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On today’s Tech Help for Churches,

Live-streaming: Hangouts on air or YouTube live streaming?

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

A lot of times the question comes up, should you use hangouts on air YouTube live streaming? It’s a fair question. They both do live streaming, but each has its advantages over the other.

Google hangouts on air, is great when you have more than one participant. For example, if you’re doing a live video interacting with a remote campus, a youth mission trip, or in interview with the missionary, hangouts on air would be great. On the other hand, if you’re just live streaming your service for anyone who wants to watch, then I think YouTube live streaming is the better choice.

[tweet “Which should your church use: Hangouts on air or YouTube live streaming?”]

I haven’t done extensive testing, but it seems to me that the video quality from hangouts on here isn’t as good as it is with YouTube live streaming. This makes sense when you think about it. Hangouts are designed to be a broadcast platform, but a meeting platform. So, it expects to get video from a WebCam.

YouTube live streaming on the other hand expects that the video will be received from a live media encoder like Adobe flash media live encoder, Wirecast, or some other system. It’s just optimized for the best possible video.

If you have decent video system, you would probably prefer to use your video switcher and your computer to create the appropriate effects, but if you’re doing something that’s more like teleconferencing, the built-in effects with hangouts on-air are probably more than enough.

For more of my thoughts about Google hangouts on air versus YouTube live, watch the video above.

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About this show:

Tech Help for Churches is a weekly podcast premiering every Monday at 11a eastern (-4 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

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