
   3. Select the screen you want to share. Your audio player must be on this screen if you
      have multiple screens.
   4. Click Share.
   5. You can leave your mic muted while sharing.
   6. Play your audio file.
   7. Once done, click Stop Sharing at the bottom of the screen.
2. This method allows for higher quality audio.
   1. Install VB-Cable https://www.vb-audio.com/Cable/VirtualCables.htm
   2. Change the microphone input to the VB-Audio output and unmute your mic. Note: your
      device microphone will be inactive when using the VB-Audio output.
   3. Play your audio file.
   4. When done, switch your microphone input back to your regular microphone.

Tips

1. All users who are not actively broadcasting should have their microphones muted.
2. It is helpful if whoever is broadcasting has their speaker turned down to help prevent the
   possibility of feedback.
3. We have had slightly better success using internet browsers on computers versus the native
   Android and iOS apps.
4. Like all systems how well this works depends partially on your internet connection as well as
   your microphone and audio levels.
5. Use a USB microphone or another auxiliary input method to improve the audio quality. This is
   especially true on laptops that may be processing some noice cancellation or acoustic echo
   cancellation (AEC) on board. When this is happening, the audio will either sound unnatural, fade
   in and out, or bot

Notes

 

The goal of this project is to balance ease of use along with providing decent audio quality for singing. I say decent audio quality, as there may be ways of getting higher audio quality, but the level of setup will be exponentially higher.

1. Send users the URL to your meeting which you will generate at meet.listentochurch.com.
2. The admin logs into the meeting and adds the stream as a user using the LTC stream ID. The stream will now be live.
3. Users log in by opening the URL in a web browser on a computer or via an app on a mobile device.
4. Users present via their computers or devices.
5. Optionally, play recordings into the same conference.
6. Listeners use the stream just like before.

Feel free to create a test meeting at the above address; however, the LTC stream integration is not active by default. We plan to add phone dial-out support for paid users shortly. This will allow you to dial the phone of a presenter and let them present over the phone line.  Our testing shows that using an external microphone such as a USB mic or combination webcam/mic will generally give better audio quality with singing than the built-in mics on computers or the app on mobile devices.

Here is some crucial follow-up information for those of you who are interested in or using meet.listentochurch.com. As mentioned above, this project is still in beta, so keep that in mind as you use it. If you are having trouble with poor audio quality, please help us by using these troubleshooting tips before contacting support.

1. Make sure all mics except for the presenter are muted, this includes your own. Click the menu option for the person presenting and select the "mute everyone else" option.
2. Make sure the speakers are turned off on the presenters' device.
3. There are known issues with the Jitsi Meet mobile apps. Do not use these for singing unless you are willing for the degraded audio.
4. Currently, the only sure way of streaming singing without noise cancellation issues is to use an external mic on a PC. Most USB type mics or interfaces with a mic input should work fine. This does not include webcam type mics. Some built-in laptop and webcam mics may work fine, but it's best to assume that there will be audio issues until you've tested and proven otherwise.

We're looking into some other options to stream audio into meet.listentochurch.com using Android devices, but this is going to take some additional commitment to pull off. We'd be interested to hear from you if you are interested in supporting this project by subscribing. If we don't have enough subscribers, then we'll assume that there currently isn't a need for this type of tool.