Forestgate Presbyterian Church, another church affected by covid-19 and unable to meet in person, turned to Lambda for a solution to connect with their congregation. They hoped to be able to have a quality way to connect on a lower budget by using as much existing technology as possible.
We have worked with Forestgate Presbyterian church for many years helping them transition through several different major changes in technology ability. Several years ago we put in a projection system for lyrics and announcements in the main area for worship. We also helped them set up a “cry room” to allow families with fussy children a comfortable place to sit where they could see a camera view of the service and the projected lyrics. The “cry room” system used a small black magic design block camera mounted on the back wall of the main room. This camera fed an HDMI signal into the building system, but also had an SDI output that wasn’t used.
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Multi-tracking is just what it sounds like. It’s when you take multiple tracks and record them separately. Most of the digital boards out right now have a multi-tracking feature built into them! You can either record directly to an SD card, a USB drive, or you can connect a computer to the sound board via USB cable and record directly into a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) such as Pro Tools or Logic. You can decide if you want the channels to be direct out, or if you want to have them recorded post EQ and processing. Depending on your skill level with a DAW, the latter is often a great choice. Having the ability to record a service and then custom mix afterward (and can go back over and over it) can be a great way to get a great sound! Now, be careful because this is going to add a layer of complexity to your stream mix, gain structure is very important because you can’t go back and change it without re-recording the whole set! We've had a lot of time these last weeks to focus on training. Danley Sound Labs put together a great course. At Lambda we believe in the importance of having an expert in each area and to keep training and learning so we can be the best for you! Danley Sound Labs is one of our favorite companies who also believes in helping customers to succeed! The engineers at Danley are our go to for making speakers the best. With more education and collaboration, we are able to create custom designs and systems for your business! We can come out of this time of social distancing better! If you are looking for courses or other things to learn check out our resource page on our website HERE! New Life Church Colorado Springs, a longtime client of Lambda, has a large congregation and a large vibrant worship team. They already stream their services on a weekly basis, but with gathering restrictions in place they wondered what they could do to make their stream even better for their regular weekend audience. Lambda worked with Scott Lebeau, New Life’s Lighting director, and Evan Duran, the Technical Director, to add new levels of quality for their service online. Scott and Evan, both industry professionals, started their changes by deciding what their goals for the service online would be. They knew they wanted visuals and sound that closely mimicked the in-person experience as much as possible. For audio this was an easy swap. With system capability already current and with multi-tracking technology, the only change that needed to take place was to mix a live capture and then mix in post philosophy to add some extra polish.
There are many ways to route your audio stream and we wanted to cover three of them in hopes of helping you out if you have not had these set up before. Depending on your setup and circumstances, any of the options could be the right one for you, but it’s important to know the difference so you can choose what would be the best for your setup.
The first is, of course, is the simplest option. That is the Main out. You can take your main out line and also route it to a stream. This is the easiest and can be effective for providing quick, easy audio for a stream. One of the most important parts of broadcasting and streaming is your network. Here is another quick tip for your network. If you'd like to read more about this and see past tips you can click HERE. When it comes to saving and archiving your streams a lot depends on quality and what you want to use the videos for and if you want to edit them later. We suggest a dedicated hardware recorder to capture these in case your stream goes down so you can upload it later. The quality of your videos, how large the files are and how often you record will help evaluate what you need for streaming and for archiving options.
There's a lot going on right now, so where do you even start when it comes to your network? There are a lot of questions you’ll have to ask if you want to broadcast. Among the foremost you should be thinking about your Network. This means both your internet connection and the connection from your streaming computer to your router. Typically, when you consider internet speeds, Download is important as you are bringing files from the internet to you, but with streaming it is Upload that is important. Even more important is upload speed dedicated to your stream. A normal building internet connection is shared with everyone in the building and usually, since upload isn’t used, there is plenty to go around. But streams are hungry! A good rule of thumb is 7mbps for lower definition and 15mbps for higher definition. Really, the stream only uses 3mbs and 7mbps respectively, but this gives you some room for the rest of the network to still function and for the stream to stay up. If you don’t have this much speed or more for upload you may need to look at an internet upgrade as a part of your streaming system. You don’t really need to worry about how many people are watching because most services take care of that for you. If you put the video on to a service like our favorite BOXCAST, they worry about the needs to get it to 5, 500, or 5000 viewers.
Introducing low cost, multi camera, live production with advanced broadcast features. ATEM Mini switchers make it easy to create professional multi camera productions for live streaming to YouTube and innovative business presentations using Skype or Zoom! Simply connect ATEM Mini and you can switch live between 4 high quality video camera inputs for dramatically better quality images. Or connect a computer for PowerPoint slides or gaming consoles. The built in DVE allows exciting picture in picture effects, perfect for commentary! There are loads of video effects too! All ATEM Mini models have USB that works like a webcam so you can use any streaming software while the ATEM Mini Pro model adds live streaming and recording to USB disks. ATEM Mini even has secret broadcast features built in so it can do high end work! You know we love Blackmagic Design, and the Atem Mini has been a go to for a long time. Now, with the new Atem Mini Pro, could it get any better? This has it all! It’s easy to use and easy to learn with simple, clear labeling. With transition options as well as a software store for adding other transitions, titles and positioning you’ll have everything you need for easy professional looking broadcast. With 4HDMI inputs you can connect to a computer with a PowerPoint slide, video clip playbacks, websites. All switching is in real time so you can live stream to any social media platform!
There are so many features on the Atem Mini and Pro! If you’re looking for an easy, fully equipped video switcher at an affordable cost, this is it! We’d love to demo one for you or answer any question you might have! As most of us are still under stay at home orders and are looking at limited gatherings for a long time, everyone is looking at their broadcasting capabilities and how to make them better quickly. There are a few things you can do on your own to make sure you are getting quality streaming audio! Here's another quick tip for improving your audio:
Do you have an upcoming install with Lambda? Or are you looking to get some equipment, but aren't sure what this looks like with social distancing restrictions? We wanted to take a moment to reassure you of the measures Lambda is taking to ensure safety in this time. Here are just a few rules we've put in place for Lambda:
~Reduced crew size ~All tools are disinfected after each use ~Social distancing of crew members on and off site ~Use of gloves and masks If you have other questions about how an install will work for your place of business or how to get a quote, contact us! We'd love to answer any questions you might have. |
AuthorsAll of the Lambda Staff contribute to the Blog. If you have any questions about the info we provide, please don't hesitate to ask! ResourcesCheck out our resources page for FREE checklists and tools we mention in articles! We are here to help you improve and maintain your Audio Visual Systems!
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