Colour correction for rubbish projectors - Part 1
Hey - don’t all die of fright, but I’m posting a new post here again. I won’t bore you with a detailed explanation, but suffice to say that a young family and a new job in a different city, house sale, purchase, rennovation etc.... Read This Article

Great projector calculation info at projectorcentral.com
I don’t usually post ‘hey look at this on the web’ type posts here at VLOBLIVE, as I like to focus on content, but this one is too good not to pass on. Ever wondered what the throw distance of a projector is, or how the brightness... Read This Article

Gig Blog: Learning to say “No”.
I did a gig a while back where the organisers were VERY keen to have IMAG. We had the gear, we had the crew, we had the time, but we said no. Read on to understand why… This was a venue we had been in lots of times and had done IMAG there lots... Read This Article

Understanding Video-over-Cat5 cable
 There’s a growing trend in live and installation video circles to move towards the use of Cat5 twisted pair networking cables for long video and VGA runs. As with many new technologies, it’s easy to get caught out, so read on for a... Read This Article

Using iTunes for audio and SFX playback at live events
Hi all, iTunes is a great music player app for organising your music library and buying tunes from the iTunes store. However with a few very simple tweaks it can be a very effective live audio and SFX playback system. Read on for more details…... Read This Article

What’s happened to VLOBLIVE?….Still here!
In case you are wondering why things have gone a bit quiet here recently, I should mention that due to a new arrival in the family VLOBLIVE activities have taken a lower priority for the moment. I hope to resume posting soon. DaveRead the full... Read This Article

Converting Quicktime video files into WMV for PC playback
If you create video content on a Mac, but you need it to be played back on a PC at a live event, you may run into the situation where you are using a PC app that doesn’t play back .mov files (yes, it happens - especially if the app is built on... Read This Article

Creating ‘fly-by’ videos with Google Earth - UPDATED
Here’s a rough and ready guide to recording ‘fly-by’ videos using the popular Google Earth application. This can be great as an introduction video for someone visiting an event from elsewhere around the world or as a backdrop to a... Read This Article

Playing back interlaced video on computers
If you are playing back video clips directly to a projector from a PC or Mac, and the clips are interlaced video, then you have probably seen the ‘jaggies’ effect where fast moving edges take on a comb effect, due to the two fields of... Read This Article

Tips for sending & receiving BIG media files electronically
With the size of media clips, graphics files and even powerpoint files growing larger all the time, transferring these files electronically is becoming more of a headache. Here’s some suggestions for reducing the headache for you and your... Read This Article

Echo Conference and Propresenter
I’ve been looking forward to the Echo Conference for a while now.  Knowing that ProPresenter would represented there, I was going to make a point of asking when they’ll be officialy supporting their new support for the Decklink... Read This Article

4:3 displays not available at Micro-Center
I just went to Micro-Center today to pick up a program display for our Easy Worship Computer.  They had about twenty different models of LCD displays, but not even one was 4:3.  They were ALL widescreen.  It just took be by surprise.  I... Read This Article

Remote Video Baptism
When my church remodeled a movie theater a few years ago for our new church home, we did it without baptistry. There just wasn’t a place to put one. So we put a swimming pool set in our parking lot and baptize 2-3 times a year. But when we... Read This Article

Church Visit
Today I was able to visit a friend’s church. I went to Bent Tree Bible Fellowship, where my friend Greg Atkinson is the Creative Parts Director (Yes, it’s a typo - see comments). It’s so good for me to step out of what we do every... Read This Article

Getting Ready for Mexico
In a week and a half I will be going to Mexico to install some multimedia gear in a church. We’re putting in a motorized screen, data projector, and a laptop with Easy Worship. Then we’re putting in an indoor/outdoor paging system for... Read This Article

Remote Controls
Have you ever heard the terms “Lazy Bones”, or ‘Flashmatic” in reference to remote controls?  If you haven’t (I hadn’t) you really need to read the histroy of remote controls.  We just lost a projector remote... Read This Article

Do You Skype?
I’ve heard my friends talking about Skype, and I’ve really just blown it off because I never had much of a need for it.  I recently signed up for an account because I needed a cheap way to talk with my wife while on a mission trip to... Read This Article

MultiCam Editing in Final Cut Pro
About a year ago, I shot a concert for The Levee Singers.  It’s a group of men who have been singing together since the 60’s.  We did it with 5 cameras, and Rolled tape continuously on each camera.  So now the audio has been mixed (we... Read This Article

New Set Design
One of my lighting volunteers dreamed this up and I spent half a day buying parts (four Home Depots and one Lowes). The parts are PVC, Coroplast panels, and some greenhouse roofing materials. Then we spent one day putting it up and lighting it. ... Read This Article

Back from Germany and Back in the Saddle
I returned from Germany yesterday and am at church today.  We had a great trip.  My oldest son went with me and we spent time with to new churches in Muenster and Munich.  I shot and edited a couple of pieces for the churches to use on their... Read This Article

ECHO Premier Is A Success
If you’re not at ECHO, you’re going to wish you were and you need to plan for it next year. It’s always a good thing to come to Dallas! I had a great time for my first day of the Read This Article

August Happenings
Besides my family, my job and writing a book, I’m also speaking twice this month. Once, this week at ECHO and next week at the Church 2.0 Local Forum - Atlanta. I’m excited about both. For ECHO, I’m excited about the many friends... Read This Article

Funny Video
In the spirit of my friend, Bill Seaver’s, Friday “Video of the Week”, I’d like to share a video with you of a youth pastor that crashed a motorcycle trying to make a memorable entrance. I think he accomplished it. You may... Read This Article

Fine Arts Day Camp Wrap-up
A couple of things that I’m proud about last week’s Fine Arts Day Camp at my church: The great leadership by our own Karen Johnson (who is a vital part of our staff). The tremendousRead the full article at Greg Atkinson Read This Article

Top This
I think I have found my favorite line of a song (maybe of all time). Now this is not my favorite worship lyric - this is just a wild line from a song that I think deserves some recognition. The line is from John Cougar Mellencamp’s song... Read This Article

Modern Church Alltop List
Church Marketing Sucks, Tony Steward and Tony Morgan blogged about making Guy Kawasaki’s Read This Article

South Carolina Sponsors
Today I’d like to thank my sponsors for my ministry trip to South Carolina. Each company is a great resource to the Church and a friend and supporter of my ministry. I highly recommend you check them out! Sponsors for the Church 2.0 Local... Read This Article

Top Ten Texts From Greg Atkinson
Yes, I could of said “Top Ten Texts from Me”, but I put my name in the title for Google search reasons. Here are the Top 10 things I text regularly: 1. Where we eating? 2. Going to a movie. 3. In the movie. 4. Leaving the movie. 5.... Read This Article

Tuesday Meetings and Travel
Today is day 2 of our church’s Fine Arts Day Camp. We have 400 kids running around the church and multiple activities taking place all around. My oldest daughter, Grace, is participating this year, so she gets to ride to church with me. Today... Read This Article

Texting Trials
I see a lot of movies. A lot. SO…. I know when something is new or different at the movies. This weekend I saw a movie (or two) and I noticed something for the first time. The cheesy little animation that occurs right before theRead the full... Read This Article

Loud Music
On Sunday, Newspring worship leader Tom Pellerin read us an email from the old man I mentioned in the previous post, the guy who approached the stage and wanted the music turned down seconds before the service started.He was indeed a visitor from... Read This Article

GigaChurch
I heard a cool term the other day: GigaChurch. It's a word for a church of 10,000 people or more. This guy claims to have coined the term in a Washington Post article.As the article mentions, I too heard a few yearsRead the full article at... Read This Article

Instant Church 2
1470 people attended the second Sunday of NewSpring Greenville (last week the total was 1710) and I'll guess that's where attendance will hover for awhile.A funny anecdote: as the countdown video reached zero, an old man approached the edge of the... Read This Article

Instant Church
Can you imagine arriving in a town, renovating an old grocery store into a church, opening the front doors and hoping people show up? Then, what if 1700 did show up? (and several got saved on top of it!) That's exactly what happened to NewSpring... Read This Article

Church & Movies
A while back I wrote the article at WorshipIdeas.com called "Music=Growth?" I used to think that good music grows a church. While it doesn't hurt, I don't believe that anymore. Here's another example.When was the last time you went to a movie or... Read This Article

Praise Band Paradox
I know of a megachurch with 10,000 people that has state-of-the-art everything... projection, speakers, music equipment and the same $ound board as the local arena. Their drummer is your typical middle aged guy who works a regular job, and probably... Read This Article

Death of a Church
This week the 2 year old Andy Stanley Catalyst video church plant here in Greenville sadly announced that April is their last month of existence. Here's the blog of one of the pastors, Casey Ross. Financial problems were cited as the primary... Read This Article

Cookies
I'm sitting here at Panera Bread Company working on a redesign of the WorshipIdeas website, and this guy comes up and offers me a free cookie. Not one to resist free food, I eagerly accept. He then hands me a business card and says "I'm starting a... Read This Article

Entrepreneurial Church
What a great idea! Eastside Foursquare Church in Portland has purchased an old, run-down hotel, cleaned it up and remodeled it. The crime rate in the neighborhood dropped, profits go to social programs in the city and church members who work there... Read This Article

Death Threats
Every so often I write an article that really upsets traditionalists. A few months ago I posted one over at WorshipIdeas.com, basically saying that since contemporary worship is the norm these days the traditionalists are panicking. It's all about... Read This Article

Lessons Learned on Vacation
  After a full two weeks out on the road, it’s good to be home. According to our trusty Garmin 360 GPS, we logged 2,446 miles; averaged 59.1 MPH while moving; drove for 41 hours, 11 minutes, were stopped for 11 hours and 56 minutes (some... Read This Article

More “Said from Stage”
So this has been a lot of fun. People from all over have been writing in with their favorite quotes (or should I say mis-quotes). There are some good ones here, and to save everyone the time of digging into the comments section (and because... Read This Article

Said From The Stage
Public speaking is hard. You stand up in front of a room full of people, some of whom you know quite well, while others are complete strangers. Hopefully, you are prepared well and know what you want to say. Sometimes, however, things don’t go... Read This Article

Lessons Learned From a 12-Year Old
Today was a proud moment for me. My youngest daughter turned 12, which is a pretty humbling thing in itself. More than that, though, she also ran ProPresenter for “big church” for the first time today. And she did it like a seasoned... Read This Article

In Over Our Heads?
Today’s post is again inspired by an e-mail I got the other day (I get a lot of e-mails like this…). This time it was from a friend of mine who is a worship leader at a pretty good-sized church on the west coast. She was asking me at... Read This Article

Compression, It’s All About The Sound
Compression is one of those topics that everyone likes to talk about, but few can actually explain. Over the years, I’ve tried various ways of teaching the concepts of compression to volunteers, and to be honest, the most common response is... Read This Article

Line Checkin’
The line check. It’s one of those things that most sound guys know they should do, or at least would like to have time to do, but often fail to get around to actually doing. Getting a line check done before the band arrives has saved me on... Read This Article

TFWM Article
Yesterday was an exciting day. Not only did I figure out how to write an AppleScript to automate a weekly task, but my issue of Technologies for Worship came. TFWM is a favorite mine amongst the 2 dozen or so magazines I receive each month. But this... Read This Article

Update on Rechargeable Batteries
Last fall I wrote a post on rechargeable batteries, which you can read in it’s entirety here. I know a lot of audio guys who don’t like them, or are leery of them (for good reason, they used to be less than worthless), but I’ve... Read This Article

Obsolescence (A Dirty Word?)
Obsolescence. That’s a word we don’t really like in our society. To some extent, it’s a sad commentary on our culture that we fear obsolescence. We loathe working on  “obsolete” computers. Watching standard def TV on a... Read This Article

I Have Processes For A Reason
Last Saturday morning I shot some family portrait shots for a friend. We woke up early and met them at a local park. On my camera’s card was also some pictures I had taken at some missions down in San Antonio. But in the rush of getting back... Read This Article

What’s It Worth?
Working in a creative technical position I have to spec out solutions for various audio/video/lighting projects. One thing that I’ve learned is the difference in price does not give you the exact same proportional improvement. There is a point... Read This Article

30 Minute Worship Service
The last few days my wife and I were able to drop the kids off with the grandparents and we headed down to San Antonio for a couple of nights. On the way down we passed a church in Waco that advertised 30 minute worship services. You can check them... Read This Article

Creativity Outside Your Comfort Zone
I’ve noticed something about my work. 1. I like to create designs that are appealing to me. 2. I can look back at my work and see when I learned a new technique, got a new plug-in, etc.. 3. Here’s where my situation is unique. I get... Read This Article

Two Macs One Keyboard and Mouse
In our sanctuary we have 3 macs: - iMac running ProPresenter and iTunes for preservice music - G5 Power Mac running ProVideoPlayer - MacBookPro running ProTools and VMWare Fussion to run Studio Manager for the Read This Article

Video: Children’s Church Splash Day
It’s been about a month since I got into After Effects. So this week I was asked to put together a promo video for a Splash Day our Children’s Church is having. The video will play in our announcement loop before services and on our... Read This Article

Rechargeable Batteries and Wireless Mics
With the economy struggling in our nation, those struggles will impact the church. Luckily living in Dallas our economy is stronger than most of the economies in the nation. But as a church we are looking for ways to maximize our budget even more. ... Read This Article

Echo Conference
I’m getting excited about the Echo Conference coming up in a few weeks in Dallas. Echo is part of the company that is Igniter Media, Collide Magazine and Worhsip House Media. But this looks like a great conference for people who create media... Read This Article

iPhone 3G
When the iPhone 3G was first announced I was excited about it. And so was my wife because she wanted one, or at least an iPhone. Well as things have unfolded the new iPhone is pretty slick, but an incremental upgrade from my original 8GB iPhone. ... Read This Article

ProPresenter and 3 Screens
We’ve been using ProPresenter and ProVideoPlayer with the Advance Module since last October. ProVideoPlayer output feeds 4 plasmas on our stage while ProPresenter feeds our 2 projector screens. The advance module alows PVP to control the... Read This Article

Drum Time Alignment Demo
Here is the awaited demonstration of what I’ve been doing with time alignment on drums. The only caveat I have for you is to make sure you listen on a decent playback system. When I did this in the studio the results were clear, and when we... Read This Article

Year of the System: Lost in Translation or How I Started Looking for the X Curve
So here’s one for the rest of you system optimization junkies like me. I’m trying to solve a dilemma so I don’t have a lot of answers here, and I’d love some input via the comments section. This is just something I’ve... Read This Article

Off-Topic: Twitter Update
OK, it looks like they fixed it! So if you were previously following me, go ahead and make a request and if you’re not a spammer all is good! There should be a link to my Twitter page in the sidebar.Read the full article at www.Goingto11.com Read This Article

Off-Topic: What’s Up? We’re Three
I have been meaning to do a sort of “What’s Up” post, and then I noticed that July marks the three year anniversary since I started this blog. So I guess now is as good a time as any to do this sort of thing. First, I just want to... Read This Article

Stomp Your Foot
Here’s more of an announcement for all you fellow Venue users. The ability to assign a foot pedal to tap tempo has finally arrived in the form of a free upgrade for v2.7 users. I got to play with this a little early, and I’m pretty... Read This Article

TEST
Feed update TEST post.Read the full article at mediaministry.org Read This Article

Dave Crowder Band in Theatres ONE NIGHT ONLY!
 Read This Article

Misleading Ads About Wireless Microphones
I have wanted to write about the FCC frequency fiasco for awhile.  I will hopefully have a more in depth post about white spaces, frequency allocation and spectrum and how wireless works.  For now I really need to get something out that is bugging... Read This Article

Giving Back in Jesus Name
If you want to see an example of what the church should be about then check out this announcement from Lee Rothenflue of Eleven72.  This is an example of using the gifts, talents and resources that God has so graciously loaned to us to give back in... Read This Article

Yamaha LS9 Review
I came across this great review of the Yamaha LS9 Digital Mixing Console from MIX magazine.  Check out Field Test: Yamaha LS9-32 Digital Mixing Console.They also have the LS9 Read This Article

Because FREE is Way Better Than Not Free
That is the tag line for a new site that was brought to my attention.  It seems that FREE is becoming the in thing to do for ministries.  There are many churches and sites that are offering all FREE media content for us to use.  Greg Atkinson... Read This Article

Birth of Video Production
Well, I have taken the plunge into video shooting, directing, editing and post production for sermon intro videos.  I actually enjoy the process but, man, it takes some hours to get it to where I think it is decent for presenting.  I also had to... Read This Article

Write Everything Down
I wanted to share an article with from a blog that I follow called Copyblogger.  It is the only blog I follow about writing.  All the rest are technical or ministry related.    One thing that I learned early on in blogging was write everything... Read This Article

Check at the Source
Here is another great post that I have had tucked away from July of last year.  This is a post from Tim Corder whose blog Corder Notes has some great information about mixing audio in the church. This paticular post is really about being proactive... Read This Article

Photoshop Help is Just a Click Away
One of my best friends as far as applications go is Photoshop.  I never cease to learn new things that it can do.  I used to be relentless in finding tutorials.  For a while my friend Anthony Coppedge was offering some.  Len & Jason, the MO... Read This Article