Church broadcast

[samchuck]

Hello Everyone,

I hope you guys will be able to guide me to better at what I do at my church.Or at least in some areas.

Last March we got a new pastor at our church. He came with a appreciation for broadcast and media.And had worked in front of cameras before. Shortly after he came to the church he brought me his personal HandyCam and wanted to know if I could record the service and post it to our website. I said sure. With limited web knowledge and no video experience I started recording the sermons. At first it took me 4-6 hours to get the sermons uploaded and posted to the site every Sunday.(I can do it now in about 30 minutes ).

As time has gone on we have more equipment. We now have a Sony DCR-VX2100 and a Sony HXR-NX5U NXCAM with an Edirol LVS-400 switch.
For the last few months I have been recording with just the HXR-NX5U NXCAM and trying to zoom to keep the pastor in the shot. I could not get the switch to recognize both cameras until the last few days.

This week I used both cameras for the first time without the switch but rather edited the two shots together.

So now my pastor brings me a new challenge as we are to start broadcasting on a local TV channel at the beginning of July. Keep in mind I have no idea what I am doing and have many challenges ahead. Pray for me please!!

OK to the point of this long post: I want to connect all this equipment including sound(I can do this) and create a good looking product. Right now my biggest challenge is that the cameras do not look the same in my monitors. One is clear and kinda yellow while the other seems to have static and a shade or orange. One has an iris and the other does not so I am having a hard time getting the lighting to match. What do I need to do to make the colors and clarity to match? Settings? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

If you would like to see what I have done check out our site lakesidefellowshipchurch net

[tdangelo]

Sam,

First off congratulations on this great opportunity. I pray that God blesses you in this and that others are blessed as a result.

My first thought is often over-looked, but as you embark on this new ministry I would encourage you to develop a personal biblical conviction regarding God’s perspective on art. What you will be doing, whether you try to or not, is creating works of art and the Bible has a lot to say about art, technical artists (you) and performing artists (the people on the alter or stage). Read about the construction of the tabernacle and the construction (and reconstruction) of the temple in Jerusalem. Understand that you are no different than the artisans and craftsmen described in these passages. If you take my challenge to do this it will impact every other decision you make along the years in media ministry.

Secondly, progress slowly with written attainable goals. Do not bite off more than you can chew. Check off each goal as it is attained and update your goal list often as progress is made. Jumping right into a multi-camera broadcast within four-to-eight weeks is VERY AMBITIOUS. You and your church are probably not ready for that. Remember that you and your broadcast represent not only Lakeside Fellowship Church but also Jesus Himself.

Thirdly, as you move along forward develop a team. No one man can do everything by himself well. Admit to yourself, God and your leadership that you need help and develop those people who will serve with and next to you. Understand that in a “professional” live-to-tape TV broadcast with two cameras there could easily be a crew of twelve or more people. The reason most TV broadcasts are done with excellence is that the workload is divided up and shared.

Fourthly, before proceeding past one camera, improve the things which will affect every future camera you have. They are lighting, scenic, content and delivery. Adding more cameras without progress on lighting, scenic, content and delivery will make fixing them later on more difficult.

I hope this helps.

[waynehoskins]

Agree with Tom as well.

Is the early July air date set in stone, or could it possibly be delayed to August or September (or even later)?

Very few people can fly the starship solo and have it be excellent, especially when you add TV in there. Most of the people who might could would readily say they can't do it well. I've done it before, and it doesn't turn out well.

Even running projection lyrics and directing don't mix together. I learned that the hard way. Directing (and running your own board) sucks away most of your concentration, and then the lyrics are already a verse behind and you haven't noticed it because you're directing.

On the crew front, here's what I'd look at for a two-camera shoot:
2 camera ops
1 director/TD
plus audio, lighting, and projection

You'll need more people than that to pull from, so you can set up a rotation or at the least have some relief operators you can call in when some of the regulars can't make it.

Maybe you can put it off until Christmas, so you have more time to get everything right? More time to get people, get them trained, see what works, fix what needs to be fixed, etc.? Then you can have several solid weeks of dry-run where you treat it as though you're going live to air, before you actually produce content to air. Go through the whole routine and critique the finished product.

[waynehoskins]

Originally Posted by samchuck

Right now my biggest challenge is that the cameras do not look the same in my monitors. One is clear and kinda yellow while the other seems to have static and a shade or orange. One has an iris and the other does not so I am having a hard time getting the lighting to match. What do I need to do to make the colors and clarity to match? Settings? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I was first going to say it's a white-balance problem, which may be a component, but on second thought it could be a cabling problem. Is the staticy and orange camera running analog composite video, particularly down a long cable? Could be cable loss, impedance mismatch causing reflections, and high-frequency rolloff.

Or could be not enough light getting to the imager in the camera (causing graininess), coupled with white-balance problem. Depending on the camera -- especially if it's a consumer camcorder -- you may or may not be able to fix it; many of them lack readily-accessible adjustments for iris, gain, and white balance.

I provided video for a theatre show that went up last week, and they were having the hardest time getting their POV camera (that feeds backstage monitors) to focus. It's a cheap little consumer job that doesn't have any sort of manual focus I could find, plus it's junk. Since I brought some retired broadcast cameras in for the show, the easy solution was to have one of them take a wide shot when they weren't on, and route that to the backstage monitors. Focus and quality problem solved for a few more weeks.

[samchuck]

[quote=waynehoskins;316973]I was first going to say it's a white-balance problem, which may be a component, but on second thought it could be a cabling problem. Is the staticy and orange camera running analog composite video, particularly down a long cable? Could be cable loss, impedance mismatch causing reflections, and .
quote]
The second camera is a Sony DCR-VX2100. The 2004 reveiws I have read about the camera states that it is fairly good 3 chip prosumer camera with a very "clear picture" The camera is on a long anolog composite cable that is not pro grade. I will try and test with a shorter,better cable.

What does "high-frequency rolloff" mean?

[rcourtney]

On analog video, there is luminance (the black/white part if you may) and a color signal.
Color modulation is a carrier around 3.58 Mhz. If your cable and gear causes the carrier to
be reduced in level the color will disappear or not be as saturated.