AUMC AV Blog

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!