Boxcaster Streaming Encoder for Churches | Initial Impressions

[@JakeGosselinYoutube]

Update on Boxcast: We are three Sundays in using it with no issues as of Sept 21, 2021. Will continue to use for the time being. Seems like most folks with a negative experience with Boxcast live in rural areas with spotty internet so it seems like Resi might be the better route there. We have solid internet at our church and haven't experienced any issues yet. Plus like I mention in the video, Boxcast has "boxcast flow" which delays the stream about 15 seconds for reliability.

[@gordonnisly7924]

Did you choose to not allow it to be shown on the Boxcast App?

[@RylandRussell]

I’ve been saying for a minute that most churches don’t NEED resi. We streamed for years with 10mb up from software without issue. Now we use web presenter hd into Restream and it’s all good. Saves our church a lot of money ($250 for the YEAR). Granted if we had issues that savings would not be worth it. Boxcast has always looked solid, thanks Jake!

[@loganschwandt7920]

@@syberjedi1999 This. Initial customer service was great. But our situation got ugly when it was deeper. Boxcast is still #1 on my list of worst contract company I have ever dealt with. 100x easier to break out of an old cell phone contract than a Boxcast contract.

[@RevJorgeDiaz]

Contacting Resi Support on a Sunday is so clutch. We’ve only had a few issues in the past. But when they’ve occurred, it’s reassuring to know that they’re but a phone call away; even on Sunday mornings. Worth the price of admission to us.

[@TheTOBroShow]

Will you make a separate video about issues with push pay? I would like to know more.

[@solusfides]

The biggest sell for Resi, and my challenge with moving away from it, is the rock-solid stability of their stream. No more messages or phone calls from congregation about the connection quality.

[@Jonathan.Boring]

Our experience has been the same with boxcast thankfully

[@romepres2485]

We've used it for the past year. It's all we've known. We have no complaints. Costumer service has been great.

[@mikehines14]

I used Boxcast for two years. It was absolutely rock solid, never had any issues. Once I scheduled my services to just repeat every Sunday I never even thought about livestreaming. Support was incredible. Always answered the phone and answered my questions. Highly recommend 👍

[@jaymond80]

We’ve been using Boxcast with the Boxcaster for almost 4 years. We stream 2 hour service every weekend and the hardware has been Rick solid. I also love the ability to simulcast to FB & YT & our website/mobile app. The automated scheduling is awesome and so convenient on a small staff. Also, being able to trim just the teaching portion & upload it straight to archive has been game changing. We didn’t have time to edit from cameras afterwards & upload so these features are awesome. Lastly, we absolutely love the customer support. They’ve always been available & patient walking us through different processes. Boxcast has spoiled us.

[@jimadams7903]

Hey Jake! We have been using Box Cast since the pandemic began. And we love it! Bottom line is it just works and their customer service is amazing! Like most small to medium size churches cost matters a lot, and Box Cast is so much more affordable compared to other solutions like Resi, Sub Splash, etc. I highly recommend them to anyone who is looking and I’m happy to answer any questions or just share more about our experiences. Blessings Bro!

[@sheilacroteau7202]

We have used BoxCast for 3 or 4 years without any major trouble at all.The scheduling interface is great, and everything about it has been wonderful.The couple of times I did have issues. I was able to call their customer service even on a Sunday and get the matter resolved. I am very happy with BoxCast.

[@BrettMeredith]

We’ve used boxcast since spring 2020 with no issues. We have loved it! We even invested in the boxcaster pro and it makes it even better

[@paulsombric2008]

We’ve had BoxCast for about a year now and absolutely LOVED THEM!!!! They’re eons better than our past service. Never had any buffering issues and their service is excellent. Sunday customer service is a plus 😎

[@clevelandvibes]

Love that Boxcast was founded by Christians!

[@jeffcraigmyle1928]

We just did the opposite switching from Boxcast to Resi. Boxcasts system works well enough and I would recommend them as well, but for us we wanted to be able be more automated which Resi accomplishes for us. Over the years that we used Boxcast we did have several times where there were streaming issues and just a few months ago our encoder went bad so we saw it as a good time to switch. I will say as well that since you mention contracts be aware that Boxcast is contract based as well and renews annually.

[@michaelarman6821]

We (The Moody Church) have been using Boxcast for a year and a half, very happy with them and their service. The boxcasters are not my favorite, I too wish they had an intermediate piece of hardware you could automate, but they've worked fine. Miss the SDI connection. You can stream from any RTMP encoder to your Boxcast account, don't have to use their hardware; it just won't all be automated like you show. Also, if you're service runs long from time to time, make sure to leave plenty of room when you schedule your broadcast. Boxcast doesn't know when the Holy Spirit moves. :-)

[@MiguelReyes-sx1vs]

Boxcast its amazing... we have been using it for years!!!! no issues... quality is great, multi-bitrate is great, the simulated live A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!!!! and we have the boxcaster no issues at all!!!

[@camdenhutcheson3796]

We've been with Boxcast for about 5 years now, and they have been great for us! We are in the process of building a broadcast control room (we just finished installing the audio mixing side, and the video side will be coming soon) and for a while I was considering switching to Resi as a part of the project due to their quality, reputation, and reliability, but I'm starting to think that we might not be able to justify the cost considering how good Boxcast has been for us. We have two of the regular Boxcasters, each in a separate venue that streams at separate times, and they have not once given us problems. There have been a couple of times when Boxcast has had problems on their end that affected our streams, but those are few and far between, and have been especially rare ever since they beefed up their backend earlier in the pandemic. The web UI is very user-friendly, all the functionality we could ever need is there, and their customer service has been exactly what we need it to be. I have been and will continue to recommend Boxcast to any church out there.

[@stevennichols9735]

We used BoxCast for years, but with our patchy internet around Wyoming, it was constantly dropping, and showing low quality video due to RTMP. We switched to Resi for the RSP.

[@j_doowrite]

I've used Boxcast for years.. I've haven't had any problems or trouble with the service. I met those guys at a conference about 7 yrs or so ago when they were getting started and immediately signed up. The monthly costs are not bad at all! As long as your upload speeds solid you'll be cool! I like the portability because I use it at our other campus from time to time. Customer service is great! My only drawback is I wish they had a more mid range Pro HD version of the Box. Other than that, its been great!

[@oasisofhopechicago8209]

We have used Boxcast for a long time now. As long as you have the right upload speeds you will be fine. I wondered why you have not tried them in the past, and done a show about them. I thought about resi because of one of your shows nut I'm glad I didn't change my service.

[@rkhicks214]

Agreed

[@kueckerdj09]

We have been using Boxcast since they acquired Sunday Streams (which our church had) almost 2 years ago. Before we got our Boxcaster, we were using an RTMP from Sling Studio into Boxcast and had no issues. Our only issue with the Boxcaster encoder was issues when not using a hardwired Ethernet connection. Once we switched from a wireless to wired connection, we have not any issues. Highly recommend it!

[@Michael_Smith1031]

We’ve been using boxcast almost 2 years and they are very reliable and very cost efficient. We also use it to do simulated live at our church

[@johnfalco]

Going on a few years of using Boxcast. both with the Boxcaster & with RTMP from Wirecast. Very quick & easy to setup & get running, especially with simulated live streams. Support is great too.

[@OGThundercat]

My church has used BoxCast since March 2020. It is a very good product for both simulated live and live services. Restreaming to YT and FB as well as our website is really nice. It saves a lot of bandwidth for me - we just send a single 1080 stream to them. We use RTMP on our vMix PC because a separate hardware encoder is not in the budget. Our Internet at the church has issues sometimes and we do see quality decrease on the stream. I upload our recordings to YT each week to have a fully quality copy available long term. I’d love to see BoxCast add SRT as a method to transport video to them. It would be a middle of the road option between RTMP and BoxCast Flow, but it would be way more accessible to those on a tighter budget. As of last fall, SRT support was not on their roadmap, according to support. Maybe if we all request it, they’ll reconsider. Open standards are a win for everyone. SRT needs to be as mainstream as RTMP.

[@alanerwin8851]

Jake, you commented that the Boxcaster feels "cheap", but they will send a instructions to go directly from an ATEM mini-Pro to online and you don't need to go through "the box"!

[@GraveyTrainFishing]

We tried Boxcast last year during our AV makeover. It worked initially but we soon started to run into problems with the stream. It was dropping signal on us pretty frequently. We aren't in a rural area either. We are in a pretty large city. After several attempts to correct the streams with customer support, we decided to go away from Boxcast. We ended up switching to Restream for $50 per month and it does all the things you are talking about with Boxcast. The Restream dashboard is really clean and you can easily turn on and off your destinations. Our internet provider is currently doing some upgrades so we're getting horrible upload speeds (.028 mbps) at the moment. So we are only recording and then uploading after until they finish their upgrades. I wish Restream had a resilient streaming perk, but we've been fine. I would choose Restream over Boxcast.

[@jermirezventures7284]

I have been using it in Ghana for my church and it’s been great so far no complaints

[@pawsoutst]

We use boxcast and have for almost a year. Rock solid . Every now and then I get a weird glitch but I run a test sundays . So no issues for me

[@OffGridandOutdoors]

Surprised you're just getting to Boxcast. We've been on it since SundayStreams was bought by BC almost 2 years ago. We do not use the Boxcaster encoder, we use wirecast as an encoder. Everything works well. Rough editor is OK for quick trimming. Use and reliability is really good. And using their encoder gives you a similar feature to resi - called Flow - when u get stream hiccups. Support is excellent. KZbin and FB integration is perfect. They were great during Covid, making the simulated live feature available to all plans for no charge. A work around if u want to do a Sim live if u use a software switcher is to download Ur service after it records in boxcast, then play the video live as an mp4 video and broadcast it live. We had to do this a few times during Covid, restreaming our 9am service at 11am. I just don't like having to schedule the broadcast. This is the 1st in a total of 3 different services that we've used in 12 years that has required this.

[@eco4140]

We've been using Boxcast for 4ish years by now I think. We've had glitches and audio issues throughout that time, but nothing that outweighs its ease of use and reliability week to week. Eventually we want to get the pro version, hopefully that will fix some of the audio quality issues we're running into. I also agree that their customer service is great! We had a boxcaster go down and they had another one out to us before the following Sunday.

[@davidbuchanan1440]

My church has used Boxcast for over 2 years with very few problems and good quality. We do have good internet service.

[@AttawayAudio]

Saving money on streaming = more cash for microphones 😂😂

[@pauldaramola9890]

Thanks very much for this well detailed information!

[@joncordonier7026]

We have used Boxcast for the last two years and have had numerous problems with dropping and buffering. We are in Wyoming so internet is a problem at times.

[@KyleCastroTheDrummerBoy090613]

Thanks for sharing this wonderful video my friend!! 😊🥁🇵🇭

[@DavidSaxophone2015]

Please test BM Web Presenter HD

[@davidbuchanan1440]

We also now for memorial services private record the service and give a copy to the family.

[@cqmarty]

We have been using Boxcaster for about a year now, I think. We have had some problems with a scheduled broadcast not starting, but I believe it is because the camera guys disconnect and take down the camera every week. I've been trying to convince them to leave it in place, but they're worried about tripping over cables and toppling the tripod that the camera is on. It's a cheap camera, it wouldn't be a big loss. One issue I have had with our audio is that it distorts when we run our bus output at 0 fader. Therefore, we run the bus output at about -10 on the fader, but then that makes the stream hard to hear and mix from the headphone jack even when we crank the monitor knob all the way up on our M32. Sounds like I need to get into the website some and possibly turn down the gain? Our pastor set up the Boxcaster and only gave us access to the app.

[@mikebrooks9223]

Forgive me if I’ve missed this is a last video, but have you ever used the Blackmagic Design Web Presenter HD devices? How do they vary from a Boxcaster or Ray Encoder? I don’t believe there’s a separate software service required with Blackmagic.

[@985live]

I used it but we sent it back and got a Atem mini pro. It only has two video inputs.

[@AndyPlov]

I came to the USA and now serve in the church in the media ministry. But all the basic equipment was purchased before me. And I honestly can't understand why you guys love Box Cast. It seems to me that they are solving non-existent problems for your money. And sometimes they add problems. As in our case, either because of the code or because of the Internet, although technically the channel width should be enough. But the broadcast is sometimes compressed to less than 1 megabit per second. And Box Cast support claims that the problem cannot be on their side. But really, why is this necessary? For the schedule? Why not just start streaming with the press of a button?

[@abecoulter8550]

legally you can leave push pay if your not satisfied with their services and their commission fees, you can cancel

[@damonparran4665]

I love boxcast

[@RonderickHenry]

Uggh Pushpay had us locked in like the mafia!! 😩 I don’t like their business practices either.

[@IamJohnCarter]

We just use the Boxcast streaming service. We film our services at 24fps, and it just allows it to happen. LOL Not sure if that is a good way to do it, but they seem to turn out well.

[@joseamavizca]

We are in a rural are but thankfully we have a pretty good internet provider on the originating campus you need a more solid internet than the satellite, this is one feature Resi does have a great advantage, but like I said we have solid internet. I the years we have been using it we've only have 2-3 catastrophic events due to unreliable internet. Other than that a few artifacts to which I think the bandwidth inside our building was being overused by people who shouldn't have had access to our internet anyways. And best of all the price, no argument there.

[@AmericanLumberJack]

So I have box cast and the blackmagic atem 4k studio studio with the md hx decemator. I want to integrate propresenter 7. But I'm having an issue wrapping my head around the input output with the decemator in the mix. I can't seem to figure out how to get it all working with pro presenter

[@jasebree08]

if you use Vmix which has an encoder, would you still need Resi/Boxcast for your livestream? if you use it, will there be advantages on using it with Vmix?

[@damonparran4665]

I never had any problems with boxcast.

[@gavinostertag1023]

Could you use the hardware with a different software in an effort to cut monthly costs?

[@michaellambeth713]

Have nothing but good things to say about Boxcast.

[@RobertoLicardie]

Is having a hardware encoder better than OBS on a computer with i9 4.00 Ghz / gtx 2070 / ssd / 32gbs ram/ 1gb Ethernet

[@exceladdict]

Would be interested in your thoughts on how Boxcast compares to Vimeo Premium. Vimeo doesn't have the hardware encoder, but is similarly priced and seems to be able to multi-stream to multiple social channels.

[@benjamingeorge1267]

please make video's on PA SYSTEM IT WILL VERY HELP FOR US HOW TO SETUP

[@JaredAlexanderStevenson]

Yea that would be dope!

[@samgonza1975]

What do you need to know?

[@karenhuang2454]

seems there're lots of pros and cons between RESI and BOXCAST just wondering where do you guys share these users insights is there any fb groups for users that i could join wanna know more before paying

[@IamJohnCarter]

Jake, what are your thoughts on the live-streaming service offered by Vimeo?

[@ennis437]

What’s wrong with using ATEM mini and Restream? Seems like if you are on a budget it’s much cheaper and very reliable. Box cast is 100 bucks a month and Restream is 19.00 I did an install at a church and talked them out of using boxcast and moved to ATEM mini and PP7 and streaming to Restream. Box cast worked great but not worth the money. Considering other options.

[@ryanbakshi]

This video is way too bassy..... My system is booming. I had to cut the bass to (-) minus levels. Very nice info, thanks.

[@TechieGuy72]

Boxcaster proved to be junk for us, horrible quality, switched over to vMix on a robust PC . Stream quality is so much better and smoother.

[@cdott74]

what about multisite, does it have any options for this?

[@jakebradley2001]

Yes, they do! They have a must-site player that runs on Mac or Windows and is only $25 per month, per campus, much cheaper than others.

[@JaredAlexanderStevenson]

Does boxcars work with OBS?

[@juanruiz3214]

Yes, but you have to use RTMP which is not going to use the more reliable Boxcast Flow available with the Boxcaster devices. A good option if you want to use OBS is to send an HDMI output from your computer running OBS to the Boxcast device.

[@JaredAlexanderStevenson]

Someone tell me if you can use Resi with OBS?

[@wellspringcommunitychurch6571]

It would replace OBS

[@ChurchTechNetwork]

Why not just use a standard rtmp encoder with restreaming service? If you have a site with decent internet then a standard RTMP encoder should not be an issue

[@anthonyrobinson4640]

First. I never catch it this earky

[@kojopinkrah154]

Same here bro

[@ikayhargley]

how will this work for a multi-camera setup, I only see one hdmi in

[@calinkstudios]

You’d run an PGM feed from your mixer to their encoder or software

[@RevJorgeDiaz]

Run your cameras to a switcher, and then run the switcher to your encoder. That’ll do the trick.

[@ikayhargley]

Thanks for the reply.. but I'm still curious, why not just get Atem mini pro.

[@RevJorgeDiaz]

@@ikayhargley it’s an option. But… it can only stream to one platform at a time using a RTMP protocol. Resi and Boxcaster have different protocols allowing a resilient stream which creates a better experience for viewers online. Being able to stream to KZbin, Facebook, and have an embed code allow multi-platform streaming.

[@Kuuuks]

Why ain’t people just buy a $200 Encoder from Amazon and not pay any monthly fees etc or buy a pearl nano encoder for $1500 and never pay monthly plus you can record your service to an SD card whiles streaming

[@realjeremyduncan]

composite inputs lol