The 'Church Video People' thread

Jeffrey Lovell · October 2nd, 2007, 02:28 PM

Interesting thread. I also do all the video and audio for my church. We recently started video all the teachings which through my Panasonic DVC-30 via firewire, capture directly into my laptop (Asus C2D 2gig, 1 gig ram) using Avid (now Pinnacle again) Liquid 7.2. Love not having to run tape! After I'm home I add the begining and ending that the local cable access wants and burn to DVD. We have an hour slot every Sunday evening so at times I have to edit down or add in to get the hour. Lighting is an issue, we have a low ceiling and all fluorescents, but I have 3 PAR64's that cover the front of the sanctuary. White Balance can be fun when the one teaching walks out of the floods into the fluorescents. Fortunately the 30 I can run all manual which I normally do. A few months ago I installed an audio distribution amp so I can take a direct feed from the mixer into the camera via XLR and use the other channel with an Azden shotgun to get the audience sounds.

We have talked about going to multiple cameras, but I hate to have to revert to composite analog video and then redigitizing it...There are some video mixers out there that will live mix 1394 firewire but the distance for 1394 is real short for what I would need, so that is still up in the air.

As far as robotic, there is a neat "right arm" out there that would be great to mount and throw a camera on it but it is fairly costly too.

We have a single P4 Dell that we use to show the worship songs on through Power Point (Yes I know, it's so 90's!) We also use it to record the audio from the mixer for the teachings so we easily edit and burn to CD. I use NERO's WAV editor for the recording.

Jeff

Matthew Gore · October 2nd, 2007, 08:35 PM

We are using panasonic robotic heads at our church.
They are not bad. Takes quite a bit of practice to do any
quality moves, and following a person that moves around on stage
a lot is near impossible to do with any consistency.
They would be a great addition to at least 1 main camera with
a real live operator. There are very nice robotic cam systems out there,
that can handle most any kind of moves, but for most churches they
are a little pricey.

Matt Gore

Ervin Farkas · October 3rd, 2007, 05:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeffrey Lovell

We have talked about going to multiple cameras, but I hate to have to revert to composite analog video and then redigitizing it...There are some video mixers out there that will live mix 1394 firewire but the distance for 1394 is real short for what I would need, so that is still up in the air.

You don't have to "revert to composite" unless you buy a toy video switcher. For a couple thousand dollars you can buy a Datavideo SE-800 that handles component beautifully!

Ken Gilford · October 3rd, 2007, 10:48 AM

We recently bought and are using a Vaddio system with switcher and remote control for three cameras. It does a good job covering services, but like an earlier poster said, it takes a lot of practice to do a good job. We use two people, one as a director to do the switching and one to run the cameras. We get the sound from the sound board and we record to DVD for quick turnaround and we record to computer as a backup and to edit later if we want.

Send me email if you want to know more.

Greg Andrews · February 1st, 2010, 08:48 PM

Just ran across this thread...
We are running a Vaddio system at my church as well.
Running a 4 camera setup with Sony cameras.
Installed it about 6mo ago and works like a champ.
Do some research and ask around in looking to install a new one, because you can mix and match the PTZ cameras. Some of them "prefer" to be mounted right side up. Some of them can operate inverted better than others.

Well, most of them can operate inverted... The one thing that we noticed with the Sony cameras is that we were getting frame drops out of the inverted cameras about 3-5/min.
FLipped them over, and all is well with the world.

Using a Kramer scalar to pipe other video sources into the ProductionView FX console.

Dumping out directly to a distribution hub, to pipe feeds to the DVD recorders and CC tvs around the facility.

This thread started out as a Wedding thread. I have seen our setup in a full portable mode before, for remote capture (5 camera setup) at a wedding. some were tripod mounted in good locations that a person would have been "in the way" and strategically decorated/camoflaged. Others were placed in places were you normally couldnt get a camera (in the overhead arch, looking down on the ceremony). Pretty slick end product there to.

Waldemar Winkler · February 2nd, 2010, 04:18 PM

I'm never in churches without a good reason, like documenting a wedding ceremony. I have, however, designed both video and audio systems for churches. No two are alike. With regard to video the biggest issue is lighting the interior of the sanctuary in a way that benefits video and members of the congregation.

Switching architectural lighting from incandescent to quartz, where appropriate, has been the single most effective method of enhancing the worship experience for both congregation and video producers. Because of the added fire hazard posed by the significantly higher temperatures produced by quartz halogen fixtures, particularly in older structures, I exercise extreme caution with my recommendations.

The low operating cost of high kelvin temperature fluorescent lighting and LED lighting is extremely attractive to me because of the long term benefits. The technology is still in its infancy. I look forward towards product improvements that will allow both of these technologies to replace incandescent lighting.

Greg Andrews · February 2nd, 2010, 08:16 PM

I agree with you about being extremely careful with the lighting and the ambient temps that quartz can create.

You are also correct about the infancy stage of the higher kelvin flourescents as well.
Dont know how much you have played around with the flourescent fixtures, but we accidentally stumbled on one anomaly...
We actually discovered it in a service while shooting some burst mode sequences with a DSLR and had a shutter speed of 1/250th... when going back through the photos, we noticed a color shift and white balance shift in the photos.... did some digging and sure enough, you encounter and will notice the shift once the shutter speed exceeds 1/50th sec.

We just got in some HO LED banks a couple of weeks ago and are in prep mode to get them installed for some fills and color washes. Also fixing to have some new wiring added so that we can total isolate the lighting power from the A/V power.

Waldemar Winkler · February 4th, 2010, 10:22 PM

Fluorescent lighting has always had a frequency modulation. I was once told it was primarily due to the manner in which the ballasts, those noisy black boxes inside the lighting fixture that generate the voltage to keep the gas inside the tubes glowing. It would take a better understand of physics than I have to explain the behavior properly. Doesn't surprise me a high shutter speed would make the issue much more apparent.

Jason Robinson · February 9th, 2010, 01:35 PM

Since this is the Church AV peeps thread, I thought I would post my most recent production for my church for their annual conference. The attendees & conference organizer loved the promo piece so much they put it as bookends for the two day conference instead of just the opener. The other two pieces I'll post for the sake of completeness, but they were just 2-cam interviews.

This production took 4 days of filming, ~50-60hrs of post production and about 40hrs of pre-production to get the shoot schedule & script worked out. A crazy amount of work for 2min of screen time (+the two 40min interviews).

Ethan Cooper · February 9th, 2010, 01:56 PM

Quote:

This production took 4 days of filming, ~50-60hrs of post production and about 40hrs of pre-production to get the shoot schedule & script worked out. A crazy amount of work for 2min of screen time (+the two 40min interviews).

Welcome to the world of non-event video production.

People freak out when they see the bill for real production work, but you've just pointed out why it's so expensive.

Let's just pretend you were billing at $100/hr for shooting and editing and half that for pre-production. You'd be looking at $7,000 just for the editing and pre-pro. I really wish people understood what goes into making a video.

Jason Robinson · February 9th, 2010, 06:03 PM

I should also say that fortunately, my church realized the work necessary to create this production, so it was not a pro-bono, though it was reduced roughly by 40% and would I bill it out to other groups / companies, my prices would probably fall a thousand or so short of your estimate, but still pretty close.

October 2nd, 2007, 02:28 PM	#16
Jeffrey Lovell Regular Crew Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Bloomington, IL Posts: 61	Interesting thread. I also do all the video and audio for my church. We recently started video all the teachings which through my Panasonic DVC-30 via firewire, capture directly into my laptop (Asus C2D 2gig, 1 gig ram) using Avid (now Pinnacle again) Liquid 7.2. Love not having to run tape! After I'm home I add the begining and ending that the local cable access wants and burn to DVD. We have an hour slot every Sunday evening so at times I have to edit down or add in to get the hour. Lighting is an issue, we have a low ceiling and all fluorescents, but I have 3 PAR64's that cover the front of the sanctuary. White Balance can be fun when the one teaching walks out of the floods into the fluorescents. Fortunately the 30 I can run all manual which I normally do. A few months ago I installed an audio distribution amp so I can take a direct feed from the mixer into the camera via XLR and use the other channel with an Azden shotgun to get the audience sounds. We have talked about going to multiple cameras, but I hate to have to revert to composite analog video and then redigitizing it...There are some video mixers out there that will live mix 1394 firewire but the distance for 1394 is real short for what I would need, so that is still up in the air. As far as robotic, there is a neat "right arm" out there that would be great to mount and throw a camera on it but it is fairly costly too. We have a single P4 Dell that we use to show the worship songs on through Power Point (Yes I know, it's so 90's!) We also use it to record the audio from the mixer for the teachings so we easily edit and burn to CD. I use NERO's WAV editor for the recording. Jeff __________________ Created Design Video Video production for the common man

October 2nd, 2007, 08:35 PM	#17
Matthew Gore Regular Crew Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: Duluth GA Posts: 33	robotic cams We are using panasonic robotic heads at our church. They are not bad. Takes quite a bit of practice to do any quality moves, and following a person that moves around on stage a lot is near impossible to do with any consistency. They would be a great addition to at least 1 main camera with a real live operator. There are very nice robotic cam systems out there, that can handle most any kind of moves, but for most churches they are a little pricey. Matt Gore

October 3rd, 2007, 10:48 AM	#19
Ken Gilford Regular Crew Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Clearwater, FL Posts: 32	Remote cameras for church services We recently bought and are using a Vaddio system with switcher and remote control for three cameras. It does a good job covering services, but like an earlier poster said, it takes a lot of practice to do a good job. We use two people, one as a director to do the switching and one to run the cameras. We get the sound from the sound board and we record to DVD for quick turnaround and we record to computer as a backup and to edit later if we want. Send me email if you want to know more.

February 2nd, 2010, 04:18 PM	#21
Waldemar Winkler Major Player Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Durango, Colorado, USA Posts: 711	I'm never in churches without a good reason, like documenting a wedding ceremony. I have, however, designed both video and audio systems for churches. No two are alike. With regard to video the biggest issue is lighting the interior of the sanctuary in a way that benefits video and members of the congregation. Switching architectural lighting from incandescent to quartz, where appropriate, has been the single most effective method of enhancing the worship experience for both congregation and video producers. Because of the added fire hazard posed by the significantly higher temperatures produced by quartz halogen fixtures, particularly in older structures, I exercise extreme caution with my recommendations. The low operating cost of high kelvin temperature fluorescent lighting and LED lighting is extremely attractive to me because of the long term benefits. The technology is still in its infancy. I look forward towards product improvements that will allow both of these technologies to replace incandescent lighting. __________________ Waldemar

February 4th, 2010, 10:22 PM	#23
Waldemar Winkler Major Player Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Durango, Colorado, USA Posts: 711	Fluorescent lighting has always had a frequency modulation. I was once told it was primarily due to the manner in which the ballasts, those noisy black boxes inside the lighting fixture that generate the voltage to keep the gas inside the tubes glowing. It would take a better understand of physics than I have to explain the behavior properly. Doesn't surprise me a high shutter speed would make the issue much more apparent. __________________ Waldemar

February 1st, 2010, 08:48 PM	#20
Greg Andrews New Boot Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Cypress, TX Posts: 11	Just ran across this thread... We are running a Vaddio system at my church as well. Running a 4 camera setup with Sony cameras. Installed it about 6mo ago and works like a champ. Do some research and ask around in looking to install a new one, because you can mix and match the PTZ cameras. Some of them "prefer" to be mounted right side up. Some of them can operate inverted better than others. Well, most of them can operate inverted... The one thing that we noticed with the Sony cameras is that we were getting frame drops out of the inverted cameras about 3-5/min. FLipped them over, and all is well with the world. Using a Kramer scalar to pipe other video sources into the ProductionView FX console. Dumping out directly to a distribution hub, to pipe feeds to the DVD recorders and CC tvs around the facility. This thread started out as a Wedding thread. I have seen our setup in a full portable mode before, for remote capture (5 camera setup) at a wedding. some were tripod mounted in good locations that a person would have been "in the way" and strategically decorated/camoflaged. Others were placed in places were you normally couldnt get a camera (in the overhead arch, looking down on the ceremony). Pretty slick end product there to.

February 2nd, 2010, 08:16 PM	#22
Greg Andrews New Boot Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Cypress, TX Posts: 11	I agree with you about being extremely careful with the lighting and the ambient temps that quartz can create. You are also correct about the infancy stage of the higher kelvin flourescents as well. Dont know how much you have played around with the flourescent fixtures, but we accidentally stumbled on one anomaly... We actually discovered it in a service while shooting some burst mode sequences with a DSLR and had a shutter speed of 1/250th... when going back through the photos, we noticed a color shift and white balance shift in the photos.... did some digging and sure enough, you encounter and will notice the shift once the shutter speed exceeds 1/50th sec. We just got in some HO LED banks a couple of weeks ago and are in prep mode to get them installed for some fills and color washes. Also fixing to have some new wiring added so that we can total isolate the lighting power from the A/V power.

February 9th, 2010, 01:35 PM	#24
Jason Robinson Trustee Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Boise, Idaho Posts: 1,997	Since this is the Church AV peeps thread, I thought I would post my most recent production for my church for their annual conference. The attendees & conference organizer loved the promo piece so much they put it as bookends for the two day conference instead of just the opener. The other two pieces I'll post for the sake of completeness, but they were just 2-cam interviews. This production took 4 days of filming, ~50-60hrs of post production and about 40hrs of pre-production to get the shoot schedule & script worked out. A crazy amount of work for 2min of screen time (+the two 40min interviews). watch here

February 9th, 2010, 06:03 PM	#26
Jason Robinson Trustee Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Boise, Idaho Posts: 1,997	I should also say that fortunately, my church realized the work necessary to create this production, so it was not a pro-bono, though it was reduced roughly by 40% and would I bill it out to other groups / companies, my prices would probably fall a thousand or so short of your estimate, but still pretty close.