Streaming Channel and how it functions
ChurchStreaming.TV is an event based system. In order to stream you must first create a one time or recurring event. If you haven’t done that yet you can head over to our “How to Create a Streaming Event” Tutorial for help.
This tutorial will assume you have an event scheduled. For testing purposes having an event scheduled about 15 minutes in the future is a great place to start this walk-through.
Once your event is scheduled you will see information about your event on the dashboard located at https://my.churchstreaming.tv/dashboard.
One very important component of live streaming is knowing the status of your streaming channel. Each ChurchStreaming.tv account has its own streaming channel. It’s important to know that this channel is only online and ready to stream about 5-7 minutes before your stream's start time unless you choose to start your stream early.
For now - let’s assume your stream will start at its scheduled time!
Your channel status is indicated for you at all times in the upper right-hand side of the streaming dashboard. The channel will either be Offline, Starting, Online, or Stopping. (See the image below for the channel status location.)
Your channel status will change to online approximately 5-7 minutes prior to your scheduled event start time. We will also show a message letting you know your channel status has changed as seen in the image below.
Once the channel status is online you will be able to connect your hardware or software encoder successfully. Attempting to connect an encoder while the channel is offline may result in an error on certain encoders.
(Please Note – If you are using our Link encoder with our Pro-Connect add-on plan the encoder will automatically connect at the proper time so long as it is plugged in and online.)
It is important to note that an online channel does not mean your live stream has started only that the channel is ready to receive your signal. The live stream will begin at the scheduled time unless you manually start the channel early.
That’s it! If your channel is online and your encoder is now connected you’ll be live streaming once that countdown reaches zero! Great job!