AUMC AV Blog

For a long time I have wanted a droplet for exporting QuickTime files. That is to say I wanted an icon on my desktop that I could drop video files into and it would export them with custom settings from QuickTime Pro. Many times have I started a search looking for Quicktime droplets, but I never could find anything. Well, due to some extra time recently, I was able to get down and dirty with some AppleScript to get it done!

Note: I owe many thanks to the help I received online for this, mainly this post from which I have copied (word for word) parts of to help with this post. To the others that helped: Thanks!

Note 2: Sorry Windows users, this is OS X only. These scripts require QuickTime Pro ($30), which allows you to export videos from QuickTime. If you are on Snow Leopard, you have to have QuickTime 7 installed for this to work.

Note 3: I know that not everyone is a scripting pro... I know for a fact that I am not! So I have tried to make this walkthrough as simple language as possible. You need NO experience in any form of scripting to get this to work, but you will need the ability to comprehend what is going on. Just follow the directions and you will be fine. For those pros out there: Feel free to glean what you need while ignoring the rest!

Step 1: Retrieve the export settings from QuickTime.

1) Open a movie representative of the kind you'd like to export in QT.
2) Choose "Export" from the "File" menu
3) Select the desired export kind from the "Export:" popup menu (I always use "Movie to QuickTime movie", using something different may not work with this setup)
4) Click the "Options..." button to specify your custom settings, then click OK
5) Note that the "Use:" popup menu now displays "Most Recent Settings"
6) Start the export by clicking on the "Save" button (if you don't start an export the "Most Recent Settings" won't stick)
7) Cancel the export if it is a long one
8) Leave the video open in QT as we move on...

At this point you are ready for some AppleScripting. Open your Application folder, then open the Utilities folder. Find "AppleScript Editor" and open it. Copy and paste the below text into the window that pops up:

tell application "QuickTime Player 7"
tell first document
save export settings for QuickTime movie to file "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set"
end tell
end tell

Note that this is MY snippet of code, you will need to make it work for you. There is one thing that you may need to change, and one thing that you will need to change:

tell application "QuickTime Player 7": Leopard (and below) users will need to change this to "QuickTime Player. Snow Leopard users leave this as "QuickTime Player 7".

save export settings for QuickTime movie to file "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set": This sets where your setting file will be saved. Remember that this file will have to be stationary for the life of your QuickTime Droplet, so choose a place where it won't get in the way. (IE: on your desktop is a BAD idea!) Note that I have created a folder named "QuickTime Scripts" in my "Documents" folder. After you have decided where you want your export file(s) to reside and you have created the necessary folders, update the script to reflect where you want them. IE: Change "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set" to wherever you want it to save. Also, change Export.set to name of what you want the file to be.

NOW it is time to run the script! On the top of the AppleScript Editor window, click "Run". If everything is good then it will look like nothing happened right away, but if you open the folder where you told the file to say you will see the file: "Export.set" (or whatever you said to save it as). (If things don't go according to plan and you get an error, try to figure out what happened. Go back and read the steps and make sure that each step was done correctly. If you are still having problems, contact me and I will try to help out.)

So, after all of that work we have a single simple file. If you have more than one droplet you would like to create, feel free to repeat the above steps for as many droplets you would like. Also, save this script so that you have access to it later. Now, on to...

Step 2. In this step we will create the actual droplet file.

In AppleScript Editor, create a new script and paste in the following code:

on open these_items
repeat with i from 1 to the count of these_items
set this_item to item i of these_items
tell application "QuickTime Player 7"
open this_item
get name of the front document
with timeout of 36000 seconds -- 10 hrs timeout
export document 1 to "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Desktop:" & name of the front document as QuickTime movie ¬
replacing no using settings "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set"
end timeout
close front document
end tell
end repeat
tell application "QuickTime Player 7"
quit
end tell
display dialog "Your Encoding is done!" buttons {"Thanks a bunch!"} default button 1
end open

Once again there are several things that you will need to change for this to work on your machine:

tell application "QuickTime Player 7": Remember that you may need to change this to "QuickTime Player" if you are not on Snow Leopard.

with timeout of 36000 seconds -- 10 hrs timeout: Currently it is set to timeout after 10 hours. This means that at the 10 hour mark whichever video is being exported will finish, but any additional videos will not start encoding. If you export lots of large files, you may need to bump this number up a bit, otherwise leave it alone.

export document 1 to "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Desktop:" & name of the front document as QuickTime movie ¬: Change this to where you would like the file to save to. It is currently set to save to my desktop.

replacing no using settings "Macintosh HD:Users:Matthew:Documents:QuickTime Scripts:Export.set": Change this to where you saved the export file in Step 1. Feel free to copy and paste from the script in Step 1.

display dialog "Your Encoding is done!" buttons {"Thanks a bunch!"} default button 1: This is a dialog box that says "Your Encoding is done!" whenever the encoding is done. Feel free to delete this line if you don't want a dialog box.

Now, DON'T Run this script! If you do, nothing will happen. Remember that we are creating a droplet, which is (technically) an application. So (after saving the script for future reference) go to "File>Save As...", type in the name you want for your droplet, and change the "File Format" to "Application". Also, check the "Run Only" box. Now click "Save", and you are done!

Feel free to test out your droplet. Quit QuickTime (if it is still open), grab a few video files in the finder, and drag them onto the top of your droplet. QuickTime should open and start exporting your video files. When it is done it will quit QuickTime and show you a dialog box saying it is done.

Well, there you go! Have fun playing around with AppleScript, the possibilities are endless! For example, you can set it up so that you have a "Hot Folder", and any video dropped into said folder is automatically exported. (See this post for help on that.) Because I have 7 export settings I want to manage, I am now off to work with the "display dialog" tag and compress all seven export settings into one droplet which will ask the user which export setting they want to use.

Hope this helps! If you were successful in getting this to work, let me know by posting a comment! Know of a way I could write this tutorial better? Let me know!

Matthew

In the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and David. This week we are going to play a video clip from The Simpsons...

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

I am excited to announce that our new AUMC AV shirts are in! Here I am styling the new T:

I am excited how this will bring our team together!

In the booth this week is: Me, Carter, and Mike.

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

In the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Bill. Did I ever tell you that the AUMC AV Volunteer Team ROCKS? Well they do!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

In the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and David. Party at my place!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

I am out of town this weekend, so Carter is in charge this week. You guys be nice to him!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Bill. Bill is the BOMB! BOOM!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Sorry about the late post this week, I have been out of town. Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and David. Woop, another Sunday is upon us!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Mike. Be ready with your "A" game on!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Bill.

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Working in the booth this week is: Me, Adam, and Carter. We are going to have a BLAST, right guys?

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Due to an impromptu family reunion out of town this week, working in the booth this week is: Carter, Adam, and Mike. You guys have fun!

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and David

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Now you can follow Argyle UMC on Twitter! http://twitter.com/ArgyleUMC. You can also still follow us on Facebook.

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Carter

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

We just got in a new piano pickup system, I hope to have it working by Sunday!

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Bill

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

We got an organ! At least, we finally moved an organ from the old building into our new sanctuary, and it sounds great! Be ready for it this weekend!

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Mike

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

PS: Note that the link to the Breaktout is the same each week... hmm, something fishy going on there...

This week Joe is mixing things up and making things interesting. The beginning of the sermon is going to be something unique, so be ready for it!

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and David

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Bill

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

I was going to do this earlier this week, but I must have forgotten. I want to start posting the AUMC AV Breakout and the volunteers who will be working the booth each week.

Working this week: Matthew, Adam, and Bill

Link to the AUMC AV Breakout

Matthew

Just a quick update:

I just spent 10 hours uploading all of the sermons (and sermon notes and handouts and study guides) from 2009 to the new AUMC website which will launch in the near future. I know you will love it when you see it! There is a media center that has a built in audio player so you can play the audio directly in your web browser. It also generates podcasts so that if you want it will automatically download for you!

Pretty neat stuff. Too bad you can't see it right now... but you will soon!

Matthew

The video is finished! Here is the final video:

RETHINK CHURCH Intro (final) from Matthew Kelling on Vimeo.

This week Argyle UMC started a 6 week sermon series titled "RETHINK CHURCH". I have developed a short (30 second) intro for the sermon series that will be played before each sermon in the series. The purpose of the video is to transition people from worship to sermon, IE: get people ready for the sermon.

At the end, the graphic it goes to (a door in the desert) is the graphic for the series, it was on 10,000 post cards mailed out and it has been in the announcement slides, so everyone will recognize it. I transition to it because it will be the background during the sermons this series.

The song is "You are God" by Russell Martin and is available for purchase in the iTunes Music Store: link

Matthew

Hey all,

Below is the ReThink Church intro that will be played before the sermons in this series. Tell me what you think!

ReThink Church Intro from Matthew Kelling on Vimeo.

Matthew

The AUMC tech team has always used the bulletins for our order of service. We would just grab one of the folded bulletins that goes to the congregation and we would use it to know what is coming up next in the service.

I hope to end that practice.

I have made a "breakout", a sheet that is designed just for the tech guys to know what is coming up next in the service. Take a look at it and tell me what you think: Link.

Matthew

OK, yes, Friday I spent eleven hours cleaning the sound booth. What can I say? Not only am I a neat freak, but it needed it! We started installing equipment last summer and we have had 6 Sunday services in there (not counting Holy Week services), and the room has never been cleaned more than vacuuming and emptying the trash. So while you can argue that the 11 hours is a bit much, you can't argue that it needed it. Plus, I like to do a deep clean about once a year, just to shake out all the cobwebs.

WARNING: For most people, this post will be long and boring. It has no real information in it, it is just me talking about what I did for 11 hours, and it has a lot of purdy pictures. I am posting it here because I apparently have too much time on my hands, and because I enjoy reading about similar things that others do, so I assume that others will enjoy reading this. So read on, if you are so inclined. Oh, and of course clicking a photo will get you a larger version.

The "Great Cleaning of 2009" actually started on Thursday, before the Kingdom Kids (AKA: preschool) graduation. I zip-tied the wires going to the camera together so that they look all purdy. I have no before picture, but:

After: Camera

This looks great, and it will work wonders when you are running the camera, the problem will come in when I want to take the camera somewhere and I need a power source... I just need to buy a separate power source for occasions such as those.

Moving on to the computer. I wanted to move all of the wires that run to the computer from one hole in the counter to another (from the hole by the video rack to the hole behind the sound board, look in the second photo below, you will see the grommet that I wanted to run them through), but alas, several cords weren’t long enough, so I wasn’t able to. Here all I really did was wrap the cables.

Before: Computer

After: Computer

As I said, I did the above Thursday evening. Friday afternoon I showed up just after 2 PM (I had to wait for Sonic’s Happy Hour) and I got to work on the main rack.

Before: Main Rack

Before: Main Rack

I spent time dusting off the rack and vacuuming under it. I also brought some of those pads that you put under furniture that makes it easier to move and put them under the rack, so it is now easier to slide on the carpet [we have to slide out the rack if we want to open the back door]. I took out the PC and used a can of air on it (it needed it!). I also put a left over pice of black poster board in the bottom of the rack so that now the PC sits on that and not the carpet... makes sliding around easier. After strapping a few wires down, it was done.

During: Main Rack (minus the PC)

After: Main Rack

After: Main Rack

Next came the back of the video rack.

Before: Video Rack

This was just a matter of grouping cables together and zip tying them together. Also, there are some extra cables for the switcher, IE: a VGA cable in case we ever need to hook up a laptop. These cables are Velcro-tied together for easy access.

During: Video Rack

During: Video Rack

After: Video Rack (minus the back cover)

At that point I moved to the other side of the sound booth and did the audio rack.

Before: Audio Rack (with the cover)


Lather, rinse, repeat. The one thing I did extra here was I moved all of the wires out of one hole and through another hole in the counter (note the hole in the above photo is in the corner, and the hole in the photos below is by the window). This allows the rack to be closer to the sound board, letting the sound guy have easier access to it. I was also able to remove three cables from this area (note two of them in the photo above) because when we installed the audio distribution amp we ran several replacement wires and the old ones weren’t needed any more.

After: Audio Rack (sans cover)

After: Audio Rack (with cover)

Now you are starting to see how much of a neat freak I am. With each of the racks, I wasn’t just cleaning, I was doing a deep clean and re-orginization. IE: I am organizing wires, dusting everything off, cleaning the counter, and using my can of air like Bruce Willis uses guns in a Die Hard flick. In fact, I am such a neat freak that I had to reorganize the wires in the back of our audio board:

Before: Audio Board

Did this need to be done? No. But it makes me feel better.

After: Audio Board

So at this point I had done pretty much everything above the counter, which left below the counter. And below the counter needed a lot of work! I worked each section (between each support for the counter) one at a time, down the row.

Of note: I had a great (well I think it was great) idea to help with cable management: I bought several dowel rods, zip tied them together, and they made one long cable support underneath the entire counter. So all down the line I zip tied cables to this support, and it helped achieve a great clean look. You can see the dowels in the photos below.

After: Segment 2

Before: Segment 3 (under the sound board)

After: Segment 3

Before: Segment 4 (under the computer)

After: Segment 4 (note the floating hard drive)

Before: Segment 5


After: Segment 5

Not to be constrained to the sound booth, I also did some work on the choir mics:

After: Choir Mics

The hard work was done, but I still had plenty left to do:

During: Sound Booth


After a thorough vacuum and final dusting, everything was done!

Finished: Sound Booth

Finished: Sound Booth

Finished: Computer

Finished: Video Rack

Finished: Behind the Video Rack

Finished: Sound Booth

Finished: Back of the Audio Rack

Everything tidied up for the night
(with the iMac running AppleJack)

I even had a visitor on my way out the building:

My visitor


And THAT is how you spend 11+ hours cleaning a sound booth. I still need to do some work to the back of the TV in the foyer, but I need someone else to help me take it down and put it back up. Maybe next week...

Matthew

Last week I ordered a My Book Studio 1TB external hard drive and it came in today. So of course I had to spend time today updating the firmware, formatting it just how I want it, and setting it up.

Right now I have it partitioned into two halves, one for backup and one for archiving, but while driving to my day job today I decided to change that up slightly. The way I set it up this morning there is no backup of the archive. If the drive in the My Book fails, then we loose our entire archive. (The "archive" being a folder with every PPT and audio file that we have ever used."

So I am going to change it so that one partition of the My Book is backup (using Time Machine), and the other is video storage for the many gigabytes of video that I am recording. (Compressed, each Sunday is about 10 GB.) This will allow there to be two copies of the archive folder (one on the iMac, one on the external drive). This doesn't provide a backup for our videos, but they don't need a backup as they are just a "novelty", they are just to have in case someone wants a DVD.

The other good part of this system: Once a year I buy a 500 GB hard drive (cheap these days) and dump the previous year's videos onto it. That hard drive now gets stuck in a back closet somewhere, and we never have to loose any of our information.

OK, I know at this point I am rambling, but can you blame me? It is 3 AM, and I need to get to sleep. I hope you enjoyed reading about the new hard drive as much as I enjoyed typing this post.

=: >

Matthew

Hey all,

Sorry about not updating the blog more. I keep trying to normalize my life, and I am getting varying results... but that is a post for my other blog.

We got the new audio distribution amp installed. This will help greatly in... well, distributing our audio. See, we were having problems with our many audio needs in the booth, we have: CD recorder, hearing assistance device, camera, iMac, PC, and TV, all that need audio from the board. We were having problems getting the right audio to all of the components, so now with the new amp those problems are solved. Now, instead of having four mixes going to different components (and not really doing a good job at that), we now have one mix that goes to the TV (so that we can play a CD on the TV and not any where else) and one mix for everything else.

So as it stands, we only need a few more wires and the booth will be as complete as I can get it right now. The only other pice of equipment I would like would be a wall mount for our camera, but that will have to wait for now. I am getting excited to say "Done!" on the sound booth. I am thinking about having a pizza party or something, a guy's night out or something... I will keep you posted.

On a different note, I have a note for the sound booth volunteers, of which I already out e-mails, but an additional reminder: Please e-mail me your schedule until the end of the year. (That sentence was much harder than it should have been!) I am trying to create a schedule for Sundays for the next few months, and I need to know when everyone needs off.

Also, for anyone who would like to contact me, feel free to e-mail me at Matthew(at)ArgyleUMC.org. Other forms of communication:
My Personal Blog
Follow me on Facebook
Follow me on Twitter
Or, check out my bio page at the Argyle UMC website.

Matthew

Today I got some work done in the booth. I feel like I got a lot done, but all I did was solder a few wires. It is amazing how fast 8 hours flies by when you hang out in the new booth...

This weekend Adam and Bill will be helping out in the booth. Give it up for Bill, it is his first week! Woop Woop!

Matthew

So today I spent many hours cleaning out our closet, our cabinet, our deep shelves, whatever you want to call them. I don't have any "before shots", but lets just say that it had become our place to dump thingss. There were literally piles of things in there of things that I had dumped, and it needed an overhaul.

So I did, and now it looks great! Plus it has the added benefit of being able to find things!

(click for bigger view)

Matthew

I just realized that once again I haven't updated you guys in a week. Apparently Saturday night is now my normal posting night. (Really, I want to post more often, but I have been busy lately.)

Anywho, I spent the better part of today at the new building adding some personal touches to the booth. Things I did today include (but are not limited to):

- I added black poster board (via velcro strips) to the back of our mini-racks so that people looking into the booth don't see a bunch of blinking lights and wires.
- I added a cable run for the camera, so now the cables go up the wall hidden from sight.
- I mounted the ethernet switch below the counter and plugged it in. I can now talk to one projector via ethernet (the other one has a wire crossed in the patch bay).
- I added an extension cord to the audio rack so it now powers on and off with everything else.
- I added a lock to the TV in the lobby so that it doesn't walk off. (Take THAT you bad-minded people!)
- I soldered a cable so that the band's click track now goes directly from the patch bay to the Aviom (in-ear) system instead of running through the sound board.
- I re-labeled the wireless transmitters (a month ago I "temporarily" labeled them with white electrical tape).
- I finished the ProPresenter file, and made sure the text could be read on the light background (I had to add an outline to the text).

In addition to that, tomorrow will see the debut of our new "CD Seller". It sits out in the lobby so that people can pick up CDs as they pass by. For your knowledge: CDs are a suggested donation of $3, DVDs are a suggested donation of $5. CDs from the last month's 11:15 service will be available via the CD Seller in the lobby. All other services are available on CD or DVD via a special request.

And on that note, I have to go design the display that will be in the CD Seller, so I have to go. See you tomorrow!

Matthew

Wow, I just realized I haven't posted in a week... it is because I have been so busy at my "real" job AND running Holy Week services at the new building. I haven't had any time off! ("Next week" I keep telling myself, "next week"... then again, I have been saying that for three weeks now!)

Anywho, I spent several hours at the new building today (at what point do we stop calling it the "new building"?) setting up the presentation files and hooking everything up to work. This week we were able to get the hearing impaired system to work, and get live video out on the big screen TV in the foyer. There is still plenty of work that needs to get done, but for now everything is working and we are ready to go!

Tomorrow (Easter) we have four services in the new building: 8:00, 9:15, 10:30, and 11:45, IE: it will be a full day! There are a lot of moving parts, but I have the utmost confidence in our team. Speaking of the team, Adam will be running sound tomorrow, and David will be running the computer and the camera. I will be sitting between them running lights and acting as director, making sure they both know what is coming up next (we have three DIFFERENT bulletins for our four services) and keeping them on time. I don't know how well it will work to have the lights/director in the middle, we will find out tomorrow!

Well, I can hardly type any more (I keep hitting the wrong keys), so I am off to bed, nice and early tonight. See everyone in the morning!

Matthew

Well, this morning we had our first service! Everything went great, I can't wait to praise God for many years in this new building.

But before I go into the report about today, I have to give a great big "THANKS!" to everyone that helped: James Nance for a great sound system and install, Carter for helping at any time of day when I call and for helping me to run the first service, Adam for hanging out with me and learning the system, Mike and David for your willingness to help at any time, and for your dedication for the past many years, and the rest of the volunteers that have been learning the new system. THANKS for all that you have done, the services couldn't happen without you!

So this morning I was the first person at the new building at 7:15 at which point I snapped the above photo (the new header photo). (For more photos of the first day of services, click here.) I then parked in the back and got in and turned everything on. Carter and James showed up soon, and we troubleshot the hearing impaired system, which wasn't getting a strong signal. (I think we finally decided that the problem is the board is sending the signal too soft, -2dB instead of +10dB. A fix to come shortly.)

Then, before you know it, the first service started, and we were off! The first service went almost perfect, behind a guest speaker breathing too hard into his lav mic. The middle service was awesome; it is now our "modern" service, and it was the largest service of the day! It was great to see 265 people worshiping God in our new sanctuary! After that came our third service (choir led). This service had a problem when one of the choir mics went spastic and started spewing static during the sermon, but we got it muted quick.

Overall, it went very well. Not 100%, but better than hoped. We learned a lot of things today, such as we need to have the band as a group on the audio board, and don't fade to a black screen with words on it during the sermon (it just looks empty).

I also learned something for us sound guys. Those of us that have worked in the old building are used to multi-tasking, we did EVERYTHING that is media based for the service. During the service, our main jobs were: audio, PPT (IE: lyrics on the screen), and once in a while pointing the camera in the right direction or playing a video.

The bad part of this is that we have all become accustomed to this multi-tasking, and I found myself multitasking in the new building. Carter was running audio and it was my job to run ProPresenter (the new program we are using to display the lyrics), the video camera, and the lighting board. But I found myself continually listening to make sure it sounded good, and I kept messing with things on the audio board. At the same time I was neglecting the lights on the stage and the camera (which would just sometimes point at nothing).

I learned today that we (or maybe just me?) are going to have to reprogram ourselves in what our jobs are. If I am running the video/lighting side of things, I need to ignore the audio unless something is glaringly wrong. If I am running the audio, it is not just my job to make it sound good in the sanctuary, it is also my job to make sure it sounds good on the computer, the camera, the CD recording, the hearing impaired system... It might take a few weeks before we get used to this new mindset, but eventually we will.

The other reason to get into this mindset (past it is more efficient) is that it puts respect on the people you are working with. If I am running video, I have to put trust in the audio guy, that he will do his job right, that when it is time for me to play a video he knows it and already has the line un-muted. I will make my point using a sports analogy. In the old building we were a bunch of guys that would do our jobs separately and without consequence to the other volunteers. We would work our one Sunday alone, and not work together as a team. We were like a baseball team, a bunch of guys working individually to achieve a common goal. (I have always said that baseball isn't a team sport, it is an individual sport where people rarely interact with others on their team.)

Contrast that with our new AV team. We have to rely on other people to get their jobs done so that ours works. If the audio guy doesn't un-mute the computer, then when I play the video it won't have any sound! I have to put my trust in others, not just myself. I liken this to football, where you have to have 11 people on your team running every play exactly as they are supposed to or the play won't work. It anyone on a football team does not make their required block, the play will go from a 10 yard gain to a 10 yard loss. Everyone on a football team has to trust that others are doing what is requited of them, and our AV team is going to have to learn the same kind of trust.

The problem is that we are a bunch of baseball players trying to learn football. We are used to standing out in left field waiting for a pop fly, and now we are being thrust into a teamwork situation. I don't consider this an insurmountable object, I think it is great that we are all learning new skills, not just in the booth, but also teamwork and trust. I look forward to seeing the "AV volunteers" transform into the "AV team".

Well I am done rambling for now. See you guys next week!

Matthew

OK, yes, so I haven't updated in a few days, so shoot me. I have been running 10+ hours per day for two weeks now, the week before that I was out of town, and this weekend I am going out of town... very busy.

But all of that works means that the sound booth is now closer to being done than it was two weeks ago, yea! A lot of work has been done, including (but not limited to): soldering ends to the wires I ran under the stage, a preliminary EQ for the room (thanks to James), the PC is in the booth and has VNC and streaming live video working, and it is a lot cleaner than it was a week ago.

But there is still plenty of work left to do, like running some wires in the booth and working on the PC. I will be up there most of the day Thursday and Friday getting everything finalized, Saturday I will be out of town all day on a job, and Sunday is our first morning services in the new space! I am so excited!

Anywho, I am off to bed so that I can get lots of work one in the morning!

Matthew

Remember that there are two training sessions this week, 6:30-7:30 on Tuesday and 6:30-7:30 on Thursday (both PM, because I do my best to be asleep at that time AM). If you would like to be a part of the tech team, please make it to one of these sessions.

Matthew

Even though we are 8 days away from our first Sunday service, things keep changing!

I take back what I said earlier about the PC and streaming video. Now that I thought about it, I can still hook up the camera to the PC and stream the video around the building (and do it for cheap). So as it is, the camera is hooked up to:
the switcher via component (for showing on the big screen)
the iMac via firewire (for recording the services)
the PC via composite (for streaming the video)
the TV in the foyer also via component (so that people in the foyer can see what is going on)

Oh, ya, we got the large screen TV hung in the foyer yesterday! It looks great! (A note to you thievery people out there: we have it well locked down, so don't even think about taking it!) Also yesterday I spent some time cleaning up the booth, so now it looks clean and ready to go... I know that this will change in a few days when we start to install stuff again, but for now, it looks clean!

Also, I got the part back from our old sound board that died. We put the board back together but we didn't have a fuse so we couldn't test it. I am on my way to Radio Shack to see if it works!

Anywho, that is all. Stay tuned for a post about the upcoming week's schedule, and times for the upcoming training sessions.

Matthew

Today I got a little bit of work done. I crawled under the stage (something I don't want to do again soon) and ran some mic lines. Other than that I just piddled around today.

However, I did rethink the role of the PC in our sound booth. See, to retrofit the PC to accept the video inputs that I want it to would require $600+, something I am not looking forward to spending. So I thought of a compromise: by giving up streaming video I can save $600. Now the PC will simply be a box that runs announcements 24/7. I hate giving up the streaming video because it was a pet project of mine, but it is worth saving the money for now. And we can still stream the audio, just not the video.

Anywho, I am done piddling around for the night, I am going to go home and take a shower.

Matthew

Today we had another work day. Adam was able to help out all day long, and several others showed up to help. Thanks so much for being there! Even though we were unable to get as much done as I wanted to (due to unforeseeable events), thanks for showing your support by coming by and offering your help!

Today we set up the choir mics and worked with the lights. We decided the layout of the sound board and applied lots of labels (thanks to James' amazing label maker). We also got to hear the choir practice. By the end of the night I was dead tired, so I know I am going to sleep well tonight!

The next few days I am going to run a few wires under the stage and hopefully work on the PC video server. Wish me luck!

Also, this Sunday night there will be a public band and choir practice. The worship band is going to practice for one hour, then the choir and handbells have the stage for an hour. You tech guys are welcome to come by and see the AV booth at work, but the event is also open to the public for those that want to watch the practice. I don't know what time it will be, I will try to post that once I know. Hope to see you there!

Matthew

I drew out a diagram of a few of the audio and video connections that run between all of our equipment... remember, this is a simplified version of SOME of our equipment! ("A" stands for audio lines, "V" stands for video lines.)

(click for large)

Matthew

We had a great work day at the new building today. First of all, I learned how to run the securety system, so now I can get in at night without fear of alarms going off! Outside of that, I cleaned up the booth a bunch, reorginized things, and in general made it ready to run the funeral in the morning. I also changed all of the frequencies in the wireless mics. Fun times.

In the morning we have our first public service in the new building, and I am excited!

Matthew

Today we had the open house at the new sound booth, and it went great. I met some new people, we had a great discussion about the sound booth, and now I know what everyone's favorite desert is!

Matthew

Today, Pastor Kory Knott announced two big pieces of news: We have our CO (certificate of occupancy) for the new building, and the first Sunday service will be on April 5th. Two weeks from today we will be worshiping in our new building! Praise God!

Then there was more news: Sweet Adeline, who was always at our church early Sunday morning and was our unofficial greeter for the morning service, died this weekend at 91. They have decided to have her funeral in the new building, so while the first Sunday service won't be for two weeks, our first public event will be in TWO DAYS! Thankfully, the sound system is done enough that we can do this event without any problems. We will just have to make sure everything is running enough to get the event done.

Matthew

I want to make a quick announcement: Sunday the 22nd at 2PM there will be an open house at our new sound booth. I know I am preaching to the choir here because chances are if you are reading this then you are already a part of this ministry. But if you aren't, if you are someone who wants to become involved with this ministry, come out and see the new site and see if this is a ministry that you want to serve in.

If words don't get you excited, here is the video that I made to promote the event. See you there!

Matthew

I am pleased to announce the details of our new CD Ministry!

In our new building we have a CD recorder built into the sound system, so we will be able to burn the services directly to CD. This makes it harder to do things like edit it for content (for example if someone left a mic muted, or Kory coughs), but it makes the process much more streamlined. We will record the third service directly to CD, creating chapter markers just before the sermon begins and again after the sermon is over. This will allow people to skip to the sermon if they please. ("Chapter markers" is the DVD term, and if you couldn't tell, I am a video guy, not an audio guy, so it might be called something else on a CD. But you get the idea.)

Anywho, as I was saying, we will burn the service directly to CD. We will take that master CD to our CD duplicator (copies to 5 CDs at once), and in about 5 minutes we can have 10 CDs out.

But I am getting a little ahead of myself, let me back up and talk about the design. I am ordering pre-printed CD-Rs with our new logo:



The printing process that is being done is a photothermal print. It has a glossy coat on top so it is smudge proof, and it looks amazing! For the sermon title, date, and other information, we will use a DYMO LabelWriter DUO to print the text onto a clear sticker that will go onto the CD.

OK, back to duplicating the CDs. After we have duplicated the CDs, we will put on the title information sticker and put them in a clear vinyl case. Some CDs will be mailed (or hand delivered) to our shut-ins, wile other CDs will be retained for people to pick up in the foyer. Their going price: a suggested donation of $3.

In addition to burning the aforementioned CD live during the late service we will also record all three services on the computer. This allows us to have a backup in case the CD being recorded doesn't work, or we need to do some editing. We will also use these files to put the sermon on our new website. The new site has a built in media player, so you just browse to the sermon you want to listen to and it starts playing. You can also subscribe to the podcast if you want to listen to it that way.

In a previous post I mentioned recording the video of the sermons. Along with the pre-printed CD-Rs we will be receiving pre-printed DVD-Rs with the same label (except that it says "DVD" instead of "CD", duh). The DVDs will be packaged just like the CDs, with the clear label and a vinyl case.

I am excited to see the CD ministry grow at AUMC. IIn the past it has been an amazing ministry, but it has been mostly limited to mailing CDs to shut-ins. As I was recently telling someone, I have the opportunity to step back and ask the question "If I could have anything in a CD Ministry, what would it be?" IE: I have the opportunity to design the CD Ministry from scratch, from the design and look of the label and case to how we will distribute them. The beginning of this post talks about the physical mechanics of creating the CD, but I have many other great ideas. For example, I want to provide a CD to every family that has a baptism at our church. If possible, I also want to provide a DVD of the baptism. (The CD would be the entire service, the DVD would just be the video of the baptism.) Whenever we have special choir events (and with Joe Stobaugh, we have a bunch!) I want to provide a CD to every member of the choir to say "Thanks for making this day special." I want to give the congregation the opportunity to "Sponsor a Shut-in", where someone in the congregation would pay for the cost of mailing a CD to a shut-in for a year, or better yet, they pick up the CD and every week hand deliver the CD to the shut-in. What an amazing ministry opportunity!

You can see how excited I am to be able to think outside the box and not have any limitations on how we can best serve our great God! Do you have any ideas for a great CD Ministry?

Matthew

I have been doing a lot of thinking about the CD and video ministry at our new building. Well, I finally nailed down the CD ministry (they look great!), so my thinking has been going to the video ministry, mainly if we are going to video tape each service, and if so, how.

After a lot of thinking and doodling, here is what I am thinking:

The video camera will split to three sources:
- The switcher (for live video in the sanctuary)
- The iMac (for recording to disk, so there are no tapes to mess with)
- The PC (for everything else)

The PC is the latest revelation of mine. I plan on bringing the 2 year old PC from the old church and utilize it in the new building. I hope to do many things with it, including:
- Take the live video feed and the output from the iMac and create a Picture-in-Picture feed (live video as the main feed with the output of the iMac [lyrics, for example] as a subset in the lower right).
- This PIP feed would be broadcast as a video stream so that staff within the AUMC building would be able to watch. (So, for example, people in the office and nursery can tell what is going on in the sanctuary.)
- The PIP feed would also be sent out to the TV in the foyer. This is so that people in the foyer can see what is going on in the fellowship hall (live video) but can also see what is on the screen (iMac).
- But what about the rest of the week? I hope to set up the PC to run announcements during the week so that the TV in the foyer will show the announcement loop all week long. Using a program that my brother uses (ProShow), I can set up a folder, and any file dropped in that folder will be displayed as a slideshow. This makes it easy to add and delete announcements without quitting out of the slideshow.

What all that is saying is: I can use hardware that we already own, and with a minimal software purchase we can offer many video features that we couldn't before. We can also videotape every service with minimal cost (a $150 hard drive can hold 60 services in raw video or close to 1000 services in compressed video). I am excited about the opportunities that are before us.

Matthew

PS: I know that it doesn't look like a lot of work is going on around here, but there is! I am now off to type up the new AV Guidelines!

I am looking at buying three Staples® Culley™ Black Luxura™ Manager's Chairs for the new sound booth. What do you think?

And yes, I need to fix the banner at the top of this blog, I let one of my hosting services lapse (because I am tired of paying for several hosting services) and I need to link the photo somewhere else.

Matthew

So this Sunday I came in to run the morning services like normal. I turned on the lights in the sound booth, I turned on the computer, I turned on the sound board... I turned on the sound board... I turned on the sound board...

Ya, the sound board is dead as a nail. So with 20 minutes before the service I wrastle up an extra sound board, unplug everything from the old board, plug everything into the new board, and just as the service starts I start up PowerPoint and we are off.

The services came off OK, with only a few minor glitches, but seeing as our sound board was dead, I can take a few small hiccups.

Today Carter went out and bought a new fuse, thinking replacing the burnt out fuse would fix the sound board. Sadly the problem still exists, the new fuse didn't take long to burn up (only a second or two).

So now we are trying to figure out what to do. We only have a handful of weeks before we move into the new building, so we don't want to spend a lot of money, but we also don't want to have to share an audio board with the night service, as that would mean every week the morning services AND the night services would have to zero out the board and start from scratch. Doable, but not fun.

We have a few options that we are thinking about, so I am not worried. The other question is: what do we do with a large sound board that is dead?

Matthew

*Matthew wonders off to muse about something else for the moment.*

I want to take a moment and type out a personal post.

Over at the ChurchMedia.net forums there is a post that asks the question: "What are the biggest issues your church faces with technology?" There are many answers, and as I read through them, I realized how blessed I am to work at AUMC! Most of the problems other people mention aren't a concern for our media ministry.

Money
Money has never been a problem for us. Granted, we aren't rolling in dough, and we don't have every latest toy on the block, but there has never been a time that something was needed but was not bought due to money. We made a lot of concessions in designing the system in the new building, but all of the concessions were "we are going to get a good system instead of a great system." The decisions were always "we can't afford that luxury", never "we can't afford that necessity." This is partially due to an understanding administration (which we will note again in a moment), and partially due to the fact that while, like I said, we aren't rolling in dough, we are blessed with enough money to get the things that we need.

Volunteers
Often churches have problems finding enough volunteers to staff the A/V system. A few years ago we didn't have any volunteers (at one point I was doing everything, including running the audio board in the sanctuary AND running the video in the sound booth at the same time), and after an all-church call for volunteers went out, we only had one volunteer step up. Thankfully, we now have three dedicated volunteers that continually bless the ministry! I even had to turn one person away because our volunteer spots are covered. But I will say that in the future we will need several more volunteers, and I am slightly worried that we won't have enough volunteers for the new building. But as God has shown in the past, I am sure he will deliver.

Administration Attitude
Joe and Kory (our Music Minister and Pastor, respectively) have been amazingly open and ready to embrace new technology to help enrich worship. I am always getting e-mails from Joe asking "Could we use this video during worship?", and Kory was the one who brought forth sermon notes, which have been a big hit. These guys (and the rest of the administration) are open to new ideas (we just started using a "giving kiosk", which is a Reverse-ATM for giving money to the church), ways of going outside the box to get a sermon point across, or to help people experience God closer. If I were to pick the #2 reason why our media program is so amazing, it is these guys! (The #1 spot goes to the last section below, but don't go peaking!)

Overall Design
When AUMC needed someone to design the A/V system in the new building, they hit the nail on the head. James Nance has done an amazing job designing, building, installing, and testing our new system. He has the ability to see the whole picture, and at the same time know every detail. In the post I mentioned earlier from ChurchMedia.net someone used this metaphor:

If one wanted to remodel a home, one would hire an interior decorator. His job is to make sure everything that needs to be done is done, within the budget and time limits. He has to do research, he has to do homework, and he has to manage. He does not have to actually lay the tile, he hires a tile guy. He does not actually paint, but he hires the painter. He needs to know enough about tile and paint to make wise choices, but he need not be an expert. ~Steven

This is a great metaphor, in that most churches try to just hire tile guys and painters, they don't hire someone who can get the big picture. Well, James Nance is not only the painter and the tile guy, he is also the interior decorator! He can do everything from designing a high end system from the ground up to installing it to tweaking the audio so that even audiophiles are satisfied. I give him full credit for how amazing our new system is.

Leadership
Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I give partial credit for our system to myself. I have been (indirectly or directly) in charge of the media ministry for going on five years now, and I have built and formed many of the things that we use today. I work with the administration to plan the media, and I work with and train the volunteers that run the show. And in the future I will become even more directly involved with the media ministry. As the Director of Media Ministry I will be at every service and most extracurricular services (weddings, funerals, the like). As we use more videos during service, I will spend more time behind the camera and in front of the editing suite, perfecting the videos. And there are rumors that we will start using video announcements, and that will require a lot of extra work.

But really, this section isn't about me and how good I am, it is about God. Because it was God that gave me this talent, this desire, this passion for media ministry. I give all credit to God for my talents and accomplishments. Joe is very good about praising me and my work, and I often stop him and say "It isn't me that got this done, it was God." If I deserve any acclamation it is for my devotion to the passion that God gave me; if you want to give praise for the work that I accomplish, give it to God.

This brings me to the last (really it is the first) reason that our media ministry is so blessed:

God
In every aspect God has blessed the media ministry at AUMC. God brought me to AUMC long before I even had a desire to work in church media, and now that it is the passion of my life, I see how he planned for me to be here from the beginning. He planted amazing volunteers here to help in my work. He has given us amazing administrators to be open and willing to try different approaches to things. He gives us enough money to get things done. God has blessed every aspect of this ministry, and I am so thankful for that.

That isn't to say that everything is perfect and sugar-plums. We have our areas of problems and concerns, but the blessings that God has brought here far out-shine any problem.

I look forward to see what God has planned for this ministry. I can't wait to experience worship as AUMC has never been able to offer before in our new building. Yes, we are worshiping the same God as before, and I am not saying that the current worship sucks, I just believe that what the new building has to offer will bring a new level to the worship and teachings that AUMC has to offer.

Matthew

I am getting four videos ready for the next two Sundays.

This coming Sunday we will show a 1.5 minute promo for an Ester study series (produced by someone else), and a short Prayer Partner video that we are working on.

Next Sunday we will show a shorter promo for the Ester series (still produced by someone else), and a video that we are thinking about doing for our new Giving Kiosk. The Kiosk video is going to be a lot of fun, I just have to figure out how we are going to pull it off.

Matthew