Live Webcasting Architecture Overhaul

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June 4, 2025
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Massive update to live webcasting.

The biggest update to our live webcasting platform ever has now been released with tons of rich new functionality! It's easy to use, beautifully implemented, and just works on all platforms. Entirely reengineered from the core, the new system is built on The Vault infrastructure and is packed with PRO features.

Big new features include:

  • Full multicasting support—YouTube, Facebook, etc
  • Password-protect live webcasts (optionally)
  • Replay recent webcasts (optionally)
  • Real-time health monitoring log
  • Full Vault infrastructure integration

Enjoy unlimited live streaming with zero extra fees—fully built into every broadcaster account. No hidden costs, no restrictions—just powerful, professional streaming made easy.

It's purposeful, private, powerful.

PURPOSEFUL: SermonAudio is purpose-built for the church. Unlike other platforms, we support sermon-specific metadata for live webcasts—speaker name, title, and description. Webcasts can then easily be archived as a permanent sermon record.

PRIVATE: It's becoming more and more evident that operating independently on our own private infrastructure via The Vault strengthens our mission in many ways—chiefly, protecting our ability to spread truth, free from third-party dependency.

POWERFUL: Our new system delivers powerful webcasting functionality—on par with services that charge far more. No limits, no ads, and full integration with YouTube and Facebook—there’s simply no reason to look elsewhere.

Keeping it simple.

We believe you'll appreciate just how simple we've made it for you. Push a single stream using any software or hardware encoder using the supplied stream key and we take care of transcoding it to multiple bitrate streams—including an audio-only stream—and even to multiple social media platforms.

All-in-one hardware encoders such as ATEM Mini or LiveU or software encoders such as OBS Studio or Wirecast work seamlessly.

For Blackmagic ATEM users, feel free to download our streaming XML, here.

Multicasting done right.

Multicasting lets you send a single live webcast stream to SermonAudio, which then is re-streamed to other platforms like Facebook or YouTube. You can start, stop, and update live webcast metadata for all multicast streams automatically—all from the Webcast Manager.

What you send to SermonAudio is copied exactly as-is to the other destination platforms. We do not touch the quality. We do not overlay a watermark. It's just the clean stream and it's a truly wonderful service.

In keeping with our one-price-fits-all strategy, there is NO additional charge for this incredibly useful feature. No need to look any further. Multicasting is automatically available to all broadcasters.

Password-protected webcasts.

Now you can securely limit access to your live webcasts with our new password-protected feature. Whether you're streaming private events, sensitive content, or simply want more control over your audience, this feature will hide your webcast from site-wide pages, and ensures only those with the correct password can tune in.

It’s easy to set up and manage from the Webcast Manager. Password protection is supported on all up-to-date mobile apps, television apps, and the new website. It is not supported on the legacy website or the Roku television app.

Replay recent webcasts.

If you just missed a live webcast, don't worry—you can now replay recent webcasts by default, unless the broadcaster has chosen to disable this feature. Just look for Recent Webcasts on any broadcaster homepage or on the Recent tab of the Webcasts section.

Please note: replays are available for 2 weeks from the air date. After that, the webcast will be removed unless it is trimmed and archived as a permanent sermon record.

Real-time health monitoring.

No more stream anxiety—we continuously monitor the health of your live webcast so you don’t have to. Our real-time health log gives you peace of mind: when you see the GREEN Connection Stable indicator, everything is running smoothly.

Our new health monitoring window alerts you to potential issues as they arise, showing a timeline of key webcast events—including connection status, bitrate, resolution, framerate changes, multicast activity, and more.

The Vault infrastructure integration.

A major part of our webcast architecture overhaul was the full integration with The Vault, marking a significant move toward complete independence from third-party cloud services. Our new live webcasting system is entirely engineered in-house—no off-the-shelf products or external platforms are involved.

Best of all, 100% of off-peak webcast activity is now powered by our own servers, giving us the freedom to allocate generous CPU resources without cloud-based limitations.

We are continuously adding more resources to our Vault infrastructure for maximum performance.

Everything you would expect.

There's so much more we could delve into, but rest assured, we've got you covered on the essentials for an end-to-end webcasting solution for your church.

  • Smartphone, tablet, television, web, smart speaker, Listen Line.
  • Dynamically generated, printer-friendly, beautiful analytics.
  • Seamlessly archive into a permanent sermon record with convenient tools for trimming the live webcast and adding custom thumbnails.
  • Audio-only live webcast support.
  • Fully embeddable on your own website with a single line of code.
  • Push notification via ChurchOne app.
  • Maximum exposure on a high-traffic platform.
  • No ads. No limits. No extra charges.

Welcome to the future of live webcasting on SermonAudio. It’s more than an upgrade—it’s a transformation that changes everything.

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