Christian Video速 Magazine
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July 2010 VOL. 3, NO. 7
4 Greg’s Toolkit
Edit with Intent
by GREGORY FISH
9 Article
The Young Victoria - Prisoner, Pawn and Powerful Philanthropist by MARTIN BAGGS
Editorial 3
12 Make it Real Make it Relevant Cover Story 4
New Top Video Producer Series Starts with a Mountaintop Experience by TERRY WILHITE
SOUL - Bring the Gospel to a New Generation by Steve Hewitt
13 Article
Multiple Considerations for Multi-Cam Media Ministry by JAY DELP
Christian Video® Magazine
July 2010
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from the desk of the editor
by STEVE HEWITT
We’re looking for Writers Ever want to share your enthusiasm for creating or using video in ministry. Do you have some cool tricks you have learned that others would benefit from? We are looking for more articles. And the best articles are from those that are actually out there in the real world using and creating videos for ministry. We don’t pay our writers (remember, YOU get the magazine for free) so all of our writers provide us editorial out of a desire for ministry. Articles need to be around 1,200 words and we would really like to hear HOW you are using videos or HOW you create your videos. What video series have you used in your church? How were they received? For example, I know of many churches that are using the Alpha program and using the videos instead of having a specific teacher. I have also helped with a DivorceCare® program at our church, which involves the group watching a different video each week and then having a discussion. What videos would you recommend? As you can see from this month’s cover story, we want to provide more coverage of this kind of video use in churches, as well as videos used in worship for inspiration or sermon illustration. You may even have an idea for an article that I haven’t mentioned. If it relates to video in ministry, we are interested. Drop me an email (steve@ ccmag.com) and let me hear from you. Or, get to typing, and send me your submissions. You can either attach them as a .doc file to an email, or actually include the text of the article within the email. And, of course, be sure to provide links to any videos you would want us to see! I am hoping to hear from many of you, and we will all be blessed by the exchange of information! Together We Serve Him
Christian Video Magazine is published monthly by Christian Video Magazine, Inc. Editor-in-Chief Steve Hewitt – steve@ccmag.com Production Daystar Digital Design Mike Hewitt Contributing Editors George Temple Gregory Fish Stewart H. Redwine Mark Carroll Jay M. Delp Martin Baggs Copy Editor Gina Hewitt
Corporate Home Office Mailing Address: PO Box 319 Belton, MO 64012 Phone: (816) 331-5252 Fax: 800-456-1868 Copyright 2010 by Christian Video Magazine, Inc. All Rights Reserved Written materials submitted to Christian Video Magazine become the property of Christian Video Magazine, Inc., upon receipt and may not necessarily be returned. Christian Video Magazine reserves the right to make any changes to materials submitted for publication that are deemed necessary for editorial purposes. The content of this publication is the sole property of Christian Video Magazine. Copy or distribution of articles or content can be done so on an individual basis. Multiple copies or distribution may not be done without the express permission of Christian Video Magazine. Views expressed in the articles and reviews printed within are not necessarily the views of the editor, publisher, or employees of Christian Video Magazine, or Christian Video Magazine, Inc.
Steve Hewitt
Christian Video® Magazine
July 2010
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Cover Story by STEVE HEWITT
SOUL
Bringing the gospel to a New Generation
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ecently, I was introduced to an exciting video series designed to bring the Gospel of Mark alive to today’s youth. The seven part video series arrived on a DVD from The Good Book Company, and this particular study is part of their Christianity Explored materials.
The Christianity Explored materials are designed as a way of introducing people to Jesus, or as a refresher course for your home group or entire congregation. It is a study focused on the Gospel of Mark, and they provide a host of different products to make your study a success, such as a Leader’s Edition, Study Guide, additional materials for promotion and support for study leaders, and, of course, the DVDs themselves. I received their latest addition to this study named SOUL, which is the seven part series on the Gospel of Mark designed specifically for young people. I watched several of the seven videos with
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the intent of judging the product on video quality (which was excellent), but can testify that I soon became excited about the study due to the content. I love materials like this series that are willing to challenge traditional thought and practice in order to present the truth of the Gospel in a way that is new and refreshing. In fact, the first video of the series exposes several false pretenses that the audience might have about what Christianity is, or isn’t, and challenges the viewer to throw these aside and explore the real subject of the Gospel, that being Jesus. The seven part series doesn’t preach or push
July 2010
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Cover Story
By STEVE HEWITT
specific beliefs or facts at the viewer, but rather challenges them with the scriptures from the book of Mark and draws them to make the obvious conclusions about what the Gospel is saying about Christ, his life, death and resurrection and how that would or should impact the viewer. The videos use Nate Morgan Locke to walk through the Gospel of Mark, presenting the scriptures, providing relevant historical content, commentary and explanation, and draws the listener into a better understanding of the message of the Gospel. The seven videos in the DVD set are titled, 1) Christianity is Christ, 2) Identity, 3) Mission, 4) Cross, 5) Resurrection, 6) Grace, and 7) Call. The DVD videos are high quality, cleverly shot, contain numerous video illustrations that support the dialog that is being presented, and include a couple of animations that are used as illustrations to help a young audience relate to the points being presented. The DVD was filmed at Shepperton Studios in England by an award-winning director (Steve Hughes) at a variety of locations throughout the UK. Nate Morgan Locke is Christianity Explored’s youth evangelist and a youth minister at All Souls
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Langham Place. If you would like to see a trailer of the DVD, you can visit www.christianityexplored.org/soul.
July 2010
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Greg’s Toolkit by GREGORY FISH
Edit with Intent
W
e just finished a wonderful week of ministry at our church. VBS is a lot of fun, and it is always my task as resident video guy to capture that joy and preserve it in the church archives in the form of a highlights reel. This for me is an easy job and one that I enjoy very much. Usually, it is done very quickly and, though I hate to say it, kind of thrown together in a nonchalant fashion. I never would recommend this style of editing, but it happens and is accepted as being OK. It always bothers me due to my standard of excellence. I’ve blamed it on the time crunch – being busy and having to finish by Friday’s big finale. This year, I had some more time to dedicate to it, since I was home sick half of the week and had more time to spend on this project, I decided to edit with intent.
I remember one year, I threw a bunch of footage into Muvee AutoProducer and added music, made a few changes and was done with it. I gather that I’m not the only one that has been in this unfortunate situation. This time having spent the time to sync the lyrics and music to what’s on the screen, I was much more pleased with the outcome. Taking the time to do a few more advanced techniques and raising the production value really paid off. Though I wasn’t there for the debut, I heard about it. There were many good comments about the video and I heard reports about how much people liked it. I got to see the reaction of the audience on Sunday. I’ve seen the video shared all over Facebook within our community. It gave me a sense of satisfaction, much more than previous years. I’d like to walk you through some of the things I did on this video in hopes that maybe you can learn something new. You can follow along here: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=OGE87uSy9JY. I’ll be using some terminology from Adobe Premiere. Editing with intent involves thinking things through ahead of time. The first thing that I considered was the song. I knew that the theme song was would be sung live on Sunday, so I
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didn’t want to hear it twice in one setting. Instead I chose a more upbeat song. This was a crucial decision because I would be editing, trimming, speeding up, and slowing down footage to the rhythm and beat of the music. Once I picked the music I could easily insert my favorite clips into the project. To make this easier I went through all of my footage and set them aside at the end of the time line. This was to avoid any shaky or wobbly footage and to eliminate any “boring” shots. (Stabilize your shots using a decent tripod. I used a homemade steadycam for the hand held shots.) You want short, fast-paced clips. We have short attention spans now-a-days, but can process many images very quickly. Keep it moving! The song “Jump, Jump, Jump” that I used lends itself well to fun editing tricks. I started with the logo coming in to the punches in the song. For the three hits (bam, bam, bam) I brought in the logo – first, scaled too big for the screen, second, zoomed out a little and rotated slightly, and third, perfectly in place. The next time that this is repeated I have a girl sticking her head out of a large box. For the three punches, she appears three times. The lyrics begin with scenes of “joy” as the main theme proceeds. The chord that gets repeated could then be synced in with shot of
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Greg’s Toolkit
by GREGORY FISH
people “jumping”, “moving”, and the timeless gesture “raising the roof”. This is easy to do with the matching footage from the actual song. Be sure to mute the source footage audio track after you line it up. Later on, with the three chorded refrain, to mix it up, I also got two kids hitting each other playfully with a little pillow, a sponsor carrying a kid on his back wiggles to the beat, a kid patting a back, etc. A quick word on editing to music would be to cut (hard cut, no dissolve or fade) on the 1 count of the measure when possible. It requires some music theory knowledge but not too much. Typical pop songs are in 4/4 time. You can count to 4 on the beat and every time there is a 1 count that is a perfect time to jump to another scene. It may not be every 4 counts, but maybe after two measures (8 counts) it’s time to change scenes. Some clips needed to be sped up, so they got grouped together in the verse of the song. One clip at the end of the verse is shot from the second story close up on a kid finishing his prayer
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for the food and then zooms out quickly to kids waving at the table and then quickly to a wide shot slowing down when in full view. Before the song comes back into the chorus there’s this little musical interlude. It’s actually my favorite part of the edit. One girl does the peace sign, and another girl gets in place with the same pose right when the singer says “yeah”. As VBS goes I had book ends starting and ending with music and singing. For the rest of it I wanted to show other facets of the differing activities. Back into the chorus my question was “What in the world am I going to do with those three-beats?” So I solved this with a little post-production zoom effect. Using “scale” keyframes I zoomed up to 126% and right back to 100% very quickly and repeated that two more times to complete the three hits. Since they were set correctly, during that chorus I could copy and paste those 9 keyframes (100% scale-126%-100% x 3) and not have to animate it every time. It is important when doing this to paste them
July 2010
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Greg’s Toolkit
by GREGORY FISH
on the beat. You ultimately ensure that you got it right by previewing it, but you can also look at the waveform in your audio track to see if it lines up. If you need to move all 9 keyframes, keeping them the same distance apart from each other, highlight them by dragging a box around them. They will all move as a group where you need them to go. Little details make the video. Easy edits like showing the toddlers, one in particular, my son who I get to smile right when the lyric says “joy” are subliminal but powerful stimulants. That part got an audible response in the Sunday service (‘cuz he’s so cute!). Another easy but often overlooked step is color correction or film look filters. Of course if your camera has the option do a white balance. Even then, you’ll have a sort of flat looking image because it’s video. After editing I took it into After Effects and applied one of Andrew Kramer’s film magic pro plug-ins. I left out a lot of my “favorite clips” that I had previously separated from the raw footage. People don’t want a forever long highlight video, and your service times probably don’t allow for it anyway. Three rules: condense, condense, condense! Having condensed, I still needed a little more time than the song pro-
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vided, so I added a reprise using the instrumental version of the song. I brought in the characters of the week for the kids to see one more time, but in the “bam, bam, bam” way as well. One of the main mistakes people make when they use still pictures is spending too much time on each picture. Some programs will default at 5 seconds when you drop a picture in. That’s way too long. Especially on a fast moving song. Finally, I used this instrumental portion to bring in the audio from the footage I took of our emcee doing the wave with the kids. Then in keeping with the rhythm I brought the vocal version back in for one more chorus. I finished the video with the clip of the same song ending and left the audio of the kids clapping. Then the catch phrase of the week came in for punctuation – Let’s Go!”. I hope these pointers help you when you edit this type of video. Churches, kids especially, love to see themselves on the screen. Editing with intent can make this an even more exciting time in all of your special events.
July 2010
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Article
by MARTIN BAGGS
The Young Victoria
Prisoner, Pawn and Powerful Philanthropist
Q
ueens have great majesty and honor. Playing royal monarchs in movies often brings with it similar acting honors. Helen Mirren won her Oscar for portraying Elizabeth II in The Queen. As Elizabeth I, Judi Dench earned a supporting Oscar in Shakespeare in Love. Cate Blanchett played this same queen in Elizabeth and then went on to win an Oscar soon after for The Aviator. Emily Blunt plays Queen Victoria here, effectively carrying the movie on her shoulders with a radiant performance. No Oscars for her yet, but with acting like this the honors can’t be too far away.
is a reason, as the parents are seeking the best interests Where most films about Queen Victoria focus on of the adolescents, who are still not quite adults. Even her later years – when she is well-enthroned as monSolomon gives sage wisdom in the book of Proverbs arch, but a lonely widow – here the focus is on her telling his son to listen to him (Prov. 1:8; 4:1). formative years. We see her as a girl ruled over by her mother the Duchess of Kent (Miranda Richardson) and Even as a young adult, Victoria feels like a pawn her consort, Sir John Conroy (Mark Strong). Her uncle, being moved against her will by others. One scene stands out in communicatKing William IV ing this manipulation. Prince (Jim Broadbent), Remember, before showing clips from Albert (Rupert Friend, The is still ruling, but Boy in the Striped Pajamas) getting older and movies, be sure you have a license to do is playing chess with Princess weaker. Conroy so. Check out Church Video License to Victoria when she reveals her wants her to sign be sure you are legal. www.cvli.com feelings to this young man: a regency order “Do you ever feel like a chess putting him as the ruler while she is still young. But Victoria is headstrong piece yourself? In a game being played against your will.” He answers her, “Do you?” to which she reand unwilling to submit to Conroy’s domineering consponds, “Constantly. I see them leaning in and moving trol and at times violent behavior. me around the board.” The chess game forms a terrific In these early years, Victoria is almost a prisoner metaphor for these maneuverings. But Prince Albert in her own home. There are a number of shots looking offers advice beyond his years, advice born out from out of windows or between the bars of cast iron gates, adding to this impression of imprisonment. It is perhaps first-hand experience, “Then you had better master the common for teenagers to feel the leash of parental con- rules of the game until you play it better than they can.” Many young adults experience this feeling of matrol as restrictive, even imprisoning. But usually there
Christian Video® Magazine
July 2010
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Article
by MARTIN BAGGS
nipulation and rebel against it, forcing confrontation and power struggles with their parents, even their employers. But Albert is right. It is more effective to learn the rules and work the system. They can then beat the system, and rise above the rebellious to be the rightful relative or responsible worker who cannot be denied. This idea of working within the system and being shrewd is echoed in a parable that Jesus told (Luke 16:1-9). A business manager was caught in the act of stealing and realized his livelihood would be taken away, so he used the system to set himself up. Rather than scold him, “the master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own kind than are the people of the light.” We don’t have to remain victims, pawns in the grand game being played. We can shrewdly (but honestly) play the manipulators without them knowing it. When the King dies, Princess Victoria is elevated to the monarchy and now has power to escape her imprisonment. But as she moves into a more regal and palatial home, she finds more people ready to manipulate her, including the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (Paul Bettany). Friendships can be deceptive or duplicitous. Director Jean-Marc Vallée does a fine job of clarifying the dizzying array of characters. Some audiences may not be familiar with the various politicians,
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advisers and royals who come into Queen Victoria’s life. Added to this careful direction, the screenplay is engaging and the costumes spectacular. Above all, the cast is excellent, particularly Blunt and Friend. They capture completely the friendship and budding romance between these two young people. Although Prince Al-
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Article
by MARTIN BAGGS
bert, a German, was sent to England by his uncle, King Leopold of Belgium, to win her love as a means of gaining political power and support, he falls in love and wins her heart. This is a tender love story set against the politics of the day. Their growing love is developed through correspondence to one another from different countries. Yet, when the letters arrive, they are read and vetted by the advisers before the principals can see them for themselves. When Albert complains that he has no privacy, this falls on deaf ears. Interestingly, almost 200 years later, a similar privacy issue is looming large. Today’s issue is how private your emails or text messages are. Does an employer have the right to peek at these messages, today’s equivalent of Victoria’s letters? There is a case currently before the US Supreme Court where a California SWAT team member (Jeff Quon) was “sexting,” using his government pager to send personal messages, and his employer read them. He sued citing the Fourth Amendment which protects American citizens from “unreasonable” government searches. Public employment is in the center of the storm, but it will reach out into the private sector. Unfortunately, the high court has no real clue at this point, as is evident from Chief Justice John Roberts’ statement: “I just don’t know. I just don’t know how you tell what is reasonable.” This may well be a landmark case, but it hearkens back to practices centuries old. Prisoner and pawn in her immature youth, Queen Victoria develops into a powerful philanthropist. Riding in a carriage looking out at London’s poor, she comments, “I do want to help them, whatever you say. And not just the laboring poor, but the hungry and the homeless, and . . . There are people who are lost, and whose business is it to see to their welfare?” Lord Melbourne, her traveling companion, unsympathetically remarks, “Well, in my experience, ma’am, it’s best to let these things develop naturally. If you interfere, you risk overturning the cart.” A true politician at heart, there are no votes for him in helping these people. So why bother. “Well, Prince Albert doesn’t agree. He’s made a study of the working man’s condition and he’s full to the brim
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with ideas for their improvement.” Victoria and Albert recognized their power and determined to use it for good, for the good of the country and the people who looked to her as their sovereign. They wanted to better the conditions of those down and out throughout the country. Nominally the head of the Church of England, Queen Victoria presents an example of a missional life. As followers of Jesus, we are called to be intentional in how we live. We are all on mission for Christ, whether we depart for distant shores to take the gospel to the third world or remain ensconced in our day-today jobs. Missional living is mandatory. How do we live out the gospel so that it makes a difference in the lives of those who are hungry and hurting, broken and destitute? Are we helping or hindering? Is our Christianity all talk? Or do we put shoe leather on our words? Victoria’s marriage to Albert brought them happiness and joy. This film gives insight into the love that drove the woman at the very heart of the British Empire. We may remember her for her later accomplishments, but she was a woman who fell in love and simply wanted to serve her country with her husband at her side. Their 20 years together produced 9 children, but Albert died early, in his 40s, leaving the Queen a widow for almost a half century. She remains today the longest-reigning of all English monarchs, ruling from 1837-1901. Copyright ©2010, Martin Baggs Martin works as an engineering manager in the high tech industry. He leads a monthly film review group at Mosaic Church in Portland, Oregon. He writes film responses from a biblical perspective on his blog: www. mosaicmovieconnectgroup.blogspot.com Contact: martinbaggs@gmail.com
July 2010
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Make it Real Make it Relevant by TERRY WILHITE
New Top Video Producer Series Starts With A Mountaintop Experience Meet Cory Bruce, Moving Pictures
I
thought it would be fun to start a little series that features some of the top sermon video producers so I called up my friend Daniel Temple at Sermon Spice, and asked him to set me on the path of some of their top creative wizards. Did he ever! He said, “Terry, you need to contact Cory Bruce.”
I discovered Cory Bruce really rocks with a wealth of video treasures. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. Quite frankly, I was grasping for just the right way to tell you why I think Cory’s videos cut through the clutter and break the shackles of familiarity when Dan Zarella’s blog post came through today. Dan is a self proclaimed social media scientist, somebody that in my opinion you should read daily at www.danzarella.com. Dan’s got the data to show why Cory Bruce’s videos hit home every single time. Dan writes in his July 20, 2010 post that “In our everyday lives we are exposed to many more stimuli than we could ever hope to consciously digest, so our minds have evolved to include a sophisticated filtering mechanism by which our attention is drawn only to the important bits. This selective attention can be triggered by things like hearing our name over the noise of a loud party or by a change in something familiar.” Well there you go, a change in something familiar. That’s the momentum behind Cory Bruce videos. Dan goes on to recommend a “new/old” structure which is where either new content is put into an old structure, or old content is put into a new structure. I believe that pegs Cory’s work precisely. Zarella says novelty is the best way to create a contagious social media idea. If you ask Cory Bruce - come to think of it I did - it’s also the
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best way to create a rockin’, effective video. It’s it a little lame to just write about videos when we could show and tell, so that’s what Cory and I set out to do in a five minute little video ditty. As you’ll see by the video, this conversation was certainly a mountain top experience. I sure hope you’ll watch it and tell us what you think about the feature and Cory’s videos. I bet he’d even welcome an idea for a future video. Most importantly, we’d like to loop in with you as friends on this mission to share the best message ever. Now here’s that video: www.terrywilhite.com/corybruce.wmv
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Audible Audio for Video
by JAY M. DELP
Multiple Considerations for Multi-Cam Media Ministry
H
ere’s my whirlwind category by category “digital brain dump” for any media ministry considering taking the plunge into adding multiple (2 or more) in-sanctuary video cameras complete with machine gun-like comments, info, bullet points and ideas added on at no extra charge. Hang on.
Cameras What quality/class of cameras will you buy? Consumer? Prosumer? Professional? Avoid using consumer gear at all costs (Best Buy, Walmart, single chip). Cheap price but also cheap in quality from day one until the day they “die”. Not pretty. It is probably best if you can postpone using cameras until you can at least start with Prosumer gear. Will you buy new or used cameras? Used Prosumer and Professional cameras can be had for pennies on the dollar and will shoot great pictures until 2015 or longer. eBay is your friend. Save thousands of dollars. Google is an even better friend. The biggest dollar-to-quality “sweet spot” in camera buying are the three words: Used Professional Gear. You don’t need/want HD, at least for most churches and at least for now (next 5 years). Go wide screen (16:9) even if you don’t go HD. Do the cameras offer “studio configuration” accessories? External, on-camera monitor? Rear tripod-handle-mounted lens controls (focus and zoom controls), remote (from the video control table/booth) and/or camera iris control? If not, you have the wrong cameras. These are must
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haves and are non-negotiable. What is the highest quality video signal the camera is capable of feeding to your video switcher? Composite? Component? S-video? (S-video is disappearing from many cameras) SDI? “Human operated or robotic? Robotic can be good (or evil!?). Not a cure-all but good for positioning where a person/tripod is unable to be positioned. Robotic cameras can’t duplicate the human touch…at least not for under $10,000 each and that is just for the pan/tilt/control unit not including the camera. Have at least one camera at or near center of sanctuary. If you can’t shoot a close-up (head and shoulders only) of someone on the platform with at least one camera (preferably the center camera) you have the wrong camera position or wrong camera (or camera lens). Tripods/Elevation Don’t even think of spending less than $500 per tripod. $1,000+ each is better. A poor (cheap) tripod will damage your video quality from day one every Sunday for years to come. A highquality tripod can help an untrained camera operator look “smooth” but a lousy tripod can make a
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Audible Audio for Video
by JAY M. DELP
professionally trained camera operator look like “Uncle Charlie”. You can tell how serious a ministry is about high-quality media by the quality of their tripods. Really! Make sure the cameras are elevated to shoot over a standing congregation (with their arms raised… “conservative” congregations need not worry about the “arm raising factor”!). This means cameras should be elevated at or near platform height. Switcher How many inputs do you need now? In 5 years? 6-8 input switcher is recommended but 4 is a minimum. 2 cameras, 1 DVD player, 1 computer = 4 input switcher is flashing “No Vacancy”. What signal/cable type will feed your projector(s)? 15-pin VGA? SDI? Don’t skimp on your switcher budget or you will definitely regret it. Do you need “keying” (superimposing graphics/ titles over switcher sources)? Nice to have even if you use worship presentation software with it’s own backgrounds. How many outputs (destination display and recording devices)? Answer: More than you think. Projector(s), recorders (2 of the following minimum: DVD, digital tape, computer hardrive, 2nd DVD), web stream, foyer monitor(s), nursery
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monitor(s), confidence monitor(s). Depending on the quantity and type of outputs available directly from your video switcher you will need at least a 1x4 or more likely, a 1x6 video distribution amplifier of your switchers master video output. Will you use a computer-based video switcher (Newtek Tricaster, Globecaster, etc.) or a dedicat-
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Audible Audio for Video
by JAY M. DELP
ed video hardware switcher? If computer-based be sure to sync your audio with your now-digital video program mix via either an audio delay device or by running your master audio mix through the digital video switcher so the audio and video are output in perfect sync. Lighting Lighting for eyeballs does not equal lighting for video camera imaging chips. If you absolutely MUST choose, good lighting with so-so cameras if preferred over poor lighting with good cameras…every time. Get both (good lighting and good cameras). Light the platform from above/in front of the platform not directly over the platform (unless you LIKE black, un-recordable “raccoon” eye sockets). There are only two light sources on the planet, God-made (sun, windows) and manmade (every other light source). Don’t allow either of them in your camera shot/frame…ever. Headset Communication You absolutely must have a way to communicate to your camera operators and the solution doesn’t include the words “Radio Shack”…ever. If your camera operators cannot understand your camera director’s communication at concert volume db levels then you have the wrong headsets. Skimp on headsets at your own risk. Monitors 4-5” rack-mounted LCD monitors (color or black and white but most all of them are color) are the only way to go for your full-time camera preview monitors. 6-8” pro monitors are a good way to go for your primary preview and program monitoring although if your video switcher has multi-view capabilities (only high-end switchers do) then multiple screens on a single flat-screen (42”+) is even better.
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Master Recording Record two “Mix Masters” simultaneously. DVD and computer hard drive. Digital Tape and DVD. DVD and a 2nd DVD. DVD and SSD (solid state card/drive). Whatever you do, do NOT rely solely on a single tape-less/disc-less recording medium such a hard drive, memory card or other erasable medium. Very risky. At least use a DVD recorder as a backup recording in addition to any tape-less master recording. Other If your video switcher doesn’t accept DVI or 15-pin VGA (or any other direct-from-computer video signals/connectors) you are going to need a SCAN CONVERTER to convert the computer’s video display output to the highest video quality signal your video switcher can accept (S-video, a.k.a. Y/C?) Spend several hundred $s or more for a good scan converter. Remember, good in-sanctuary video is the result of combining excellence in 1) TECHNOLOGY and 2) TECHNIQUES (a.k.a. TALENT AND TRAINING). If you are not committed to excellence in both these areas (and excellence in both aspects does not need to cost tens of thousands of $s) then post-pone multi-camera media ministry until your ministry is ready “for such a time (taping) as this”. (Exhale!). Jay Delp www.jaydelp.com jaydelp@comcast.net
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