SURFCiTY’s Video Setup
Posted on March 21, 2009
Every Church has a different vision, purpose, leader, tech team, skill-set and budget. Same Jesus, same bible, but a different everything else. That said every church will implement video differently.
What I would like to do is give you an idea of how my church implements video technology and why.
The vision for our church has absoloutley nothing techie in it. To give you an idea our vision is “We are a city church, setting in place God’s master-plan for every household; releasing them from sin, sickness and sorrow, recovering freedom, hope and purpose for all.”
See! Nothing techie at all! So when I came on board and joined the A/V team their main video purpose was the try and do a video news, put lyrics on the screen during the music and record services for DVD. From there on in we moved into our new building a few years back and brought our Newtek Tricaster with us and we put two projector screens either side of the stage.
The current video setup is all controlled by a Newtek Tricaster Standard. It has 3 video inputs, we usually input two cameras and a DVD player, sometimes three cameras for a special event. The Tricaster also receives a VGA screen from a networked computer using iVGA technology (iVGA is now on Mac as well as PC).
On a nearby Dell Server (so cheap!) we run a Windows XP setup with Opensong for lyrics presentation and Microsoft Powerpoint for slides.
On another computer we have a Canopus ADVC55 which takes the video feed out of the Tricaster (via Video/Audio distribution amplifier) and turns into digital goodness which the Adobe Flash Media Encoder loves. The purpose in this is to send it up to ustream.tv where we stream our services live to our own website which embeds that ustream channel. We also record some services directly into ustream, which allows them to be watched at a later date.
Meanwhile back on the Tricaster, it has two outputs, a VGA output and a Video output. The difference is that on the VGA outlet you can overlay the CGA graphic onto the video feed, and evenkey out a colour and it looks fairly solid. This is how we get our lyics over the video for the projectors. We mix live video feeds and sometimes animated looping videos from Shift Worship and still images stored on the Tricaster’s hard drive; this feed then goes to the VGA subsystem in the Tricaster, usually with lyrics on top, black keyed out and it heads straight up to the two projectors, two stage LCD’s and the rear projector (monitor for the singers).
The reason we put live video with lyrics on top on our side projectors is because there are a few sweet spots in the auditorium where you don’t have a clear view of the stage, especially when our pastor preaches from the floor and not the stage. The building is an old cinema complex and this auditorium is two old cinemas with the wall down between them, and a single poll in the middle holding the ceiling up now. For services that aren’t being live streamed we do not do live video (IMAG) for praise and worship, we’ll use animate looping videos.
The video feed, which is as above minus VGA keying – so no lyrics – heads out too our baby feed area, the foyer of our church and cafe, the live stream and also gets recorded directly on the Tricaster in MPEG2.
Finally, the iVGA system works great for non animated/moving video i.e. lyrics, powerpoint, keynote. A hidden gem in the system is that it works over any TCP/IP network. So I have an Apple Airport Extreme sitting in our A/V jungle of wires, which is connected to our 10/100 network switch which is connected to the Tricaster (only a 10/100 card installed in mine). So that means we can give a preacher/speaker a laptop with iVGA installed and they have it sit in front of them wirelessly on a pulpit and we take the VGA feed off it, simply amazing. Another secret thing that we won’t tell Newtek about is the fact I’ve installed RealVNC on the Tricaster which gives me remote control of the unit (it seems RealVNC has gone commercial since I last looked). I tried installing Snatch from Hoofien but Tricaster doesn’t let the software control the mouse after it starts.
As any church should be we are always evolving and changing, podcasts and internet based video ministry is looming in our minds as it is for many (NewSpring, LifeChurch, Hillsong) and we as a leadership team are trying to figure out what that means for the body of christ as a whole and also for our little patch of earth God has entrusted to us.
Regarding the Newtek Tricaster, this is in no way an advertisment for the unit, but I do reccomend it. It’s most recent software update to 2.5 makes it a great machine for a house of worship even if you aren’t producing live video or IMAG. The Tricaster, with iVGA and the uStream.tv service (free or watershed) gives me the ability to do productions that are unbelievable and also gives the building a selling point as a conference venue during the week.
Before I leave you with a few photos, the install is very cost efficent as far as professional video installs go: 3 x Sony Projectors, 1 x NewTek Tricaster Standard, 2 x Workstations, 1 x Canopus ADVC55, 2 x LG LCD’s, 1 x Video/Audio Distribution Amp, 2 x Cat5 Video/Audio Balun and 1 x Kramer Cat 5 Distribution install.
SURFCiTY Auditorium 1 from the old cinema projection room
Newtek Tricaster Catalog Image
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Tags: ivga, presnetation, projection, projector, tricaster, vga, video
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4 Responses to “SURFCiTY’s Video Setup”
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Thanks for the in-depth post on your set up. I long for the day that we can bring this all together for our church. This post will help in the process… Though one thing, what video camera’s do you use? I am looking into budgeting for this equipment for next year and wanted a recommendation for a camera, maybe it’s better that we discuss camera options in the CTM Forum
http://forum.churchtechmatters.com/viewforum.php?f=17
Thanks again
Tim
http://twitter.com/goldeneye
http://www.DurhamE.org
Great post. Just one question. Why no lyrics to the baby feed area (and foyer etc)? We don’t use live video in the services except for these areas, and for a long while we had no lyrics and this was a big point of failure for us.
Fab stuff – thanks for the share but I have a couple of questions (which might be better in the forum but …).
1. The streams that you record – what sort of size are they against the time? SO a 30m sermon = xxMb
2. You say the pastor has a laptop with iVGA on and you take “the VGA feed off it” – didn’t quite follow what the benefit of this was for?
3. Finally – the CAT 5 setup. Is it dedicated to the A/V or do you share it with other general Church network stuff?
#1. Understand the calculation he gives will be determined for certain specs and may not be typical for your setup. Example: It determines the output of the flash media encoder and also what the ustream accepts as its incoming bit rate.
#2. The laptop could possibly serve as another type of projection screen/ reference monitor for the pastor…… Or, the pastor’s powerpoint is ran directly into the tricaster.
#3. The cat5 is a cheaper way of distributing A/V signals and/or controlling cameras. It’s basically and in between cable. Example: A balun is used to convert s-video to ethernet and then back again. This adds an extra 150 or so to the distance before quality loss.
Hope that answers some questions for you. I know it wasn’t my post but……