Having been one of the techs that's worked the service recordings for the past several weeks, and the one that's posting the service music to YouTube, I wanted to take a moment to explain some of the backend details and specifications of the videos that are posted to the FBC Music Ministry YouTube page (see http://www.youtube.com/fbcspiritsong). Each Sunday service at Fredericksburg Baptist Church is recorded onto DVD, and is available (legally) for free, by request. This note is meant to answer some of the technical questions I get on Sundays, and may be of great interest to some (and boring to others).
I would love nothing more than for this to become a forum of discussion for those of you at FBC (or not). At the very least, hopefully this answers some questions that you may have had, or some questions you never thought of before. I love getting to use assistive technology in Worship to help others outside our church building have a meaningful worship experience. There's a lot of work that goes into producing the services from a technical standpoint, and I enjoy sharing what I've learned and how I use it each week to further the kingdom of God. Feel free to comment on this post or the YouTube videos. Enjoy!
Q. What equipment is used in the Sunday morning video production?
A. For the main live service shots, we mainly shoot with handycams (Sony and Panasonic). Two cameras we have used are HD (high definition), and 2 are SD (standard definition). Whether the camera is HD or SD, the signal is down-converted to SD and sent though a Roland LVS-800 video mixer. Using a video mixer allows us to mix multiple cameras (when needed), insert titles, lower 3rds, graphics, and preproduced cutaway shots (b-roll) into the DVD recording. We record the DVD with a Toshiba DVD recorder. A MacBook Pro 17" (running ProPresenter) is used as a media server/character generator.
Q. When I watch a music YouTube video from FBC, when was it recorded and what is the source of the recording (SOOC, Captured into a NLE via graphics card, Ripped from a DVD)?
A. The videos you see on the SpiritSong YouTube page are videos from our Sunday Morning services. The videos were recorded live on the date mentioned in the details below the video. For the most part, the videos you see are from the 11:00am service. If they are from the 8:30am service, or from a Special Service, it will be mentioned in the details below the video. The recordings come from our DVD recordings of the services on Sunday Mornings. The music from the service that's posted online is ripped from the DVD.
Q. What program do you use to rip content off of your service DVDs?
A. MPEG Streamclip (www.squared5.com) It's a great litle program!
Q. I see shots of stained glass windows, flowers, and other service elements in the video, but I don't remember seeing a camera roving on the floor during the service. What are these shots, and how do you get them into the video recording?
A. Those shots are called "cutaways". The more industry-standard term would be "B-roll footage". Any shot of the room or of people leading the service is live -- recorded from linear cameras in real time during the service. The cutaway shots that appear in our service videos (stained glass windows, flowers, etc.) are generally recorded early in the morning, before most people arrive in the Sanctuary, or recorded during Sunday School or during the morning on weekdays.
Technically speaking, I record the cutaways with my Canon 7D (1280x720, 60fps, H.264), transfer them to the MacBook Pro running ProPresenter, convert them using a secret recipe with Compressor, then import them into ProPresenter. [Even though we don't broadcast in HD, I get the 16:9 aspect ratio that matches up with the live camera's aspect ratio. I'll admit, I use a DSLR in order to get some really shallow rack focuses (shifting focus from the foreground to background, or reverse, to get a dramatic shift in what I'm focusing on in the shot). Typically, I'll use a 50mm f1.4 on the 7D.]
Once the clips are in ProPresenter and ready to roll, I treat the signal coming from the MacBook Pro just like a live camera. I cue the selected clip (say for instance, a close-up of the sunbeam window) in ProPresenter, and then when I want to insert that cutaway into the recording (say, right after a medium shot of the altos and tenors in the choir who just sang the line, "Heavenly Sunlight, flooding my soul with Glory divine."), I fade to the computer feed. It's just like there was a cam on the floor, without the distraction! This is actually a pretty common technique used in the industry, but by mixing the cutaway footage in live, I save a lot of time in post-production.
Q. Earlier in the post, you said that you record in SD onto your DVDs. If the videos online are ripped from your DVDs, then how come I can view the videos in HD on YouTube (720p)?
A. You caught me. Yes, I up-convert the ripped DVDs into 1280x720. And no, you're not really seeing them in HD. But, if you're asking that question, you probably want to know how/why I do this.
Reason #1: Audio on YouTube. About a year ago, I realized while watching someone else's video, that the sound was dramatically different when playing back the 360p quality, and when playing back 720p quality. In theory, the sound should be the same, but it wasn't. By encoding my video in HD (720p), YouTube sees it as "HD", and I can get the better audio (supposedly). I typically export 24-bit, 44.1k audio, but YouTube must do some funky encoding to SD video's audio. Hopefully I bypass that by "fooling" YouTube to think that I've got HD.
Reason #2: Interlacing. Getting into the technical aspects of interlacing is too much for this aricle. But, DVDs use interlaced scanning. If I ported the direct ripped file from the DVD onto YouTube, aside from not having those beautiful fade in/outs, the picture would look like a checkerboard whenever someone moved, or a camera dissolved from one to another. (You can read more about interlaced video here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interlaced_video)
Reason #3: Lower 3rds. If you look at the videos, there's a nice little overlay on the bottom third of the video showing the title of the piece, and who's presenting it. At SD, the text can look really pixelated. So, by setting an HD sequence in Final Cut, I can obstruct less of the video with the lower 3rd, and the text is clear and crisp in the rendered file.
Q. What's your audio mix and where are your mics?
A. Sound is subjective, and depends on the audio operator. When I set up the audio for recording, I mic everything, even if it doesn't need to be miced in the room. For example, the piano doesn't always need to be amplified in the room, but it needs to be miced for the recording. The only thing that I don't mic for recording is the organ. I mix music in stereo when possible, but spoken word is ALWAYS in mono.
Typically, I run: room mic, piano mic, 4 choir mics, miced soloists, pulpit/baptistry mic, direct feeds from any instruments/electrics. Since we don't have a dedicated recording board, I use 2 spare aux out channels (L and R) and mix each mic independantly. That way, I don't mess with the house mix, and they don't mess with the recording mix.
As a pianist, I like hearing the crispness of the attack as well as the reverb. For the music recordings, I use both the piano mic and the room mic to achieve the desired balance of each. Depending on the style, I may only use the choir mics for the choir, but occasionally, I'll use the pulpit mic and room mic to enforce the choral sound. For ensembles, I typically use 2 mics "Y" for stereo sound.
Audio really is subjective, and mixing in stereo is very new in our church recordings. When I'm directing video, I spend almost the entire service in headphones, constantly monitoring the audio to make sure it's the best it can be. Before a few weeks ago, I didn't really think that stereo was such a big deal, and that for the most part, a room mic would be sufficiant. When I first showed a stereo mixed, multi-mic recording to someone at our church, they were blown away at what they heard! Getting good source audio is key, because if your audience can't understand what's being said...it really doesn't matter how pretty the video is. Also, you really do need to have a seperate mix for house and for recording. Kudos for even having two different people mixing.
Q. When you get ready to export/encode for online videos, what settings do you use?
A. I use the H.264 codec, 1280x720, 29.97fps, audio at 24-bit, 44.1k sampling. If possible, I try to export using "Fast start - compressed header" so the video loads faster in the player. To read what YouTube reccomends, visit: http://www.google.com/support/youtube/bin/answer.py?answer=55744
And now, for my favorite question EVER:
Q. How can I get involved with video production at FBC?
A. Talk to the operators on Sunday morning! All the tech is run up in the balcony, right side. If there's someone running the equipment, they should be able to get you information on who to contact. If you don't see anyone, or can't make it up to the balcony before or after the service, get in touch with Rev. Michael Patch, Minister of Music. He's the best person on staff to talk with about the multimedia happenings on Sunday mornings. And, feel free to message me or pull me aside at anytime. As you can probably tell, I love talking about this kind of stuff...it's what I do in my free time!
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Hopefully this gives you some more (or maybe more than you ever wanted) behind-the-scenes information on the videos posted from the Music Ministry. Once again, to see these videos, visit: www.YouTube.com/FBCSpiritSong.
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