Ballast Media

InstalledCodec Interface

Have you ever wanted to know what codecs you have installed on your system?  Have you ever wanted to disable a codec?  I came across a great little utility recently that will let you do this.  It’s called InstalledCodec and you can download it free here.

I’ve been having lots of problems recently in Premiere Pro with the program crashing as soon as I attempt to import or export anything.  As soon as I would select either option from the menu, I would instantly be presented with the desktop.  PP was just gone.  This only happened in projects where I was using HDV mpeg files so I began to suspect a codec issue.  I could reproduce this crash consistantly every time.

Using InstalledCodec I found LOTS of mpeg codecs hanging around on my system from other software, even lots of software that I’ve since un-installed.  For instance, I’d installed a trial version of Avid and subsequently un-installed it, but I still had over 20 codecs that were listed as being from Avid.

Since most software, and your computer decide to use one codec over another based on something called “merit” many of these additional codecs that had been installed more recently then Adobe or even Microsoft’s codecs may be being utilized now instead of the original codecs that PP configured/verified when it was installed.

I used InstalledCodec to disable LOTS of codecs on my system and magically PP no longer crashes.  I completed the project I was working on without any further crashing issues.  In the image at the beginning of this post you can see the user interface with a bunch of the Avid codecs disabled.  Disabling a codec is as simple as selecting any codec you want from the list and selecting disable.

Let’s pick up where I left off in the last installment of my DIY Teleprompter blog post.  First I’ll show you the slot cut in the bottom upright supports and the notch cut in the top upright supports.  Thanks to a great guy named Ralph for making these cuts for me with a router!

Upright Supports (Joining Top and Bottom)

Using the holes that were drilled in the top upright supports (at the opposite end from the notch we can join the top and bottom upright supports using 1/4-20 bolts and wingnuts.

Laptop Platform

Just above the two holes in the top support mount 2 angle brackets on each side, facing inwards.  These will hold the laptop platform.  On the outside surface of the top upright support you will need to set the heads of the bolts in to the wood so that the bottom upright support can slide up and down unhindered, allowing for height adjustment.  Now, with the remainder of your plywood (left over from building the base), drill mounting holes in it so that you can mount it to the angle brackets as shown in the pictures below.  This platform will hold your laptop which will be viewed in the glass.

Glass Reflector

I painted the wood black, so in the rest of the pictures you will see all of the parts in black.  I covered the edges of the glass with gaffers tape.  This serves two purposes, one it keeps you from cutting yourself on the sharp edges and two it helps the glass fit snuggly in the notch in the top upright support.  Here is the teleprompter pretty much complete.

I’m thinking of purchasing some black fabric to cover over the top.  I think this will help the reflection of the laptop be seen, especially in bright locations, like outside.  In the third installment of this DIY blog post I’ll show you the teleprompter in use, how to position the laptop and camera, etc.

Teleprompter

Our worship pastor, West Breedlove, recently came to me with the idea for this project, a DIY Teleprompter.  He found this site (which I credit with the inspiration for this project) and was wondering if we could make one ourselves.  Since teleprompters are all the rage to talk about in the media these days, I thought it would make a fun how-to blog post.  I’ve made a few changes to the design from the site above, mainly to try and make it more portable and easier to dissassemble.  So, here you have it, a step-by-step guide to making your own teleprompter.

First, the parts list.

1. (1) 24″ x 24″ glass – standard – not the non-reflective type (Hobby Lobby $16)
2. (4) 1×3 6′ pine planks  (Of course actual dimensions are 3/4″ x 2 1/2″)
3. (1) 24″x48″ 1/4″ plywood.
4.  (4) 2 1/2″ industrial wheels
5. (lots) 1/4-20 bolts and wing-nuts
6.  Wood screws
7.  Wood glue

Step 1 – The Base
The first step is to build the base.  Cut 4 pieces of the 1×3 pine planks, two at 24″ and two at 23 1/4″.  These pieces are glued and screwed together to form a square, ok I guess its a rectangle because the sides aren’t exactly the same.  Arrange the planks so that one side of the rectangle is 24″ and the other side is 24 3/4″. (hint, the 23 1/4″ planks go inside.)

Cut the plywood in half so that one section is 24 3/4″ long by 24″ wide.  This piece then gets mounted on top of the pine square, again using glue and screws.  Turn the whole thing over and mark the location for your wheels and then drill the holes for mounting.  Be sure and leave enough space between the wheel and the edge for the wheel to swivel freely.

Mark the location where the upright supports will attach to the base on the side of the base.  (Use the sides so that the supports are the furthest distance from each other, 24 3/4″)  Drill the 4 holes that will be used to bolt the upright support to the base.

Step 2 – The upright supports

Cut two pieces of the 1×3 plank to 3′ long. These pieces will attach to the base and will make the bottom section of the upright supports.  Mark the location of the holes and drill.  Test that you are able to pass the bolts through the holes.

Next, cut two 4′ pieces of the 1×3 plank.  These pieces will make the top part of the upright supports.  They will attach to the bottom supports using bolts that will pass through a slot that is cut in the bottom supports. (I’ll show this in part 2)  Drill two holes in the upper supports at 4″ and 8″ from the end to be used to connect to the lower support.  At the other end of the top supports, mark and cut a notch at a 45 degree angle for the glass.

Thats it for today.  I’ll post again as soon as I continue work on this project.  The next step will be to build a shelf for the laptop to rest on and then assemble the whole thing together.  I’ll probably paint it as well.

Kind of a random post, but I’ve been putting together a simple video system so that our organist can see the choir director on a monitor located at the organ.  Due to the size of our organ and the angles involved it’s hard for the organist to see much more then the head of the choir director.  In doing this, I needed to figure out what type of lens to use on the camera given the physical constrains of where we can locate the camera on stage

I came across this chart on ebay of all places.  I’ve copied the pertinent information here.  3.6mm seems to be a very common lens, and in our case a 92 degree field of view will work just fine.

1.2mm lens has approximate 185 degree field of view
1.7mm lens has approximate 170 degree field of view
2.1mm lens has approximate 158 degree field of view
2.5mm lens has approximate 147 degree field of view
2.8mm lens has approximate 130 degree field of view
NATURAL HUMAN EYE 2.97 MM
3.0mm lens has approximate 127 degree field of view
3.6mm lens has approximate 92 degree field of view
4.0mm lens has approximate 88 degree field of view
6/0mm lens has approximate 78 degree field of view
8.0mm lens has approximate 58 degree field of view
12 mm lens has approximate 28 degree field of view
16 mm lens has approximate 19 degree field of view
25 mm lens has approximate 13 degree field of view
50 mm lens has approximate 8 degree field of view

The system I came  up with will consist of a “board” type security camera mounted on the choir director’s music stand, or a mic stand directly infront of the choir director.  A BNC cable will connect the camera to an 8″ LCD monitor that will be located at the organ.

Have you backed up your media lately?  If you haven’t, let this blog post serve as a reminder that you need to go back up your data.  You should be regularly backing up your work and media.  Crashing hard drives and lost data are a fact of life, and you can save yourself a lot of time and potentially money if you spend a little time and money upfront and setup a system to  regularly backup your data.

Cobian is a great free program that is easy to use and takes up little resources.  It creates backups at any interval you want (nightly, weekly, etc) of any source folder you specify to a location you specify.  I set it up to make an incremental back up of my ‘My Documents’ folder every night – any file that is new or modified gets backed up, and a full backup every week – the entire folder copied.  I use an external hard drive as the destination for the backup.

Yesterday I saw a 1TB western digital external hard drive on sale at Sams for $117.  That is cheap peace of mind for all of your hard work and archive of media files.

There are a bunch of free VST pluggins available out there, but they vary widely in sound quality.  I’ve recently come across a good sounding “brick wall limiter” pluggin called Barricade.  You can download it from this site: http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/.

Basically you use the fader on the right to set your “brick wall” level.  -0.3 is usually a good level to keep your track from digitial distortion.  If you want to really maximize your track’s level, you can then turn the gain knob up which will of course make the track louder, but also hit the limiter more often/harder.  I’ve found that this limiter is fairly musical sounding and doesn’t add a whole lot of color to the sound until you really start hitting it hard.  It’s great to add to a narration or voice over track allowing you to get a good consistent level.

I’m giving away some more backgrounds.  These are free to use any way you want, but please don’t re-distribute them.

Most of these are in 16:9 aspect ratio.  You should be able to easily cut them down to 4:3 with any photo editor application.

All I ask in return is that you leave a comment below and let us know where you are from and how you are using them.

You can also search “free worship backgrounds” on this blog to find all the other media I’ve given away.

	Download here: Title Slide (1224)
	Download here: Theme Background (2113)
	Download here: Red Swirls (1849)
	Download here: Purple Swirl (1808)
	Download here: Brown Wallpaper (923)
	Download here: Blue Grunge Background (1148)
	Download here: Blue Abstract (1831)

While this isn’t directly related to media and technology, I do think it is a great reminder for all the church media people out there who, week after week, work hard to help thier church reach lost souls.  You play a vital role.

This post from Phil Cook puts a great story to that thought.

I came across  a guy on youtube who makes a lot of computer related tutorials.  Some of them are really useful for people dealing with worship media, especially those who are on a budget and want to use free/open source software.

Some of my favorites are:

Rip DVDs directly from VLC Player

Virtual Dub – Free Video Editor for Windows

Remove Vocals from MP3 Using Audacity

Check out his site for a full listing of his tutorials: http://youtube.jimmyr.com/