General Conference Materials Online

by Larry Richman on October 6, 2008

Video of all conference sessions (except the priesthood session) in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and American Sign Language was available online within hours of each session. These can be viewed using the new high-quality video player, which allows you to pause, restart, fast forward, and reverse.

You can also select a language at the bottom of that page to view files that you can download. Audio files are already available in many languages, and video and text will be available over the next few days.

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English Text from General Conference Now Online | LDS Media Talk
October 9, 2008 at 3:05 pm

{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }

Bruce Morton October 6, 2008 at 10:54 am

All conference sessions? You mean all but the Priesthood session. The only way to get the audio/video of that session is to buy the DVD’s for $$$.

Please pass the message on to the brethren that the policy on priesthood session downloads is inconsistent.

al October 6, 2008 at 1:54 pm

This is a great service. Thank you! Will we ever see online media for PH session of conference?

EarloftheWest October 6, 2008 at 10:17 pm

I really enjoyed General Conference. It was a true testimony builder.
I am a Linux user so watching or listening to General Conference required some extra work for me.
General Conference is streamed using the Windows Media codecs.
In the United States, codecs are protected by copyright law. I cannot download the ‘free’ codecs floating around the web for Linux without venturing into questionable legal territory. (Interestingly, the BYUTV website recommends downloading MPlayer to watch Windows Media Streams which contains the legally questionable codecs.)
The only choice for me was to pay $24 US for the Windows Media Codecs from http://www.fluendo.com.
The Church would save money for both themselves and their members if they would use non-proprietary codecs to stream their audio and video. Ogg Theora and Ogg Vorbis are a few examples of truly free codecs.
If the Church used these free codecs, then it wouldn’t have to pay Microsoft to stream content. It could do it for free.
Linux users wouldn’t have to pay extra to watch or listen to the Church’s content.
Please consider switching to non-proprietary codecs.
Thank you.

Stephen M (Ethesis) October 7, 2008 at 6:49 am

Thanks for posting the link.

alandd October 7, 2008 at 7:38 am

Having the audio and video files available is great. If there was a podcast XML feed it would be even better!

Is there a podcast feed somewhere that I am just missing?

alandd October 7, 2008 at 7:46 am

Um… Where IS the Priesthood Session audio and video? I was going to grab that first thing. Bruce is right, it is missing from this conference and several previous conferences that I checked.

Surely it is not a $$$ thing. But I don’t understand what reason there would be to exclude the Priesthood Session from downloads. Can someone please explain what is going on there?

ldsWebguy October 7, 2008 at 11:48 am

Since the priesthood session is a closed meeting, the Church does not provide the audio and video of the meeting to the general public on LDS.org.

Next year, when we will provide the ability for you to log in and we can verify that you are a member, or a priesthood holder, we expect to be able to provide the priesthood session online.

In the meantime, you can read the text of the talks from the priesthood session in the November Ensign and Liahona, view them on the DVD available in about 4 months, or listen to them on CDs also available in about 4 months from Church distribution centers.

ldsWebguy October 7, 2008 at 4:10 pm

For Linux users, we do provide an MP4 video, which will be available later this week. There are players for Linux that play MP4. We appreciate your comments about more universal codecs and have been considering them and may yet move in that direction.

Larry Richman October 7, 2008 at 5:27 pm

There are podcast XML feeds for the conference in English only. Go to http://generalconference.lds.org, select English, then select a conference. The feeds appear in the upper portion of the page.

alandd October 8, 2008 at 7:52 am

Thank you for the answers to questions.

I did not know the Priesthood Meeting is considered a closed meeting. That also explains why it is not on BYU TV. (Thanks ldsWebGuy)

I also use Linux exclusively at home and as much as possible at work. I appreciate the production of video in an open format such as MP4. (Thanks ldsWebGuy)

I just slurped all the available MP3s (Thanks, Larry)

Chris October 8, 2008 at 3:48 pm

Sorry if I’m being dense, but I still don’t understand the “closed meeting” distinction. Why is it ok to have the full text transcript of the talk available to all but not the video? (And it can’t be viewed by non-members, unless they buy the DVD? huh?)

Eric October 10, 2008 at 1:19 am

I’ll second what’s already been said about using nonproprietary formats.

jacob October 10, 2008 at 10:52 am

In case anyone wants a custom-rate-limited podcast of General Conference, I’ve added the October conference to http://www.ScriptureCast.net.

J. Max Wilson October 14, 2008 at 2:36 pm

Larry,

I’ve posted a bug report in the tech.lds.org forum regarding the General Conference Video Podcast.

http://tech.lds.org/forum/showthread.php?p=19129

Apparently the mp4 filenames are incorrect so that none of the videos work. :(

The mp4 files linked from the general conference archive page work fine, and differ from the podcast file names by a trailing “M1″ in the name that isn’t in the podcast filenames.

Just wanted to draw your attention to it.

Thanks!

E. Brown April 4, 2009 at 11:21 am

I too am having a difficult time getting the Conference session to run on Linux and I am really really bummed that I am missing conference right now! So please please please make it easier to get it to run on Linux like a few others have said. It’s hard to put out more $ right now to listen :( Thanks and please consider it as Linux is becoming very popular now :)

Thanks!!

Nick April 5, 2009 at 11:32 am

What about downloading the music specifically from the Priesthood session? Where can you archive those specifically? Some of the Priesthood session videos are in ASL format and do not have sound. Any advice would be great – thanks :)

David April 7, 2009 at 8:28 am

The music from the Priesthood session is available from http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,8261-1-4795-1,00.html (this is the “music” link from the April 2009 conference home page).

But what about downloading the audio of the Priesthood session talks? I’d heard that this year via LDSAccount people would be able to watch/listen to the session streaming live. Did that happen? Is it also going to be made available for download via my LDSAccount?

Jonathan Mahoney April 8, 2009 at 10:31 am

Good to hear we might be able to review the Priesthood session next year after verification. That’s exciting.

I was actually thinking that would be a good idea the other day.

Cameron Baxter April 14, 2009 at 3:46 pm

Can you provide more information on this closed meeting concept concerning priesthood meeting? Is this part of law or church policy? It doesn’t make sense when it still comes out in the ensign and on the CD’s available throught the distribution center, except these are usually purchased by church members. However, they are available to anyone who wants them. Maybe you can clarify for me. Thanks

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