LDS Media Talk

See the Preserving Marriage Channel on YouTube for some great videos that explain the reasons for supporting Proposition 8. Also see our previous post on Proposition 8.

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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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We previously mentioned that the Church is providing audio recordings in various languages for the manual Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, Jr.

The Portuguese audio is now available online, in addition to English, Cantonese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Russian, and Spanish.

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A podcast is a series of digital media files that are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds (subscriptions). These media files can be audio, video, PDF, text, or other formats. You can then play, watch, or read these files on your computer or other device. The term podcast (like broadcast), can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated. This syndication is also called podcasting. The author of a podcast is often called a podcaster. Learn more about podcasting on Wikipedia.

Here is a short video that explains podcasting in plain English: 

The Church has created a number of podcasts that you can subscribe to at rss.lds.org. You can also find many other Church-related podcasts at the iTunes store. Just search for “mormon” or “lds.”

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Ever want a PG-rated YouTube? Check out the video sharing community ItsAGoodDay.org. All their videos are filtered by a human eye to ensure that the site will be “a place where visitors may come to be uplifted, inspired, motivated and where they will feel comfortable with all the content” contained on the site.

The site also allows you to contribute videos, inspirational stories, quotes, and pictures. You can create family Web sites to share pictures, blogs, journal entries, and videos.

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U.S. Internet visitors viewed 10 billion online videos in February 2008. That’s 66% more than were viewed in February 2007.

35% of those 10 billion were viewed on Google Sites (96% of which was on YouTube.com).

Source: comScore.com

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When you search for “Mormon” on YouTube, the #1 video is now positive–a video clip from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s talk “My Words . . . Never Cease,” a testimony of continuing revelation, taken from his talk at April 2008 General Conference.

This video on YouTube has been viewed nearly 20,000 times and will continue to gain over 1,000 views per day if it continues at #1. As the first thing that people find when searching for the Church on YouTube, this is a great missionary opportunity. Note the following comment that was posted about the video clip:

“I must say, what Holland is saying here makes incredible sense and something about this video really strikes a cord with me in a way that nothing else ever has. I’ve been to many churches and have heard many sermons, and if they all use the Bible I can’t see how they all come out so different. If this Book of Mormon is indeed an addition to his word, then God sure knows what he’s doing to correct where we’ve been going wrong with Christianity.”

Having positive videos at the top of the search results for “Mormon” is a nice change, since in the past many of the top search results were videos critical of the Church.

This video is also at videos.lds.org, along with a clip from Elder Holland’s related talk “The Only True God and Jesus Christ whom He Hath Sent” from the previous conference.

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We have just released some new video on videos.lds.org

1. Two new video segments from Elder Holland under the Frequently Asked Questions heading regarding what we believe about the Savior and continuing revelation. The segment about the Savior can also be found as a streamed element on jesuschrist.lds.org.
2. All the language video that has been converted and provided to this point.
3. Flash video for download. This is first time we’ve provided Flash for download, which is now possible because of Adobe’s recently-released offline video player called Adobe Media Player, which enables a user to download and view flash video offline.

We realize the video page is rather clunky. It is scheduled to be rebuilt later this year.

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The Church’s Newsroom site just posted an article about how members are expressing their feelings and beliefs by posting blogs and videos online.

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DVDs, CDs, and Audiocassettes of the April 2008 General Conference in English are now available at Church distribution centers. A multilanguage DVD is being prepared and will be available in a few weeks.

Of course, you can also listen and watch online in many language in the general conference section of the online Gospel Library (generalconference.lds.org).

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Below are links to several nice videos by an organization called Interview with Jesus. They are good examples of inspiration and creativity in delivering simple, effective messages.

Could you create videos like this? In what contexts? On what subjects? For what audiences? In what venues?

• Beatitudes
• Believe
• Every Living Thing
• Forgiven
• God is Light
• God of All Comfort
• The Great I AM
• In God We Trust
• Original Interview with Jesus
• Interview with Jesus II
• Interview with Jesus, Special Edition
• Lord’s Prayer
• Lord’s Prayer, Special Edition
• The Love Verses
• A New Beginning
• Psalm 23

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We have posted online additional photos from general conference. There is a link to them on the Ensign home page, where you’ll also find a link to experiences from people who attended conference.

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An English audio recording of the manual Preach My Gospel is now available in MP3 format in English on LDS.org.

You can access all the Church’s audio files from the LDS.org audio page.

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The Church is now beginning to provide audio recordings in various languages for the manual Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, Jr. The following are the languages and the scheduled dates for posting the last of the MP3 audio files on LDS.org. Files for many of the chapters are already online.

English: completed (We also have a podcast for the English audio files at webfeeds.lds.org.)
Spanish, Russian, Korean, Mandarin: May 30, 2008
Portuguese, French, Cantonese, German, Italian: June 5, 2008
Japanese: June 12, 2008

You can access all the audio files from the LDS.org audio page. You can also access them from the individual chapters in the manual by clicking Listen on the format bar above the chapter text.

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The General Conference Ensigns are on their way to subscribers this week.

Elder Paul V. Johnson counsels us to “Decide now to make general conference a priority in your life. Decide to listen carefully and follow the teachings that are given. Listen to or read the talks more than once to better understand and follow the counsel. By doing these things, the gates of hell will not prevail against you, the powers of darkness will be dispersed from before you, and the heavens will shake for your good.” (Paul V. Johnson, “The Blessings of General Conference,” Ensign, Nov. 2005, 52)

If you don’t have a subscription to the Ensign, you can order one at LDScatalog.com. You can even get a subscription with 2 copies of each conference issue. You can also get audio and video files at generalconference.lds.org.

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