How To: On Campus Simulcast
It’s that time of year again. Secret Church is tomorrow night. Madison and I just left church from a late night of lighting the new set. I’m thankful for a hard working intern that doesn’t mind staying late to get the job done. I think Mandi is working on a post that includes some details and pictures of the new set and the construction process, so I won’t give any details on it now. All I will say is that it definitely falls in line with “The Radical Experiment” that we are conducting as a church next year.
The theme of Secret Church #7 will be Angels, Demons, and Spiritual Warfare. I’m pretty excited to hear David teach on this. The response has been overwhelming. Tickets sold out in three hours, and the number of people on the waiting list quickly reached over one thousand. This promoted us to open up our student building as a simulcast room to try to accommodate more people.
So the task at hand, get video and audio to the student building. Here’s what we used and how we did it:
The Gear:
1 – Ross Video FSR 9241 miniature fiber optic to HD/SDI module
1 – Ross Video FST 9242 miniature HD/SDI to fiber optic module
2 – AJA HD10AMA audio embedder/de-embedder
1 – AJA HDP2 HD/SDI to DVI converter
How we set it up:
Video is currently distributed throughout the main building through an HD/SDI distribution system. HD/SDI is cool because it carries high quality digital audio and video over fairly cheap digital coax cable. We tapped into this system on first floor backstage, and ran a new HD/SDI cable up to the amp room on second floor backstage. This is where we used one of the AJA audio embedders to embed live audio from the worship room onto the HD/SDI cable. Next we put the Ross HD/SDI to fiber module inline. This Ross module converts our HD/SDI signal from the worship room to run over the fiber optic cable that already exists between the main building and the student building.
We had to pull some fiber optic cable from the communications closet on second floor of main building, through the offices to the amp room backstage. Believe it or not, we happened to find a roll of the exact fiber that we needed while digging through some dumpsters to find some materials for our current set. The Lord provides. Thank you to Joseph, or I.T. director for helping us pull the fiber and getting the ends terminated.
Down in the student building communications closet, we installed the second Ross module which converts the video signal back to HD/SDI from the fiber optic cable. We pulled a new HD/SDI cable from the closet, through the ceiling, then down the wall on stage and then installed a wall plate. An HD/SDI cable runs from the wall plate to the AJA HDP2 where the video signal gets converted to DVI. This DVI signal is then run into the projector which is set up on stage, rear projecting onto one of our 7′ x 12′ screens. The HD/SDI signal is looped off of the AJA HDP2 and run into the AJA HD10AMA where the audio from the worship room is de-embedded and run into two inputs on stage. After a few tests, we worked out all of the kinks, and now everything is ready to go.
This was a fun project to work on. I’ve never messed around with anything that uses fiber optics before. It’s pretty cool stuff. We had our cell phones out while testing the audio portion of the system. Madison was in the main worship room talking on a microphone, while I was in the student building listening. I was hearing audio faster over the the simulcast system than our cell phones. Fiber is so fast. The specs on the Ross modules say that they can transmit the HD/SDI signal up to 30 km. Hmmmmmm……Where to next?……..
-Matt-
P.S. Thanks to our friends at Media Visions that helped us get everything we needed.
How To: Multi-Screen Video Display
Every now and then, I have people ask me how we display a video across multiple screens at Brook Hills. For the last series, “Love Story” we used three 7’x12’ screens all hanging in the same plane with a 1’ space between each screen.
Here’s a picture:
www.brookhills.org
We’ve done several different screen configurations, but the hardware and software we use is the same. Here’s what we use to do it:
Software-
Renewed Vision’s Pro Video Player. We have 1 HD license and 3 Network Node licenses.
Hardware-
3 – Apple Mac Mini
1 – Apple Imac
3 – Da-lite 7’x12’ fast fold screens
3 – Panasonic PT-DW5100U – we picked these up used at a great price from Elite Multimedia.
Here’s how the system works-
The Imac is the brain of the system, and it runs the HD license. It can be located anywhere on the network. Most of the time, ours lives in video master control. Sometimes we move it to front of house. The HD license allows the Imac to drive a projector, but we are not setup to do that right now.
Each Panasonic projector shoots onto a Da-lite 7′x12′ screen, and is driven by a Mac Mini that is strapped to the projector. All projectors are shooting a resolution of 1280×720. Each Mac Mini is hard wired to the network via cat5. If we are using the system to display a single still image that will not change, I can get away with using a wireless network. However, if we are going to run multiple images or video clips, I use a wired network. This assures that the images and videos stay synced correctly.
All of our content is built at a resolution of 3840×720 (3 screens wide x 1 screen high) and then broken out into three 1280×720 images or clips. Each clip is then loaded onto the appropriate Mac Mini and the Imac. Once the content is on the computers, I then add it to the Pro Video Player library on each computer and build the playlists.
Pro Video Player is very user-friendly. You can have multiple play lists, each with different images and video clips. When you click on a playlist on the Master computer, each Network Node moves to that playlist. Click on a video clip in a playlist on the Master, and each Network Node will start playing that clip. It’s that simple.
There are several different configurations of hardware that are available that can be scaled to meet your specific needs. There are also several advanced features in Pro Video Player that we haven’t used yet. I recommend browsing Renewed Vision’s website for more options and ideas.
-Matt-
choir
Choir at Brook Hills is a bit different. We don’t have choir year round—we normally do it in two semesters (Fall and Spring). We rehearse once a week and sing about once per month. We just finished the semester of choir this week. WOW—what an incredible group. This past Fall, we shifted our focus away from 2 hours of intense rehearsal to more Bible study, prayer/worship and then rehearsal. I was initially a bit nervous about this transition, but I know that God led us this way.
For those who know me, I am a BIG rehearser. Our rehearsal times ended up being about 1 hour of rehearsal and about 30 minutes in the word and prayer. What a difference a year makes. The transformation of this group has been beautiful to see over the past year. We have all grown in understanding more about our role in our worship gatherings and God used this ministry in a huge way to lead our church in celebration of who He is. What a blessing they are to the local body of believers gathered here each week.
praise teams
I get a lot of questions about the types of vocal ministries we have at Brook Hills. So, I thought it would be a good idea to give you a little bit of info here. We have three primary vocal configurations we use on a rotation at Brook Hills. Praise Team, Solo Background Vocalist and Choir. Our Praise Team ministry consists of 30 singers who are divided into 5 teams. We typically have 2 singers per part. These singers are auditioned musicians and sing parts by ear and read music. Many of them are strong soloists, too. These singers serve in a deacon role at Brook Hills and are considered leading servants within worship ministry. They are a part of our larger choir ministry and have additional rehearsals as a Praise Team singer. We memorize scripture and study the Word together weekly. Many people in this ministry have been a part of it for a long time. I have deep relationships and have shared ministry for a long time with several of these folks.
Another small vocal group we have a Brook Hills is Solo Background Vocalists. This is 3-4 female singers who will lead with myself and my associate, Steven, as a single voice. These singers have strong gifts of worship leading and good ad lib instincts as well.
song writing: part 1
Song writing. Before i even begin to talk about the subject, first let me confess my lack of knowledge when it comes to anything music. When people ask me, “Hey, have you heard of that band…?” my response 98% of the time is, “Uh.. nope.” And even if I have heard of the band, for example, death cab for cutie, I still couldn’t name a single song that they play. On top of my bandology deficiency, I can’t read music. In fact, in my one semester as a music major, I have consistently remembered nothing except maybe a few funny acronyms, ex: All Cows Eat Grass, Fat Cats Go Down Allies Eating Buritos.
This week I’m working on a song that was left on the cutting room floor from a few months ago. I was inspired to write it based on what God has taught me in the last year at Brook Hills. The song is about people who have never heard the Gospel, kings and presidents who exchange truth for corruption and kids who are seeking to be loved. Who will get up and deal with these realities?
I think the words are complete, but I’m not married to the melody and it may be that the whole chord progression just needs to go. Song writing is a lot like cooking , even though I don’t know a thing about cooking. Just follow with me. 
In song writing there are three main ingredients: words, chords, melody. The fun of it all is that you are allowed to play around with all three ingredients.
The first thing I almost always throw into the pot are the chords. Note: If you want to write a song, but you don’t know how to play an instrument. Learn how. You don’t have to be awesome, just learn your basic chords on guitar or ask someone to show you a few chord progressions on the piano and start with that. Sometimes I’ll sit at a piano for hours playing the same chords over and over again, thinking about what I want to say and humming melodies that merge together with the chords.
Today was one of those days. I sat and I played. I hummed melodies. I prayed about stuff. I listened to the sound of the leaf blower that comes through the worship center to blow all the trash to the front of the room. Nothing. No brilliant ideas. No tear jerking crescendos. Just the same old song I started out with. Maybe I’m just not supposed to change anything about it… Maybe God’s trying to teach me that the significance of a song doesn’t actually depend on perfection but on the heart of the person God is trying to perfect.
new blog
Well, Brook Hills is launching a new website this month, hopefully. We have been busy gathering all of the info we want on the web, etc. I’m pumped about this as a more interactive way to communicate and share what God is doing individually in our lives and within our ministry. One of the new aspects of the website is blogging. I think I am technically too old to be a blogger, but I’m going to give it a whirl anyway. The staff and interns will also be contributing to the blog. I hope this blog will be informative and will help you with study, with resources, with your ministry and with life . . .