AUMC AV Blog

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)

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!