Church Video Ideas

Brian Davis (a friend of mine and the producer of my podcast with Anthony Coppedge) has entered the world of blogging. His new blog is called Worship Tech Online. Brian is a very gifted and smart guy, with an expertise in audio. He’s taught me a lot. On his new blog, he recently wrote about providing talkback to your Aviom system, with step-by-step instructions. I think his blog is extremely practical and one to check often. Check it out!

Greetings from the iTunes Podcasting Team:

Apple TV is here, and podcasts are making a big move into the living room. We want all of them to look as good as possible, so we have three video formatting recommendations for you. Also note that we have just posted a revised and expanded technical spec. Finally, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference is coming up. There’s a major focus on developers of content in addition to developers of software.

Recommendations for Formatting Video Podcasts

1. If you’re encoding your video podcast at 320×240, please increase the resolution to either 640×480 or 640×360 (depending on the aspect ratio of your source files). Why? Because video podcasts at this resolution look great on Apple TV and still port to video iPods. Lower resolution podcasts might also work on both platforms, but they don’t look nearly as good on a widescreen TV. As always, make sure to test any encoding changes you make to ensure device compatibility. QuickTime 7.1’s “Export to iPod” function will ensure that a video file is encoded at a width of 640 and is iPod-compatible.

2. It’s best not to create two different podcast feeds for different resolutions. By doing so, you dilute the popularity of your podcast and reduce exposure in our charts. It’s better to have one feed high in the charts than two that are lower.

3. If your source files are 16:9, stick with that aspect ratio. Don’t add letterboxing to make them 4:3. By doing so, you prevent the video from expanding to fill a 16:9 widescreen TV and instead end up with black space on all four sides. Also, your original source files should be at least 640 pixels wide.

Of course these are just recommendations. We understand that there are good reasons for 320×240 (bandwidth bills) and 720p (looks fantastic). Do whatever makes the most sense for your show.  For more information on formatting video, see the recently updated spec:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststechspecs.html

To see a sample of excellent podcasts that also look great with Apple TV, check out the Apple TV Podcast Showcase.

WWDC June 11 - 15, San Francisco, CA

The Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC07) has a whole session track dedicated to Content and Media developers, designers, information architects, graphic designers and web producers.

You’ll learn how to implement best practices to harness digital content for delivery to the Web, applications and devices such as the iPod or Apple TV. Whether you’re creating next-generation rich-media portals or leveraging the latest AJAX toolkits to develop hybrid/Web integrated OS X applications, the Content and Media track provides the latest information on how to build modern, platform-optimized experiences for Mac OS X Leopard.

WWDC07 is your opportunity to connect with Apple engineers, get a firsthand look at the latest technologies and spend a week getting the information you won’t find anywhere else.

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/

Best regards,

The iTunes Podcasting Team

As you know, I’m new at my church. One thing I’m very big on is recruiting and involving volunteers in ministry. (I talk a lot about that on my podcast and wrote about it recently) I mentioned yesterday in our Worship & Arts staff meeting that I had put an announcement in the bulletin, info sheets at the Information Booths and will be running an invitation to “join the Technical Arts Ministry” during the pre and post announcement slides.

Our worship pastor, Scott, reminded us that while there are various things that you can do to get the word out and find new volunteers, the main and best way to grow your team is through prayer. Prayer really produces the most fruit. It was a great reminder and a good word that I received in my spirit. Prayer should be at the center of our actions and campaigns to find and involve more people in our ministries.

EXTRA:
Speaking of “my podcast“, we are back in the studio today putting the final touches on our copyright episode. It’s coming soon!

BONUS:

My boys at WorshipHouse Media are doing something unprecedented and very nice - they are giving away their current #1 best selling video (which they could make a lot of money on) for FREE…that’s right FREE. Here me now: this isn’t just any video, it’s #1 out of over 5000 products. The video is “Are You Amazed” and is one of my favorite videos from Igniter Media Group. You can absolutely work this into your Good Friday or Easter service(s).

Thanks for the replies on what magazines you read. I’d still love to hear about more. I’m also curious as to what podcasts you can’t do without. I have several that I subscribe to and listen to regularly - from ministry and worship related to technology and comedy. I subscribe to both audio and video podcasts - some deal with Photoshop, some with Final Cut, some with just video editing and tech in general - TWIT for example. What do you listen to?

PERSONAL:
Tomorrow I will reveal some big news in my blog!

My, oh my. Dallas looks like a winter wonderland. Not really - it’s actually pretty nasty out. Very cold and horrible driving conditions. BUT, it is cool to see the snow falling again.

I just got back from recording our much talked about 5th podcast episode interview - this is the one on copyright and the Church. Anthony and I talked with 3 experts and are excited about the information and enlightenment contained in this upcoming episode. Please give us a bit to record the rest of the episode and edit, but look for it to come in the near future.

EXTRA:

Many have emailed me about the Kleenex commercial I wrote about yesterday. I did contact the Kleenex company about making the commercial available to churches, but got no love. Below is the response I just got:

Dear Greg,

Thanks for your recent e-mail about our new ‘Let It Out™’ Campaign from KLEENEX® facial tissue.

After checking with the appropriate people in Kimberly-Clark, we are sorry to tell you that we are not able to provide you with a copy of our new television commercial, as there are legal and talent implications involved. We appreciate your interest and apologize for any disappointment.

Thanks again for your e-mail.

Sheila
Consumer Services
Kimberly-Clark Corp.

A few weeks ago I came across a new, up-and-coming filmmaker, Blaine Hogan. Blaine teamed up with the guys from XXXChurch to produce his first film, “Starving Jesus”, which is also the title of a great book from the XXXChurch guys. I think Blaine is one to keep an eye on. I encourage you to check out his new film entitled “Starving Jesus”. You can get it at WorshipHouse Media ($15), the Shoutable Store ($15), Meatloaf Media ($20) or SermonSpice ($20).

BONUS:

Jay Kelly, from Wired Parish is offering his new “Church 2.0″ podcast series for FREE to Church Video Ideas readers (normally there is a cost to this). Get the feed here. You can copy this link and go to iTunes/Advanced/Subscribe to podcast and paste it there.

EXTRA:

Passion just released their first EP from Passion ‘07. Remember me saying that I have a new favorite speaker: Francis Chan? His message is included in this EP. His message will rock your world.

Colts win! Colts win! What a game! I’m happy for Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy. It was the largest comeback in AFC or NFC Championship history. I was proud of Coach Tony

Dungy when he said the game was “won in such a way that the Lord receives all the credit.” I knew Tony was a strong believer and couldn’t be happier for him. I was shocked when the CEO and Owner of the Colts gave “glory to God” for the win. Wow - and the Bears won, too. It’s going to be a great Super Bowl.

Guy Kawasaki just came across a list of the top ten (actually 11) marketing podcasts and shared it on his blog.

1. Seth Godin, marketing expert, author. States that small is the new big. People need to target audiences of 4 not 400. Told marketers he feels they have the biggest opportunity in at least thirty years to make an impact given social media.
2. Robert Scoble, blogger and vice president of media development for PodTech. Talks about how blogging has evolved and why it is important for corporations to blog today.
3. Peter Rojas, co-founder and editor of Engadget, one of the most popular blogs on technology today. Discusses the publication, its strategy and how to best contact editors for the publication.
4. Phillip Bodzenta, director of global communications for Coke. Describes how Coke used bloggers to build audience during the World Cup. Shows pictures of bloggers at the World Cup.
5. Sharon Wienbar, managing director, Scale Venture Partners (formerly BA Venture Partners) on what is hot/ not in social media venture investing.
6. Pete Blackshaw, chief marketing officer of Nielsen Buzzmetrics, talks about how to measure social media.
7. Steve Rubel, senior vice president of Edelman Public Relations. Speaks to how social media is impacting the practice of public relations.
8. Dick Costello, chief executive officer of Feedburner. He speaks about how to get blogging and podcasting content is found and distributed.
9. Bill Kircos, head of consumer and enterprise media for Intel. Describes how Intel implements social media programs, most specifically, podcasting.
10. Kelly Wagman, head of customer relationship marketing for Juniper Networks. Talks about how Juniper used social media to build a community.
11. Ross Mayfield, CEO of Socialtext, a wiki company. Describes wikis and how they are best used in marketing.

PERSONAL:
Today is the first day I teach on worship leadership at Dallas Theological Seminary. I’d appreciate your prayers.

Want a fun and very different project? Why not build a headphone amp? How’s that for random? If you’re up for the challenge, go HERE for your instructions.

EXTRA:

I wrote a more detailed article on the technology side of Passion ‘07 for my weekly column on Monday Morning Insight. To read it go HERE. On an upcoming podcast, we’ll be interviewing the Video Director from the main venue.

*If you haven’t heard our latest episode, where we talk about the Christmas production season, technical run-throughs, multi-site churches (including an interview with my friend Shawn Wood, Communications Pastor at Seacoast Church) and when to use IMAG, download it today and give it a listen. Feedback so far has been great.

Also, I keep a list of blogs I read over to the right. The newest edition is the new blog, Swerve, from Craig Groeschel and Bobby Gruenewald of LifeChurch.tv. You might want to check it out.

Ed Young, Jr. and Fellowship Church are known for creativity and pushing the bounds. I was just on their website and my jaw dropped. For their current series, Ed is teaming up with Hulk Hogan - that’s right, Hulk Hogan. I believe they took it down now, but they had a funny series teaser.

The following is a review by Jeremy Dunn - from WorshipMusic.com.

As a child of the 1980s I have accumulated a large collection of audio cassette tapes over the years. While other kids collected Transformers and A-Team action figures, I was spending most of my money on music cassettes. Eventually, like almost everyone else, I made the switch over to CDs and have since been enjoying the sonic clarity and convenience of recorded music in the digital domain.

As cassette decks become increasingly harder to find I wonder what to do with my old cassettes. That’s why I was so happy to hear about Plusdeck2c. The Plusdeck2c is a fully functioning cassette player for your PC computer that also converts your cassettes into MP3 or WAV format so you can archive them into the digital domain. With a few mouse clicks you can record your audio cassettes onto your hard drive and then burn them to a CD or transfer them to your MP3 player.

Installing the Plusdeck2c in my computer was a fairly easy task. The Plusdeck2c requires an empty 5.25″ bay for installation (please refer to the Plusdeck2c product page for other technical requirements). Once I slipped the deck into the tower, I secured it with a couple of screws and connected the power and the cables that were provided in the box. All of the cable connections were plainly laid out in the instruction manual. There are no complicated drivers to install, only one small piece of software which is the application that is used to control the deck and process the cassettes into digital files.

The front of the Plusdeck2c has all of the transport controls that you would expect to see on a cassette deck; start, stop, eject, etc. I must admit that my heart skipped a beat when I first popped a cassette into the deck and heard the comforting old familiar sound of servos and gears of a cassette deck, though I had to listen a little harder for these sounds since the Plusdeck2c has the quietest hardware I have personally heard on a deck. For those folks that don’t require a “hands on” experience, you can use the Plusdeck2c application to control the deck from your computer screen with your mouse.

Within minutes of installation I was able to create my first MP3 files from a cassette. Basically, the Plusdeck2c works by sending its audio signal to your computer’s audio input and it records the signal, converts it to WAV or MP3 and saves it to your hard drive. As a user, all I needed to do to was insert the cassette, adjust the line-in volume on my computer (this information is in the users manual), give a name to the file I was about to create, and click on the convert button. Plusdeck2c did the rest. After converting several different cassettes from different eras, I did find that newer cassettes are louder and have a broad dynamic range so they require more finessing of the volume levels to avoid distortion in the conversion process.

I can think of several applications for this deck aside from converting music cassettes. This deck is a great solution for those stacks of teaching cassettes that every church has in the back closet. What better way to make sure that your church’s past services are preserved for years to come than transferring them to CD? Also, I know people who have been singing in church for years and they have lots of performance track cassettes that they can’t buy on CD. Plusdeck2c would be perfect for them too.

I was surprised how practical and easy it is to use the Plusdeck2c. As different of a concept it is to have a cassette deck in your PC, this product isn’t fancy or complicated. It only promises to do one thing: play cassettes on your PC and allow you to process them into digital format. It does just that and it does it well.

*Review by Jeremy Dunn - from WorshipMusic.com.

EXTRA:

Anthony and I have just released our latest podcast episode. Check it out - you’ll be glad you did!

PERSONAL:
I’m glad the world got to see why the SEC is the toughest conference in football. Let there be no doubt now. I feel I must point out that my South Carolina Gamecocks nearly beat Florida - losing by just 1 point.

We had a great Thanksgiving. My wife works weekends at a group home for girls. We had several of the girls over to our home for Thanksgiving dinner. It was a special time and humbling to know that it was the best Thanksgiving any of the girls had ever had. The Cowboys continued their win streak, thus adding fuel to the Romo fire. By the way, I just found out that I get to go to the Cowboys/Saints game on December 10. I can’t wait!

Friday and Saturday we got out all our Christmas decorations and began our annual quest to make our home come alive with Christmas lights and stockings. Yes, our tree is up and lit, complete with the angel on top (which I always get to do - though my 4 year old son did kind of help me this year). Sunday we went to our church as a family. I didn’t have to run or play anything, so I got to sit with my wife and just enjoy our time of worship. My highlight was my church’s worship team doing one of my favorite songs for the first time: Revelation Song (which you can hear on my Myspace page by clicking on the song name). My Tuesday night band, i55, gets to do that song often and we love it.

Today, I’m teaching a “Philosophy of Ministry” class at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. I’m looking forward to that. It’s from noon to 2pm - if you’d like to pray for me during that time. Starting in January, I’ll be teaching a worship class at Dallas Theological Seminary each Monday afternoon.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Podcast Episode 3 is now LIVE. In this episode, Anthony and I interview Brad from Church Marketing Sucks. Check it out!

*In related news, Creative Synergy is a featured podcast on PodPoint. Pretty cool!