Building a Better Church Livestream with OBS

Many churches are continuing to look for ways to improve the production value of their new live-streamed services amid the worldwide quarantine. OBS, a free video streaming program, has the tools necessary to produce a professional look and feel. Today, let's talk about how to get the most out of the program and help you build a better church livestream.

Camera for OBS Studio Plugin

OBS Virtualcam

Fast and Cheap Ways to Livestream Your Church Service THIS SUNDAY

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[AlexLyons]

OBS Virtualcam is only for Windows; Mac solution?

[andreabrayboy]

I absolutely love your last statement. Many of my brothers and sisters support my Media Ministy team, but when we ask for upgrades it's often disregarded as an inessential need. My husband and I personally paid for all of our tech upgrades in 2019, just because I already knew what I wanted wasn't in the budget. Anyway, since this has happened God have moved us to the forefront and the membership is extremely grateful and supportive. Many of our seniors have learned Zoom and YouTube and now appreciate what our team brings to the Body of Christ.

[eternalcustomchannel]

Great video!
I have two ideas that might help some people:

1) For lyrics overlays, I setup my lyrics in my presentation software, and set the background to solid green. I then window capture the live output (add source, window capture). I then add the Chroma Key filter on that source (right click the source, filters, + sign, Chroma key). This allows me to run my presentation software exactly how I usually would, or via hotkeys or something, and overlay it on my stream. Much easier than recreating slides all over again! If needed, one could even just use it to capture those individual slides in order to do your suggested method.

2) Audio sync, I usually just record the clap, pull it into my video editing software and count the frames between the visual and audio clap. From there it is some simple maths to figure out how many ms delay to put. Also, there is a video sync filter, called 'async' for in case anyone might need that. Add it the same as you add the Color Correction filter. Not highly recommended for multicam setups, as it can cause jitters when transitioning between scenes in my experience.

Good luck everyone! We're all in this together!

[redeemermedford]

Blackbar - the MVP! Been streaming for the last couple of weeks and it has been going so, so well, thanks to your many tips and tricks!

[anthony_basta]

Merci beaucoup, vos conseils sont extraordinaire clair, merci encore. Je vous suis depuis Paris

[TheGRBC]

I agree with your last statement regarding a change in how we engage digitally. Our church is tiny and only this last year started to put our videos on YouTube. Streaming was still way in the future for us. This pandemic situation changed all that. We started streaming six weeks ago to FB via a cell phone and when my ATEM mini pro arrived we started streaming live to YouTube. We are now two sessions into it. It is like drinking from a fire hose learning to stream on the fly. What we have noticed is our attendance has actually increased. We are still learning and your channel is very inspiring and helpful.

[kiremah]

You covered alot of helpful info in the least time possible. Thank you.

[MiguelGarcia-dnqm]

Bro as a new media director this really got me excited and hopeful! Makes me feel smarter than I am bringing this to the table 😂👏🏻👏🏻 keep it up dude!

[jeovanikelechi]

From Lagos nigeria.you are the real one bro.thanks

[nittanydragon]

I just completed the second week of live streams at my church, your videos put me on to OBS and I’m still working on opportunities to improve the quality. I appreciate the content.

[guyosburn]

Great Video!
Very helpful!
We’ve been streaming for about 9 months now so I’m still pretty ‘Green’ as far as my knowledge of OBS goes.
You have given me Several new ideas on how to improve our services.
Your information is clear and concise (For the most part). This is a Really Big Deal to those of us who are still getting our feet wet!
Can’t thank you enough for your help!!!

[jjwurtz]

Another great video!! Wanted to share an idea I came up with, using PowerPoint to create your over overlay images. Yes you are correct that PowerPoint can not create transparent images, but what you can do is set the background to the standard green screen color (#00b140) and then use a chromakey filter it out. Most everyone has PowerPoint, not everyone knows how to create transport images. Also, changing your images is easy when the filter is in place. Hope it helps.

[venturechurch]

You put out the clearest, most concise explanations on Youtube, Caleb. So easy to implement following your instructions. Thanks!

[Blycker]

Thanks for the tip on the desync problem. Just what we needed.

[DexterLaurence]

Brother I must say you are a blessing thanks some 💯

[st.petersepiscopalchurchar]

Thanks for posting content about live streaming in an emergency. Our church is trying to get this together to live stream Easter. Much appreciated!

[FellowshipBaptistWarrenton]

Thanks so much for this! The OBS for iOS was the answer to my prayer literally. On a self-promoting note, I was doing most of what you showed with scenes and cameras. I did my lyrics a bit differently. Using Proclaim -you start Proclaim and Go OnAir. Now the lyrics are a window source you can capture. Sometimes I show lyrics full screen and other times I show lyrics underneath a smaller camera space so I have multiple scenes that you can double click to show. Anyway so awesome! Thank you. (if anyone else reads this the Proclaim method only works on PC without some manupulating) Mac requires some extra steps which I don't need since I have PC's in the "studio".

[benitezfoto-video]

Muchas gracias por su trabajo. Muito brigado por su trabalho. Ty for your work.

[bretthowarth]

I myself built the live stream for my church using obs studio, 2 elgato capture devices and 2 inexpensive cameras connected to our sound board.

[ilirpellumbi]

You get right to the points, and convey them well, thank you!!!!