What is available
Your services, kept. Every service you stream to your Stream Cloud address is now saved automatically and listed under the player as Past services. Anyone who missed last Sunday can watch it whenever they like, at the same address they already know.
It comes with Stream Cloud: available on MAX with the Stream Cloud add-on, and included on ALPHA.
Stream Cloud now has its own settings tab in the Studio as well. The address, what the watch page says, the viewer PIN and your saved services all sit together in one place.
What changes
Until now, Stream Cloud was live only. When the service ended, the stream ended with it. If you wanted a recording on the web, you recorded locally, exported, uploaded somewhere else, and pasted a second link into the church group.
Now the address does both. Live when you are live. The library when you are not.
What you can do with a saved service:
- Rename it. "Broadcasteer - Stream Cloud" becomes "Sunday 9am, Baptism" and the card under the player follows.
- Copy a link to it. One service, one link. Drop it in the cell group chat for the person who asked for "that sermon from last month".
- Delete it. Some things should not stay online. One click, and it is gone from your address.
Once you have a few months of services, the tab gives you search, sorting, a list or tile view, and a meter showing how much you are keeping.
The resolution fades, the sermon never does
This is the part I thought about longest.
Every service is kept in two copies. If you stream above 720p, the high-definition copy is kept for two years. A 720p copy is kept for as long as your address is active. If you stream at 720p or below, that single copy is the one kept for good.
So a sermon from three years ago is still there. It is just not in 4K any more. Honestly, nobody rewatching a sermon from three years ago was going to notice.
That second copy is not extra work either. Phones watching live already prefer the 720p stream, so it is being made anyway. The archive simply keeps it.
The first real run
I tested this where it would actually be used. Not in the booth, at a cell group. One phone, enrolled as a remote camera, streaming to the church address over the internet.
It ran two hours and thirty-two minutes. When it stopped, the service was sitting in the library: one service, 4 GB, 720p. My reaction at the time was not very professional... "STORAGE WORKS", in capitals.
That is the kind of test I trust. A real gathering, a real phone, a real upload, and the thing it was built to keep, kept.
Who benefits
The member who was away. Sick, travelling, on shift. Last Sunday is at the address they already know.
Small groups and midweek meetings. A cell group or a prayer meeting can now leave something behind for the people who could not make it.
The person sending links. One link per service, rather than a hunt through a platform's channel for the right video.
Anyone who needs a service private. The viewer PIN guards the library too. A funeral streamed behind a PIN stays behind that PIN afterwards.
Being straight about the limits
This is not discovery. Nobody finds your address by accident. If reach is the point, a public platform still does that better, and most churches should keep using one.
Short streams are not kept. Anything under five minutes is discarded on purpose. A short blessing or a quick notice at the end of a meeting will not stay, so record it locally if it matters.
Covers are text for now. The Past services cards show the title, not a picture. The watch page keeps working with no picture at all, and I would rather ship that than make a server grab frames.
Delete is permanent. There is no bin. Think once before you press it.
Levels
Stream Cloud comes in three levels, set by the highest quality you stream: MAX+1 for 720p, MAX+2 for 1080p, MAX+3 for 4K. The level decides how high your HD copy goes. The 720p copy is kept the same way at every level.
Practical notes
Title the service before you start. The title and description you type in Studio are what the saved service is called. Renaming later works, but naming it first means you never have to.
Stream past five minutes before calling it a test. If you want a test kept, run it long enough.
Share the single-service link, not the address, for a specific sermon. The address always shows the latest. A service link always shows that service.
Check the PIN decision per event. It protects the live stream and the recording together.
Available now on MAX with the Stream Cloud add-on, and on ALPHA.