IMAG Setup: Share your system

[TheReverendDave]

If there is a better place to post this, feel free to move!

I'm sharing my info/pics of our functional system to do three things. 1) Show what God has done at The Crossing in a suburban Minnesota community! 2) Give info and visuals for those who are looking for how-to, brainstorming, or just learning about IMAG. 3) Hoping that y'all with other setups/systems will share pics and info on yours, because I know it would benefit our churches to see each other's setups and systems.

That said, here we go!


The switching station! The center of it all is the Panasonic AW-HS50. This is a 4 HDSDI, 1 DVI switcher. It has a DVI out for multiview monitoring, and multiple HDSDI outputs. There is no genlock on the unit, but minimal delay particularly in 720p/60 mode. DVI in works great with Propresenter from iMac with 1280x768 output. The input menu on the HS50 has lots of options for tweaking the signal aspect, and other goodies.

Left of the switcher, is a wired Clearcom Station. Purchased from ProAudio.com and they gave a church discount which we are pretty happy with. We got Clearcom cause we will be doing live switching during music in the upcoming months, and having clear communication during loud band is critical.

Underneath the desk is the Death Star - a Mac Pro equipped with a Blackmagic SDI PCIex card. Purchased the Mac Pro used from MacOfAllTrades. Would definitely say we got a good deal there! We use Final Cut Pro to capture from the line-in audio, and the HDSDI video, directly to ProRes LT. This format is playable in Propresenter, and the format that we send to our different campus.

Motorola Radio on the right used to communicate among non-video staff.


This a good shot of the multiview preview. You can see CAM1, CAM2, and CAM3 up and running. CAM4 isn't working right now :/ The left lower large window is the feed from Propresenter. The right lower large window is the live shot.

The fun part of this setup is the Gateway multi-input LCD monitor. This thing is a life-saver. It has HDMI, DVI, VGA, and component in. It also has Picture-in-Picture. So, above you are seeing the HDMI in from the switcher (via a DVI-HDMI cable), with VGA as a PiP up in the upper right hand corner. So we can monitor and even mouse control the capture feed directly on the same monitor as switching! Very useful until we can afford a big LCD screen for switching.


Another shot of the switcher and Clearcom.

The white "cartridge" hard drive enclosure is hooked up via eSATA for full speed for capture. ProRes capture keeps transfer speeds to 20-30MB/s or so. SATA handles this beautifully. This hard drive is then ejected and moved to the editing station for various touchup and re-rendering. Another hard drive is inserted making possible for us to record multiple services easily and effectively.


This is our editing station. iMac 27" Corei5 (apple refurb store for $1500!). External Firewire 400 hard drive cartridge holder for storage/archive/editing using different drives. Keyboard with FCP icons on the keys


A quick map of our cam setup. Blue is cam1, and the rest you can read.


CAM1 - HPX170. These things are great. Good picture, 720p60, P2 recording (expensive but reliable and DVCPROHD), HDSDI out, cheap camera controllers. Only downside... no genlock, BUT this matches well with the AW-HS50 and is imperceptable at 720p60. We got each of ours HPX170s for under $4000, and they are now selling on ebay for $3000 used.

Tripod is a Vinten vision head. ONLY GET GREAT TRIPODS FOR YOUR MAIN CAM! I can't emphasize how important a good tripod is. Now, Vinten might be too pricey, but don't go cheap!


Another shot of CAM1.


CAM2. A bit blurry. iPhone pics for you This cam is also a HPX170.


Kessler Crane. KC LITE package. Crane and tripod for $600!!!! Unbelievable. This thing is amazing for small cams. The tripod that comes with it is good for the crane as well! Smooth enough moves for sure. Right now, we're using our old DVX100b with composite out :/ It sends video signal to a Blackmagic Analog->SDI converter. It works fairly well, but interlacing is an issue. We plan on having another HPX170 at this position as soon as possible.



More crane pics!




Alright, homemade dollys are the bomb. This one is done exactly like this... We have the crane on this dolly and it works masterfully! The setup for getting monitoring and good cam controls is a bit very ghetto right now, but very workable. All this, really for $700 bucks!!! The monitor is just a simple thing we had laying around the take AV in.


An overall look at our projection screens. They are simple Optima 3000 lumen DLP 1280x800 projectors. The AJA HDP2 SDI->DVI convertors are working magic here. They take a 1280x720 signal and send a great usable, scaled, undelayed signal to our projectors.


Another view. All colored lights on stage are LED. Colordash Pars mostly, and purchased from Jade at Springtree. Good guy.


Alot of people like myself wonder, "how do you control so many screens?!" Well, this is how. Signal flow chart for those that are wondering. Basically, two Propresenter computers, each one attached to a specific screen. And each one sending a signal to a switcher. All our outputs are 1280x768. Some of this mess is because we already have alot of VGA cables, and we didn't want to redo all cabling with HDSDI or some such. But everything to the side screens is pure digital 1280 progressive signal.

And I think that about wraps it up. Thanks for all the help and conversation that you all have brought. Special thanks to petereit for amazing advice and help. Overall, we were able to do this setup in under $20,000 INCLUDING HD cams. Pretty stoked that we're able to do all this for that kind of money. God is doing cool stuff here at The Crossing!

Quick link to video.... VIMEO

[jksbc]

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! This is exactly what I've been wanting to see! This is great information that can help churches like mine get to the next level!!! I really hope others will go through the trouble you did to share their systems. That was a lot of work.

[sempei13]

I'll try and remember to take some pics Wednesday. Our set-up is about 14 months old, so it's a pleasure to use.

Paul

[Esoteric]

I hate to ask, but I assume you have express written permission form the Minnestoa Vikings, NFL, and NFLPA for that Vikings footage posted on Vimeo? Nice setup though. I think the next level would be to add back light to fill and even out your front light.

Mike

[TheReverendDave]

When we shot footage on the Vikings field, we had permission to be there of course. We purchased DVDs for playback of some football footage. That may not be 100%, but it's fairly legal under CVLI. I try to keep footage that is ok in service, but not on web, from getting there.

[Esoteric]

I don't know man. I don't think the in game footage falls under CVLI. And you MUST have the express written consent of the NFL, NFLPA, and perhaps NFL films to post that online.

However can the copyright guys around these parts comment?

Mike

[TheReverendDave]

Originally Posted by Esoteric

I don't know man. I don't think the in game footage falls under CVLI. And you MUST have the express written consent of the NFL, NFLPA, and perhaps NFL films to post that online.

However can the copyright guys around these parts comment?

Mike

Ahhhh... I see what you are talking about, I forgot about the added clip in the middle of his talking. Yeah, that's probly no good. It's youtube NFL posted footage. Or FOX. Note: they posted it on YouTube. I forgot cause pastor asked us to spice up the footage with clips (of him goofing on the field and other stuff). It wouldn't be a bad idea to re-render for web without that footage. I know the NFL is really picky about that stuff. Thanks for the heads up!

[Esoteric]

Yeah man. I didn't mean to bust your chops. I am sure the stuff you shot in the stadium is okay since they knew what you were doing there and what you were going to do with it.

But usually that in game footage is off limits. And while I doubt the NFL is out surfing Vimeo looking for violations, if they did find it, it would not rest well on you guys.

In addition I think churches have moral obligations to always do the correct thing (whether it is not using footage, paying for stock footage, or having the correct number of licenses for the software they use) as an example to the lost. It is sort of a crusade of mine.

Mike

[TheReverendDave]

So... Getting back on track,

Anyone else have a system to share? Reaction or questions about this one?

[Esoteric]

I have done several setups, but nothing that would be of any use on here.

Mike

[manu4jc]

I would like to share my system...but it still in the troubleshooting phase (my living room ) ... I had a $30K video upgrade budget to take my church from SD to HD...and am still working out the bugs with latency for IMAG.

I looked at the same panasonic mixer you had but decided to go with the DATA Video SE-2000 because I found it had a nicer/ergonomic hardware... regardless... The cameras I picked up were Canon XH-G1 (HD-SDI with GENLOCK) and the problem I am having is latency... running 10' hd-sdi and hdmi cables I am still getting noticible lag about 150-200 milliseconds of lag... I am doing research tonight to see if it is my camera choice or camera settings....

great job with your setup... how is your lag? anythoughts for mine? I will show the entire rig when its done and working perfectly (deadline is thanksgiving)

[zactommo]

You mentioned HDMI. What function does the HDMI provide in your system?
My guess regarding your latency issue is:
1) Your HDSDI to HDMI converter will be adding a large portion of the latency
2) As far as I can tell, the SE-2000 doesn't support genlock, so you are stuck using the internal frame syncs, which means you have to live with the delay they induce.

Genlock on your cameras isn't particularly helpful, unless you can turn off the frame syncs on your switcher (if it has them) and lock the switcher to the same sync source as the cameras.