Video @ National Community Church Thursday, November 16, 2006

On a weekly basis I get many inquiries about how NCC's (www.theaterchurch.com) streaming video looks so good. So, I asked Dave Clark from NCC to take a moment and tell us about there process. Thanks Dave for taking the time to do this!

Video Procedure: National Community Church

Camera
Currently, we use the Canon XL-H1 to record our weekly messages. The HD-SDI output from the camera sends an uncompressed HD signal. That is very important for our process. We will probably never actually use a tape in this camera. In my opinion, the HDV codec is subpar.

Production Machine
The HD-SDI output from the camera is sent to a Macintosh G5 Quad with a Blackmagic Design Decklink HD Extreme capture card. We then capture the live 1080i video signal into Final Cut Pro 5 and compress using the DVCPRO HD codec. DVCPRO HD is a very nice codec. It looks great and helps keep files to a reasonable size.

The Canon XL-H1 can be managed with Console, an application that allows a producer to remotely adjust all of the settings on the camera via a firewire connection. You can modify parameters like zoom, focus, iris, and color.


Post-Production
Once the raw video is captured, we'll trim the ends to include just the message, add some fades, and then splice in any video clips that happen during the message. This process helps the production teams at our weekend services manage less during the live re-play.

Once everything is just right, we export a QuickTime movie in DVCPRO HD 1080i. The final file takes about 15 to 20 minutes to render out. The resulting file size is approximately 35 to 40 gigabytes. The file is then loaded onto external hard drives that are dispatched to all "video locations” for playback. We use ProPresenter for presentation. Our ProPresenter source has been customized specifically for us to achieve 1080i playback.

Post-Post-Production
Once the weekend process is complete, we encode a version of the message to MPEG4 for delivery via video podcast. We also encode a Flash version for on-demand delivery at theaterchurch.com. We use Light Cast Media to stream that Flash video to congregants and site visitors.

Currently, the Flash video is encoded using On2 Flix Pro with the recommended settings from Light Cast. We hope to find something on the Mac platform that will support batch encoding of DVCPRO HD files. Getting all five possible versions (HD, high, medium, low quality and audio) prepared for Light Cast in one move would be far more productive.


Also, for those of you who may be interested, we are using two Panasonic AG-HVX200 cameras for all of our field work and off-site videos. I love these cameras. They record directly to hard disk (Firestore FS-100) via a firewire cable. Once a video shoot is complete, you can import your clips directly into Final Cut Pro. No more real-time capturing. It’s an excellent advantage in productivity.

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posted by Light Cast Media @ 11:05 AM, ,  

A few minutes with Seacoast Church Monday, October 09, 2006

Seacoast Church, lead by Sr. Pastor Greg Surratt, has been an active Light Cast Media customer for over 6 months. Five of those months were during an exclusive "alpha" testing and development phase where Light Cast Media worked with Seacoast and a few other clients to improve our core technology, build out tools and develop a complete understanding of what the mediaSTREAM product should look like. During this process, Shawn Wood, Creative Communications Pastor has been at the forefront of this relationship, and I wanted to spend a few minutes sharing a conversation with him.

Light Cast Media.
Shawn, what did your streaming media efforts look like before Light Cast Media?

Shawn:
 "We were hosting our own streams and using Windows Media player. The buffering time and quality were something that our IT director and myself were not happy with. We were looking at some in-house fixes when the alpha opportunity with Light Cast Media came. After looking at the product and the pricing structure we had an immediate...yes."

Light Cast Media.
Explain some of the challenges or problems that you were having.

Shawn:
"Slow load times, stalls and buffering when multiple people were watching. We also just did not like the look of the interface and were planning on a flash solution to help with that as well."

Light Cast Media:
How has Light Cast Media helped or improved those problems?

Shawn:
"I think that we have one of the best streaming experiences on the web today - church and and business sector."

Light Cast Media:
Shawn, when it comes to Streaming or any technology Seacoast looks at, what is important to you guys, and has Light Cast met your expectations or not?

Shawn:
"Met and surpassed with both product and service. During the alpha test our IT director has been able to help play a role in what Light Cast will look like and you guys have been awesome!"

Light Cast Media:
What significant "ministry" impact have you seen Light Cast Media offer?

Shawn:
"I am not getting the calls from people about the experience anymore. Also, we have been able to offer more video streams (i.e. ministry promos) in addition to the weekend messaged and not have to worry about the experience suffering."

Light Cast Media:
Lets talk money! I know that people look at your church, and the amount of campuses that you have and think your budget is huge for this type of stuff. Bottom line, are you happy with the cost of Light Cast Media's offering?

Shawn:
"Video streaming was costing us zero tangible dollars prior to Light Cast Media, but money is not the only true measure of costs. It was costing us in other areas that we could not afford to pay - our experience. However, that sounds good on paper, but there are still budget constraints and Light Cast Media has made it affordable to churches to get the best streaming that is available. There is no other company that even comes close to competing with the quality for this price."

Light Cast Media:
What's next for Seacoast? Maybe something technology related or anything that you can think of.

Shawn:
"We have some digital discipleship areas that are certainly going to be innovative and we think pretty monumental in the next 12 months or so...you can look for more info on Shawnsblogspot.com"

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posted by Light Cast Media @ 7:44 PM, ,  

National Community Church launches new site Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Today National Community Church (NCC) launched a brand new web site at www.theaterchurch.com. David Russell and team did a wonderful job integrating mediaSTREAM into the site beautifully.

The Light Cast Media Team welcomes NCC as a customer, and we look forward to them pushing the envelope, and making us even better!

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posted by Light Cast Media @ 11:25 AM, ,