The Luss Wedding Streaming Project

Back in March 2005 Luss Church embarked on a programme to make available the live streaming of wedding videos for those who came to be married in our Church and who wished to make use of the facility.

Not surprisingly more and more people are using video streaming. In part this is because many of our weddings come from overseas and the downside of coming from abroad is that friends who might happily take a day off work to attend a wedding held locally are not able to travel across continents to be present. Similarly there are occasions when relatives are too elderly, frail or ill to make the journey. Video streaming allows those back at home to watch the wedding on their computer as it happens on a picture which is as clear as television with sound of a similar quality.

The system in Luss is built around a Sony AnyCast editing system which controls five remote cameras (four discreetly placed around the Church, one outside the building), eight sound sources, two computers and external input devices – and with a range of editing, titling and other facilities. The edited signal is output both to a streaming broadband server and recorded on digital video tape from which a souvenir DVD can be provided. This sophisticated piece of equipment is now used by all of the major television companies but the very first one in the country came to Luss Church. (Sony later borrowed it back to demonstrate to Channel 4 News!)

The investment in this equipment was assisted by Scottish Enterprise who contributed around £12,000 and Lomond and Rural Stirling Leader Plus (European Funders) who contributed almost £6,000. In all £30,000 was spent on equipment and the overall installation is worth several times that amount.

The importance to Scottish Enterprise of this project is that it helps to bring overseas weddings to our area. Each overseas wedding has been calculated to bring around £40,000 directly into our local economy and helps to keep the local people of our rural economy in employment. The importance to our European Funding partners is that it provides a high quality training position and job opportunity for a local person. The importance to Luss Parish Church is that it enables us to provide a better wedding experience for those who come here to be married and brings us into contact with more people who come to be part of our Church community – initially to be married – but with whom we can maintain a real contact and develop a relationship over many years.

This equipment is also used for Luss Television and since 2007 has been used to broadcast our Sunday morning worship live throughout the world through the internet, sometimes to an audience in excess of ten thousand people. A special relationship has been established with sailors from Faslane and soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders who serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.