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This show is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

On today’s Tech, No Babel:

Cheap video lighting for a small studio

Not having a proper light kit isn’t an excuse when it comes to lighting your small studio. Concentrate on the fundamentals and use 3-point lighting, but then get creative.

First, make sure your color temperatures match. Fluorescent lights tend toward green. Incandescent and halogen lights tend to be orange. The sun and LEDs tend toward blue. If you’re mixing light sources, make sure they’re balanced to the same color temperature, unless you’re going for a specific effect.

Next, the fixtures you put them in matter. In my set up, I have this softbox: (affiliate link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004KVJ3OE/&linkCode=xm2?tag=trinitydigi06-20), a regular desk lamp, and a clamp light (like you’d get at a hardware store). Each provides a specific type of light from more directional to softer.

Experiment until you get the effect you’re looking for.

If you don’t have a lot of money, you can do some pretty good things with cheap video lighting.Click To Tweet

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

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Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

On today’s Tech, No Babel:

Setting up a small video studio

You may want to set up a small studio for your church. Watch this to learn how and take a tour of mine, a room 11’7″x16’9″ with four sets for making different videos.

Watch this to take a tour of small video studio, a room 11’7 x 16’9 with four sets for making different videos.Click To Tweet

There are a couple of things that you should look for in a studio space. All things being equal, higher ceilings are better. Quieter spaces are better. Places where you can be more flexible are better than spaces that are used for other things. Take a look at the video to see my space.

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed

* iTunes one-click subscription and don’t forget to rate the show there as well.

*

For more questions, comments, or snide remarks, comment below or contact me at:

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More video can be found on YouTube.com

Also check out my Google+ page

Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

On today’s Tech, No Babel: CDN, DIY, or Live-streaming host?

A lot of churches are all about trying to do things to save money. After all, why pay a live-streaming host when you can capacity from Amazon, or put your live-stream directly on Akamai?

If you’ve got the people to do it, that’s a fine decision. I tried to figure out some of the details for a couple of weeks, myself. The problem is that all my other work suffered because I’d never done it before. Unless you’ve got dedicated IT people who’ve done live-streaming with a CDN or on a rented server, it can be hard to get going.

Unless you’ve got dedicated IT people who’ve done live-streaming with a CDN or on a rented server, it can be hard to get going.Click To Tweet

Additionally, there’s room for bigger errors when you bypass a live-streaming host. If you do it right, a wowza install on Amazon can be less than $20 a month. If you don’t, it can be a couple of thousand. That’s a lot of range to hit the budget with.

I can’t answer the question of which you should do, but do your homework before you make the choice.

For more in-depth thoughts, take a look at my article on ChurchProduction.com

—

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed

* iTunes one-click subscription and don’t forget to rate the show there as well.

*

For more questions, comments, or snide remarks, comment below or contact me at:

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More video can be found on YouTube.com

Also check out my Google+ page

Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

On today’s Tech, No Babel: Live-streaming: Live-chat

If you want to foster community in your online campus, consider live-chat to go with your live-stream:Click To Tweet

There’s a danger in having a live-chat on your church’s live-stream. In a very real way, you’re giving up control of the creation of some of the content on your church’s site to total strangers. This can be really scary to many churches, but there are some very good reasons you’d want to do it and ways to minimize the danger, too.

If you want to foster community in your online campus, consider a live-chat to go with your live-stream. Sure, there’s a danger, but the truth is that community is worth the risk.

When you’re looking for live-chat software, look for something that can use a facebook or twitter sign up in addition to creating a login. This way people watching your church service don’t need to remember another login and password. It also means that they’re less likely to act like trolls because their real names are associated with their chat.

It’s nice to have a moderation function so that people can keep chat civil. Also, it’s nice to be able to have a profanity filter. With some of these filter, the content is untouched, but the offending word is replaced with something silly, like “daisy.”

When it comes to chat moderators, don’t just recruit whoever is interested. Look for mature believers with a heart of service and the ability to shepherd.

I think of a good mod like a dog. They’re loving and loyal, until there’s a sign of danger and then they spring into action, ready to protect the church.

Chat can really connect people and foster community. Do what you can to include it in your strategy for live-streaming ministry.

—

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed

* iTunes one-click subscription and don’t forget to rate the show there as well.

*

For more questions, comments, or snide remarks, comment below or contact me at:

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More video can be found on YouTube.com

Also check out my Google+ page

Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

On today’s Tech, No Babel: Live-streaming: Copyright

I’ve heard it all. “Hymns aren’t under copyright because they’re based on the Bible.” “If you only sing hymns, you never need to worry about copyright.” Unfortunately, neither are true.

According to my research (although, I’m not a lawyer, so this isn’t legal advice), both of those statements are false. If I write a song today that is composed of only the words from one of the Psalms, it will be under copyright 70 years after I’m dead or 50 years after it’s published (whichever is shorter). How can that be? While the words would be a derivative work of scripture, their arrangement and the music they’re sung to are both new. That makes the song a new work that’s under copyright from the instant I make it (under US law).

To further complicate things, two hymns can be just a year apart in age and one be under copyright for a few more years, while the other be in public domain since 1997. Which two? “Great is thy faithfulness” and “Turn your eyes upon Jesus”. Which is which? If you guessed that “Great is thy faithfulness” (which is based in part on scripture by the way) is in the public domain, you’d be wrong. “Turn your eyes upon Jesus” is. (For more information, check out this article.)

If two hymns written a year apart can have different copyright statuses, you should make sure you have licenses, you may not need.Click To Tweet

For a live-stream, the best way to deal with this is by getting a license from either CCLI (CCLI.org) or the Church Copyright Solutions (https://www.christiancopyrightsolutions.com/services/worshipcast/). The former is less expensive than the latter, but that’s because it only covers Christian music.

A lot of churches may think they’re covered because they don’t typically do secular music. The problem is that secular music is deep in our culture and we might not even think that we’re using it when we are.

Imagine singing “Happy Birthday” to the deacon who just turned 100. Is it possible that such an old song would cause a violation? Yep.

These issues are complex, so if I were you, I’d consult a lawyer and see what it takes to get your church to the point of being above reproach.

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed

* iTunes one-click subscription and don’t forget t...

Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

On today’s Tech, No Babel: Live-streaming: 3 Traps to avoid

In churches, we have limited resources, so we try different strategies to save money. Unfortunately, they’re not all created equally. Some actually cost more than they save. Avoid these traps at all costs.

1. Not owning your traffic. What happens if you send the people in your online congregation to another website for your live-stream? Some live-streaming providers don’t let you embed the video, so that’s your only choice. Most of the time it will be fine. What happens, though, if you need to switch at the last minute? You have no way to tell your online congregation.

Trying to save money live-streaming? There are some traps that will cost you. Learn more here:Click To Tweet

2. ProPrietary hardware & software. Wirecast costs $500. The Teradek Vidiu costs $700. So why wouldn’t you want to buy a $200 version of the software and a $300 version of the hardware? Lock-in. There are live-streaming providers that sell you these products at reduced prices, but that means you can only use them with that provider. Imagine you want to switch. You can’t. You need replacement gear because your hardware encoder or software only work with this one service. So, your $200 software actually costs $700 because you need to buy the $500 version now in addition to the $200 version you bought already. The same is true with the hardware. Even if you sell the old stuff, your cost will not be recouped totally.

3. Free hardware. If it’s truly free, that’s one thing, but don’t forget installation and repair costs. If you have a $30,000 budget, and you need to take $5,000 from that budget for installation and repairs, that actually means that when you do need a new system, you’re down $5,000. If you make up the difference some how, that means that you would have had $35,000 to work with, but now you’re back to the original sum. Be careful that “free doesn’t turn out to be expensive.”

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-4 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed

* iTunes one-click subscription and don’t forget to rate the show there as well.

*

For more questions, comments, or snide remarks, comment below or contact me at:

Facebook or Twitter

More video can be found on YouTube.com

Also check out my

Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

This show is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

On today’s Tech, No Babel: Live-streaming

Basic Videography for your live-stream part 3

In case you missed it, here’s part 1 and part 2.

How can you make sure you always have a good shot for your live-stream? How can you get the best out of volunteer camera people? How is directing for a live-stream different from directing for IMAG? I talk about all these things in this third part of a mini-series on basic videography for your live-stream.

Are you directing right for a live-stream? Are you getting the most out of your camera people? Take a look:Click To Tweet

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate: http://patreon.com/paulalanclif

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed

* iTunes one-click subscription and don’t forget to rate the show there as well.

*

For more questions, comments, or snide remarks, comment below or contact me at:

Facebook or Twitter

More video can be found on YouTube.com

Also check out my Google+ page

Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

http://TrinityDigitalMedia.com/church-tech On today’s ChurchTechCast.com Q & A,

Just a couple of ProPresenter 5 Questions

Here are the latest questions:

How do you troubleshoot a capture device that doesn’t like your computer?Click To Tweet

Jackie via email:

Hi,

…We have been using ProPresenter since July 2014 and were using an igrabber video capture to take live camera footage into ProPresenter for stage display for our congregation – this worked well for about 4 months. After that 2 things happened. The igrabber stopped working so we ordered a new one, and I updated our MacBook Pro Retina to Yosemite 10.10.1.

Now the MacBook doesn’t seem to recognise the igrabber, and we keep getting a message saying no available digitizer found! …

Thanks in advance

Jackie

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Max via email:

Thanks, Paul. Here’s another issue with workflow . . . in addition to doing a lot of medleys with our band, we very often will go back to a song sung previously and repeat only a part of it. Again, looking to understand the workflow of Propresenter so that we can do this without having to create a document in the libaray that would only ever be used once.

In Easyworship, once you bring a song into the playlist, it is no longer connected to the library version so that any changes you make to the song in the playlist don’t get changed in the master version. So we could simply bring in another instance of a song and then trim it down, say, to just the bridge and chorus just for that set.

I’ve thought of using Arrangements, but again it would be making an Arrnagement for just one use. Also thought of disabling slides, but this affects the other instances of the song in the playlist too, so would have to be done on the fly.

And thoughts?

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How can you create a temporary song arrangement?Click To Tweet

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

The ChurchTechCast.com Q & A show is a weekly podcast premiering every Friday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

This show started is meant to help church techies the world over get their questions answered. Paul Alan Clifford specializes in video, graphic design, social media, new media, and the web. If there is something you want to know that’s outside these areas of expertise, given some time, he’ll do his best to find the answer from other experts he knows.

If you do tech at your church or you use computers to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

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In case you missed it, here’s part 1 and part 3.

On today’s Tech, No Babel:

Live-streaming: Basic video for your live-stream part 2

A lot of beginning videographers get mesmerized by the variety of transitions you can do. For the vast majority of productions, you should limit them to two: cut and cross-dissolve. Of those, the cut should be used 95-99% of the time.

Another common mistake is the use of the word “pan.” Pan means across, as in “pan-american” or “panhellenic.” So, a pan is a left right camera movement. Nothing else. Other directions include dolly for moving the tripod forward and back. Truck is a side to side tripod movement. Raising the camera is a ped up movement (and lowering it is ped down). Finally, pivoting the camera on the tripod is a tilt.

You can combine movements for some interesting effects. The most famous of these is the DIZO or dolly in and zoom out. This was used to great effect in Vertigo.

Whatever movement you do, it should be intentional, starting and stopping at predetermined places. It should also not change direction without good reason. You don’t want your shot to look like a firehose.

You can’t pan down. Movement should be intentional. There are other basics you might be missing too: Click To Tweet

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed

* iTunes one-click subscription and don’t forget to rate the show there as well.

*

For more questions, comments, or snide remarks, comment below or contact me at:

Facebook or Twitter

More video can be found on YouTube.com

Also check out my Google+ page

Listen to the audio:

Join the conversation; call 1-877-763-3246, leave a comment below the video, or hit me up on Twitter (@PaulAlanClif)

This show is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

In case you missed it, here’s part 2 and part 3.

On today’s Tech, No Babel:

Live-streaming: Video Basics Part 1

The Stages of Production

Don’t just show up and start live-streaming. There are three distinct phases that you should put every video, even a live-stream, through.

Preproduction: Plan what you’ll be doing. Collect the people and equipment necessary. Turn it on and test it out.

Production: Actually do the live-stream, but do it the best you can given your circumstances. Don’t plan to fix later what you can prevent now, if at all possible.

Post-production: Finish well. Turn everything off. Edit if necessary. Set yourself up for success next time; don’t just rush out, leaving everything askew.

Genre

Videos belong to a specific genre. Live sporting events are similar. Awards shows are similar. Concerts are similar. You don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.” Look for videos that are similar to what you want to do and use the same structure, but with different content.

Remember these video basics when doing a live-stream in your church:Click To Tweet

Audience

Who watches a video changes how you make it. The live-audience at an event tends to need close ups. Remote audiences need some shots of the audience that those in person could just look around to see. Wide shot aren’t great for in person audiences because they generally don’t help you see. They aren’t helpful to people with smaller screens either because, they’ll lose even more detail. Always consider your audience when you consider what to show.

Special limitations of worship

What happens if the live-stream audience gets bigger than the in-person audience? Can you shoot with a live-stream first perspective, moving cameras closer to the pastor? Probably not.

Look out for the excuse of distraction. There are universally distracting things, but camera placement isn’t one of them. Learn to know the difference. Distraction can be like boredom, where a distracted person is more easily distracted no matter the circumstance, just as a bored person can be bored no matter the circumstance.

If you’d like to chip in a few bucks, anything you do is appreciated. Just click this link to donate.

About this show:

Tech, No Babel is a weekly podcast premiering every Thursday at 11a eastern (-5 UTC), 8a pacific on http://churchtechcast.com. Watch it and join the chat then.

But, if you miss the live show, I’ll put up the edited show later (usually on the same day) right here.

If you do video or graphic design to advance your church’s mission, this show is for you.

How to Subscribe to the show (for free):

* Subscribe on YouTube

* RSS feed