Q re: Video/audio capture for later editing

by grimgraphix Jul 21, 2009 1:31AM PDT

I have recently been asked to help set up a "TV studio" for a church. It is basically a project designed to turn the church pulpit into a working TV studio where weekly sermons can be streamed onto the web, or even played on local public access TV channels, for those tech savvy partitioners that can't make it to regular sermons.

The budget for equipment is very generous, and the church has expressed a preference for using mac computers for everything from initial sound and video capture, production editing, and streaming to the web and/or local TV stations.

Equipment they already have is the typical stuff you might find in a modern church, eg. 4 mics on and around the pulpit, a fairly new sound board (not sure how many channels, but at least 10 or more), some old mini-dv camcorders, etc.

I'm starting from scratch here. This is an equipment AND software question, but I'm posting on the software forum because they have already decided on a mac computer. It is just a question of whether an iMac or a Mac Pro tower will be used. Any idea's?

All suggestions much appreciated and good for karma points !

Discussion is locked

- Collapse -

Mmm; this sounds like a sizable job.

by rlcato Jul 26, 2009 2:13PM PDT

My personal suggestion is to get a Mac Pro but before you do, it would be good that you refer to the Apple home page then go to 'support' at the top of the page. Once there, in the lower area of the page is 'solutions'. Refer to that for it sounds like you need more One-to-One face chat than interweb support for such a daunting task. Set up an appointment to talk with a real person. It should not cost anything even if you do have a generous budget. On here, you run the risk of being bamboozled by geeks and fanboys telling you what they think is better for you. Time is precious and I believe you have no time for that. In general, Mac people are quite friendly and more that willing to help. But once you get all set up and operational - in care of those that gave you Apple Support, then come back here with some proper problems that the general public could handle.

- Collapse -

Thanks for the response

by grimgraphix Aug 4, 2009 1:46AM PDT

The project is on hold right now so I have nothing to report, but thanks for the advice.

I'm still looking into this (while the church elders decide if they want to do this) so as to get some idea how it would all go together.

The way I see this is there are 2 main issues to deal with here.

? One is the hardware interface, as in how do I hook up cameras and microphones to the computer.

? The other is just an issue of cutting together several sources to produce one stream. Easy enough to do mechanically while all cameras are streaming live footage, but if all sources are from recordings, then all would need a matching time stamp so as to cut from one camera to the next seamlessly.

2 software packages I have looked at that would seem to be useful in this case so far, have been BoinxTV and Adobe OnLocation.

- Collapse -

Glad to be of service.

by rlcato Aug 4, 2009 2:57AM PDT

It's good to go the cheap rout. Take advantage of a handout if you can because I do believe this is not a career but sounds like a learning experience. Check-out the library or high-schools or maybe junior colleges -they may be giving some adult learning courses during that free time. You may be able to rent some of the equipment. They could instruct you as to which way to go. Anyway, when hooking up that sort of equipment, you'll go through different types of mixing boards. that will rout into the computer.
Good Luck!

Q re: Video/audio capture for later editing

CNET Forums

Other Forums

Forum Info