tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44117280818388423302012-05-23T19:33:46.215+01:00A blog with technical/engineerining advice, ideas and information on how to set up a multimedia ministry including configuring church video systems design, choosing video equipment such as cameras, mixers, tripods, lights, grips, dollies, production & editing techniques and media training.Sholanoreply@blogger.comBlogger57125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-79697962898626934892011-04-28T10:27:00.006+01:002011-05-10T10:58:18.790+01:00

The main reason why you might want to connect your Sony EX1R church video camera to a computer would be to stream the output onto the internet, as it is more efficient to record onto the solid state memory cards than a laptop's hard drive.The best way to connect the EX1R to a computer is using a firewire cable attached to the HDV/DV output port as shown in the picture to the left. This is a 4 pin

Sholanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-5186509551400549942011-03-14T07:46:00.006Z2011-05-02T17:03:31.931+01:00

As I have mentioned in previous articles, we currently record our sunday church services in full HD using Sony EX1 cameras, a Datavideo HD mixer and the Datavideo HDR 50 digital hard drive recorder.Using this setup allows us to maintain a full digital signal flow right from the camera capturing path all the way through to the recording of the video files and also eliminates realtime tape

Sholanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-34111683601771156782011-02-21T09:25:00.001Z2011-04-29T18:32:43.511+01:00

Using a Tapeless church video camera like the Sony EX1 has it's advantages like quicker edit times, not requiring the camera in order to capture video production clips, but as a member of our church's media department found out yesterday, it also has a major disadvantage!Just before the beginning of our main Sunday worship service two members of the video team went out locally to shoot some clips

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-15722282152060897842011-02-08T10:24:00.001Z2011-04-29T18:33:17.913+01:00

Here is a short article on how I connect our mobile church HD studio mixer to the Sony EX1 or EX3 cameras that we use to record our church services for TV broadcast.As I have already mentioned in the HS-2000 review, this HD mixer only uses an SDI interface so we acquired suitable cameras to compliment this in the Sony EX1 and EX3 range since these have the appropriate output connectors.The first

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-75734981003771232572011-02-01T10:51:00.000Z2011-02-01T10:51:49.569Z

Last weekend I had the pleasure of directing a church worship concert featuring world reknown worship leader William McDowell (famous for the song 'I give myself away') in his first UK live appearance. It was a very simple setup based around our inexpensive HD Mobile studio live production unit, and 3 Sony EX1 cameras fed via SDI cables allowing us to capture the event in full HD. I also had to

Sholanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-29490111570239976662011-01-14T19:39:00.071Z2011-04-29T18:34:13.848+01:00

Once you have started a church video department or ministry, then before you know it, there will be a need to have a very efficient way of cataloging and archiving a lot of the video footage you shoot, edit and the many productions that will be made, because there will either be a requirement when working on a project or you might get a request from a congregation member or the Pastor for a video

Sholanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-9546839864114604022010-12-29T11:17:00.001Z2011-04-29T18:34:44.162+01:00

If you are serious about producing good church video, then you can not ignore the importance of having good lighting in your church sanctuary.One of the most common questions I get asked is what is the best low light video camera for church use. Good video and low light do not go together, and anyone that has been to a TV studio will confirm that even with big expensive cameras costing hundred of

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-28046522708734247102010-11-09T15:25:00.001Z2011-04-29T18:35:28.947+01:00

Anyone who has tried streaming their church services on the internet via Ustream.TV since the 1st of November 2010 would have noticed the new option to broadcast AD free.For many of you who have just started a church video ministry, and only have a few home bound viewers, having ADs on your live video feed being streamed on the internet might not be a problem, but with time you might find a lot

Sholanoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-11374033005521619422010-10-15T10:22:00.002+01:002011-04-29T18:35:55.284+01:00

I originally mentioned in a previous article about streaming church services live using Ustream that if you embeded the code directly into your website you would not get any Google Ads, well that is not true anymore, as we are now getting ADs showing on our live feed.It is either that the ADs server was not working at Ustream, or they allowed us an ad free trial period to test the streaming

Sholanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-71483703154426119292010-09-29T13:32:00.003+01:002011-11-01T20:22:25.079Z

One of the most common questions I get asked is 'What is the best camera to use for recording our church services onto video'?There is no simple answer to this question as you can spend between $1000 to $100,000 on a church video camera and even then having this hardware alone is not going to give you the best video production as there are other factors that you need to consider as well.Most of

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-73327218970573958822010-09-21T15:13:00.002+01:002011-04-29T18:37:14.230+01:00

This is a real user review of the Datavideo HS2000 HD mobile video production studio from someone who has actually bought the product, not one of those sales pitches designed to entice you to make a purchase.The Datavideo HS-2000 is designed around the Datavideo SE-2000 the cheapest HD video mixer currently available on the market (october 2010), so if you are thinking of buying that mixer, then

Sholanoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-89715070422264666762010-09-07T14:03:00.001+01:002010-09-29T13:47:12.942+01:00

Both the Datavideo SE-2000 and the Panasonic AV HS300 (which we hired for a few weeks to trial HD video on) video mixers and most broadcast quality equipment feature SDI interfaces for connecting to external devices. SDI stands for Serial Digital Interface and basically means the signal is in digital format and should not be confused with analogue component YUV (which can also be HD) video since

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-84945584652654698642010-09-02T20:46:00.005+01:002011-04-29T18:38:54.475+01:00

Our church recently bought a mobile HD video recording production studio for our Sunday services, and I've been seeing a lot of searches about using HD cameras for a video ministry, so I thought I'd shed some light on our experiences with this new system configuration we are now using in our church.Before I do that, I would like to ask the question, do you really need to record your church

Sholanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-49722929365790645292010-08-22T15:04:00.003+01:002010-09-29T13:48:10.683+01:00

In a previous article, I recommended the Datavideo SE2000 video mixer as suitable church video equipment for any ministry thinking of getting into HD production on a budget, well this week our church acquired the HS-2000 portable HD studio based on this mixer as our first step in upgrading the faithful SD equipment that has been serving us over the past 5 years into HD production systems for the

Sholanoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-32340752381849616212010-08-07T18:09:00.001+01:002010-09-29T13:48:33.526+01:00

Our church video recording equipment that was faulty has now been repaired by Holdan Ltd the UK distributor for Datavideo, so now we can continue to record our church services digitally without tapes and thus a quicker video podcast production workflow. Hopefully our DN-200 will now provide us with years of trouble free recordings from now on. More Reading Tapeless video cameras

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-7316446677613126342010-08-02T12:35:00.001+01:002010-08-02T12:36:07.198+01:00

StreamingFaith.com is probably the largest provider of live streaming of church services on the internet, I however a BIG Problem with there system configuration. Why do they require viewers of their service to have a faith pass? As a christian trying to reach the world, placing such an obstacle in the path of anyone who either wants to participate in our church services live on the internet or

Sholanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-28529145752584346102010-07-26T16:20:00.000+01:002010-07-26T16:20:15.385+01:00

In order to have more control and better quality of our free church video streaming on the internet with the Ustream service, I have been using the single camera version of their desktop encoding software Ustream producer. As we already have a cheap non HD church video mixer, the fact that this video software only supports one live feed is not an issue. The main benefits it brings while

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-38427383535971902052010-07-23T11:37:00.000+01:002010-07-23T11:37:00.414+01:00

Unfortunately it is not uncommon for newly acquired church video equipment to develop faults or to have bugs, first it was our church apple mac laptop, now our recently bought tapeless digital video recorder, the Datavideo DN-200 which was such a life saver the first day we used it to record our church sunday service. I've had to report what seems to be a software problem whereby the digital

Sholanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-25849164490022446602010-07-07T16:09:00.009+01:002010-07-21T07:44:35.966+01:00

I had mentioned in a previous post about digital video recorders and their use for a church media ministry especially helping to reduce the time it takes to complete your church video production. Well our church recently acquired a Datavideo DN-200 as a replacement to using a consumer hard drive DVD recorder for capturing our sunday services live. The Datavideo DN-200 is a 300GB analague/

Sholanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-25038775713334887962010-06-27T20:05:00.002+01:002010-07-07T16:13:55.169+01:00

Last week I mentioned that I was testing Ustream for live church video streaming on the internet, and after today's test, I must confess that I'm loving this system for broadcasting our services live to homebound members of our congregation or those away due to work and business. Not only can this free service allow ministries to start cheaply to get their church video message to a larger

Sholanoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-91386079130039478392010-06-24T00:16:00.001+01:002010-06-24T21:45:43.317+01:00

Over the weekend, I carried out some tests of live church video streaming using the Ustream.tv service. One of the reasons many people might not want to use the free version of Ustream.tv for live streaming of church video on the internet is the fact that the show page carries advertising, but did you know that you have an option of embeding the live player into a page on your own website thus

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-18863478641136619452010-06-14T21:54:00.001+01:002010-06-24T00:16:33.549+01:00

Having used Sony PD170s prosumer camcorders as our main church video cameras for over 4 years, we had an urgent need to record ISO in HDV over the weekend, so we hired a Sony HVR-Z5 camera, and the only thing I can say is that this camcorder is Heavy! Even though I picked the Sony HVR-Z5 up on friday, I didn't have any time to spend with the camera until I actually used it in church on sunday,

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-87219759869082000602010-05-01T17:11:00.001+01:002010-07-24T07:54:46.182+01:00

One important thing to bear in mind for your church video production process is the need for good audio sound being supplied during your church service recording. The most common setup in a church auditorium is to have a dedicated feed from the sound booth supplied to the video mixer desk, and even though sometimes you might have your video directing position in the back of the building, it is

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-69654651434282271872010-04-29T21:41:00.009+01:002010-09-21T16:54:18.964+01:00

Our church uses the Datavideo HS-2000 mobile video studio which is based on the SE-2000 to record our services in HD. Anyone starting a new video ministry today will have found out that all video cameras on the market whether it be consumer, prosumer or professional are all High Definition capable, which is great, but if you want to do a multi-camera recording of a church service in HD, you

Sholanoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4411728081838842330.post-1175484072360449962010-04-09T19:35:00.002+01:002010-08-06T06:56:15.953+01:00

I'm going to use this post to show you my current church video podcast production workflow. Every sunday service of ours is video recorded and it is the aim of the church media team to have the video podcast availble for download on our website and via iTunes by the following morning. Please note that with the right video equipment and resources (human, computer and internet connections) it is

Sholanoreply@blogger.com0