How does one do a "watch party" for online church, movies, etc?

[ktgrok]

I see people mention "watch parties" and have no idea what that is, lol. Virtually, I mean. 

I think someone here mentioned they watch the same church service with extended, distant family, for instance. Is there a way to make that an interactive experience? How best to do that? 

[TheReader]

So, I've seen it done on FB for something that is already streamed live. You "share" the streaming link/video to your FB page, and FB will ask/prompt you (generally) "Want to host a watch party" or something like that. Then you say yes and it does. So then people can watch on your page, and I would assume also then comment, etc. like normal FB. 

Netflix was having a "watch party" option too, but I don't know if there's any social interactive aspect to it. 

Zoom will let you screen share (and pops the videos of participants to a little side-window so you can still interact), but I've not tried it with streaming a video. 

Our boys have had some D&D sessions that were virtual, but they use a combination of things (so, one platform to see what the DM is doing, and another to chat with one another, I think; I don't think it's over Zoom or anything). 

My sister will just FaceTime her kids and all watch something together. (usually logging into a shared family account of some service, from their individual homes, and watching but also FT'ing at the same time, if that makes sense; not FT'ing the video). 

[Penguin]

I did a Hamilton watch party with a friend. We were both on our phone with the phone volume turned down. I didn't talk to her except before, during intermission, and after. But we were able to perfectly syncronize our film that way. For a more casual viewing experience, we probably would have made some chatty commentary during the movie, but that would have been annoyingly disruptive for a first viewing of Hamilton.

Edited July 30, 2020 by Penguin

[SounderChick]

Yeah we have tried a few different things  for our weekly movie night.  The easiest for us has been zoom.   One person has it play on their screen and than shares it.  We join the meeting on one screen to actually do the talking and one to cast to our tv for movies.