By Diane Limanowski
Since early in the COVID-19 shutdown, we have been able to livestream two Masses every Sunday – one English and one Spanish – to anyone who has access to our Facebook page. Later in the day each Sunday, the recordings of those Masses are posted to our parish website where they are also archived. (Recently, we also began to archive video recordings of selected homilies of our priests and deacons.)
The livestreaming done to date has been with a single iPhone on a tripod near a speaker connected to our sound system to improve audio quality. It is very simple and has worked reasonably well. However, the limitations of this method prompted research into what would be involved in permanently mounting three cameras in locations around the inside perimeter of the worship space as opposed to the front row location of the iPhone stand.
Financed by our Homestead Circle fund, along with many hours of volunteer time given by parishioners Rick Limanowski, Dave Lombardo and Bill Gorsline, we are preparing to launch much more professional broadcasts of the two Masses. Our facilities team, Mark Stevens and Gus Serio, built a video booth in the southeast corner of the church that matches the sound booth in the northeast corner. When the new system is launched, Masses will be broadcast on multiple platforms like Vimeo and YouTube, along with Facebook and on our own website.
So far two parishioners have volunteered for the Video Broadcast Team that will be needed to facilitate these enhanced broadcasts. Training will be provided (we will learn together!) for anyone interested in helping make the broadcasts possible.
Contact Tom Norton if you would like more information about this new ministry.