FINDING and POSTING CHATS:
We encourage all participants in worship to join us in chatting during worship! When you let us know your name and from where you are joining us, not only can we greet you, you can then more fully participate in our interactive worship services!
Chatting on our Vimeo platform is easy. When you first load the video page, on the right you’ll be asked to “Share your name to join.” Type your name (and perhaps the city or state where you are from) in the Name box, then click “Join audience” (no need to log in or create an account!). The join sidebar then closes, and the chat sidebar opens! You can now read all the chats, and post your own! To post your chat, just type into the box at the bottom that says “Send a message” (you may need to scroll to the bottom of the page to see that, depending on your own computer’s screen settings), then either hit
We’ve seen it happen once or twice that the chat will stop accepting your posts (tech isn’t perfect yet!). We’ve discovered that refreshing your browser page (or closing it and coming right back in) generally quickly fixes the problem.
VOLUME SETTINGS:
The Vimeo playback window has its own volume control, so if you are having trouble hearing, be sure that everything is turned up not just on your own computer, but also within the video. To check this, during the playback of any video (live or recorded) on Vimeo, move your mouse to the volume control (bottom left of video), and make sure that the slider is all the way up…!
Additionally… laptop speakers are often fairly poor at sound reproduction. To hear better, we highly recommend using a set of external speakers, or even earbuds, which can make a huge difference in hearing and understanding. (If you are having trouble hearing, it is worth a try!) However, if the sound on the broadcast seems off, please don’t hesitate to post a chat to let our pastor(s) and tech deacon know what you are experiencing, so if there is a problem we can fix it on the fly.
IF THE STREAM STUTTERS:
Most often, a stream that lags, buffers, or stops and restarts is due to a problem with the internet connectivity or computer resources on the viewing end–that’s your own machine. If your computer is downloading or installing updates, or running other programs, these might interfere with the stream. If closing out competing applications doesn’t resolve things, you can often eliminate streaming problems by reducing the quality of the stream, which saves both bandwidth and computing power. Do this by clicking on the bandwidth control at the lower right corner of the video window (if available–it appears just to the right of the full screen icon, and looks like cell bars or a gear wheel, and only shows up if the stream is at higher quality). Choosing a lower option, such as 260p, resolves streaming issues for most computers.
IF THE STREAM DROPS/CRASHES:
We’ve rarely had difficulty with the stream dropping during worship. If this happens, however, there is usually a small turning circle over a blank video screen, like it is trying to reload the stream. If this happens, the chat may be active for a short time longer, but all comes to a stop. To reconnect with worship, click the refresh button on your internet browser (it usually looks like a circling arrow), or simply close the window and come back to the worship page again. You may need to do this more than once until the stream is back up, so we suggest you just repeat a refresh until you get the stream again. (Please remember to do this after a crash, so that you will all be able to continue in worship together with us!)