Hybrid Worship Glossary
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This "Wiki" style Glossary is list of terms and concepts related to digital church, livestreaming, and related topics and technology. Because it's a Wiki, you can even edit it to add your own discoveries!
Video signal
A video signal is a continuous stream of video content sent in real time from a source (such as a camera) to one or more destinations (for example to a monitor or projector, a video encoder, or other devices). A video signal can be carried by a variety of different means from a source to a destination, and it might be in one of many possible formats. But for most livestreaming applications in church here are some important considerations:
- What is the video format of the signal? 1080p30 is probably the most common in use today in our churches, but the higher-resolution 4k is also common and so is the lower resolution 720p. The image size of the video frame is critical, but so is the frame rate--how many video frames are being sent per second.
- What is the bitrate of the signal? It requires a tremendous amount of information to describe 30, 60, or even 120 images per second, therefore video signals are compressed using special software algorythms called [codecs]. Generally speaking, the higher the bitrate the better the quality of the video signal.
- What is the connector type of the signal? By far the most common method to connect sources and destinations in livestreaming is the HDMI standard. However, HDMI has limited range and therefore you will often encounter more "broadcast-standard" connectors such as SDI. You can convert from one type of connection to another, for example from HDMI to SDI.