VCR/ DVD

Recording a service onto a physical media has two purposes. The first is to supply the homebound lacking access to the Internet. The second is to have a 'failsafe' for archiving the service on the website.

Homebound

Today, most homebound will be best served by VHS. In ten years this may not be true.

Failsafe

The complexity of webcasting causes occasional failures. Failure points can include computer operating systems, unexpected anti-virus updates, operators, camera equipment, ISP bandwidth slowdowns, router failures due to faulty programming or misuse, on and on. What is really surprising is that failures are rare once the system matures.

With any failure, a means of limiting the damage can be valuable. This is especially true for special occasions such as baptisms and weddings which may be viewed by family members across the globe. A VHS/DVD recorder can be a salvation when something goes terribly wrong. Once the failure has been corrected, the recording can be fed back into video capture card to produce a belated archive.

For the ultimate in paranoia, an additional recorder can be connected directly to the widescreen camera output. This way should a failure downstream cause the operator to forget and leave pan/tilt camera active and pointed at the wrong place while rebooting, at least a widescreen view will be saved.

Which media for the failsafe?

VHS is more robust in the short term; DVD has better quality. Use VHS because all that really matters is operator workload, and VHS is simpler. If the operator's workload is too high, there will be no webcast.