Internet Video of Temple Shir Tikva Services

Temple Shir Tikva is pleased to make available limited live transmission of various services and other events over the Internet to those who are physically unable to attend these services in person due to illness or other restrictions on travel.

Because of the limited transmission capacity we have available to make these services available, we are restricting reception of these services to those with a legitimate need due to inability to travel to the Temple. In order to make sure that capacity is available to those with such a need, a user id and password is required in order to actually receive the programs.

For members of the congregation, the current user id and password can be obtained by contacting the Temple office via e-mail at TSTVideo@shirtikva.org. You must specify the date(s) that you will need access as the password is different for each date period. For guests such as family members of a bar or bat mitzvah, the password should be obtained from the TST member who is participating in the service (who in turn should request it via the e-mail address above). There is no cost for using this service.

There are several technical requirements for taking advantage of this service. Foremost among them is that a broadband (Cable, DSL or FiOS) Internet connection is available at home or wherever the viewing is to take place; a dial-up Internet connection is unfortunately not fast enough to receive live video. The connection needs a download speed of at least 768 kilobits/second, as the video stream we are sending transmits at about 500 kilobits/second and you need some additional capacity above that to avoid receiving a broken-up video and audio stream. (Some low-cost entry-level DSL services only run at 384 kilobits/second and may not be fast enough; all cable and FiOS services are more than adequate, as are most DSL services).

Even with that capacity, occasional dropouts of video and audio are normal due to the shared nature of Internet links. If the audio/video stream stops entirely, the best bet is to simply close your current display window, and re-start it from the bottom of this page. This service should work on most home broadband setups, and they are normally configured to allow video traffic to pass through unimpeded. If you are trying this from a corporate or business network, depending on the precise network configuration, they may block traffic of this type, and there is nothing that we at TST can do to remedy this situation.

The technology being used for this service is Windows Media Services. Therefore, the second requirement is that for Windows users the PC be reasonably recent (at least a Pentium III or 4 or equivalent running at 1 GHz or faster) and running Windows 2000, XP or Vista, and a reasonably current version of Windows Internet Explorer (version 6 or above) and Windows Media Player (at least version 9) be installed on your computer. You can find the version of Windows Media player you have installed by running it and going to the Help menu and looking at About Windows Media Player. If your copy of Windows Media Player is version 8 or older, a new version can be downloaded and installed from this Microsoft web site. For Apple Mac users, the following Microsoft information may be of assistance in allowing playback of Windows Media Services for the Mac. We are not able to test the Mac versions of this service so support for the Mac is on a self-test best-effort basis only. Linux users will have to find and install one of several open source players capable of displaying Windows Media Services 9 content.

If these technical requirements have been met and you have received the current userid and password, you can initiate viewing of the service by clicking below. Transmission of services generally begins about 15 minutes before the actual service is to start. For a service such as a bar or bat mitzvah, you might want to try watching the previous evening's Erev Shabbat service just to make sure that everything is setup correctly. Unfortunately, the Temple does not have technical staff who are able to help you with setting up Windows Media Player or related issues, so getting help from local family or friends may be needed if you are having problems. If you believe there are problems at the Temple-end of the connection, sending e-mail to Webmaster@shirtikva.org is the best way to report the problem, although unfortunately this is typically not monitored in real-time during services, so testing on an event prior to the one of importance to you may be a good idea.

Temple Shir Tikva Live Video Link

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