Streaming

How to stream your church to multiple platforms at once

Different people live on different platforms — some on YouTube, some on Facebook, some who prefer your own website. Multistreaming (also called simulcasting) sends one service to all of them at the same time. There are three main ways to do it.

Option 1 — A restreaming service (easiest)

Services like Restream, Castr or similar take a single stream from you and fan it out to YouTube, Facebook and more from their servers. Your building only uploads once, which is gentle on your internet.

• Pros: easy, saves your bandwidth, manages each platform's keys for you.
• Cons: usually a monthly cost for multiple destinations; another service in the chain.

Option 2 — Local software (vMix, or OBS with a plugin)

vMix can push to several destinations directly, and OBS can too with a multi-output plugin. Everything runs on your own machine.

• Pros: no third-party service, full control.
• Cons: your building uploads to every platform at once — needs strong upload bandwidth and a capable PC.

Option 3 — A hardware encoder

Dedicated hardware encoders can send to multiple destinations reliably, offloading the work from a computer.

• Pros: rock-solid, purpose-built, frees up your PC.
• Cons: upfront hardware cost.

Which should you choose?

• Limited upload speed? A restreaming service — you only upload once.
• Strong internet, want no subscriptions? vMix or OBS locally.
• Want maximum reliability? A hardware encoder or a restreaming service.

Your graphics come along for free

Whatever route you pick, your lower-thirds are baked into the video before it's sent — so they appear on every platform automatically. Point TajiCast at your audio and the preached verse shows up on YouTube, Facebook and your site at once, with no extra work per destination.

Related: Stream to YouTube · Stream to Facebook Live