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[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

I feel at that price point you could likely have used a smartphone and honestly would probably get exactly the same quality. When you can get pretty decent cameras at the $1000 price point why not organize a decent budget and in the mean time shoot on that iphone you have laying around at home? You can likely get the audio into it the same way your doing now and will get about the same quality and will likely not have cost much considering you had to buy a tripod anyway?

[Brian Jojade]

I feel at that price point you could likely have used a smartphone and honestly would probably get exactly the same quality. When you can get pretty decent cameras at the $1000 price point why not organize a decent budget and in the mean time shoot on that iphone you have laying around at home? You can likely get the audio into it the same way your doing now and will get about the same quality and will likely not have cost much considering you had to buy a tripod anyway?

It would depend on where you can place the camera.  Most phones don't have any sort of mechanical zoom function, so you have to place the camera roughly where you want it.  Back of the room wouldn't likely work well for this.  To use a phone, the device would probably need to put it in the front row.  Not impossible, but could be a logistical issue.

Spending $150 on a cheap little camera is probably a step better than using a phone.  But, as you can see, the results are just meh at best.  The little things that need to be learned such as camera angles, etc are probably best done with low budget test equipment.  Throwing a $1000 camera in place of what was there wouldn't have offered any appreciable improvement in the final product, as user training is the next step on learning video production.

[Jonathan Johnson]

So you did exactly what we told you not to do.  I gave you some low cost options and tossed out the name Blackmagic so you had a value option, you simply choose to do what you wanted.  Which is all you were looking for, emotional confirmation when you came in here.


You have no clue what you are doing with audio either or you would not have that channel not working and the gain structure issues on the camera. 


If you want to put out crappy product, that is undeserving of your name then keep going down the path you are on.

Sometimes you have to try the cheap route to learn the limitations of cheap equipment... and YOUR limitations.

Especially YOUR limitations. Learning on cheap equipment, doing very basic things, is a cheap way to learn, and to find out if you really want to continue down this road. If it's something you really enjoy, and you really want to improve, you'll quickly graduate to something better and magically "find" the money and resources to get there. If you hate it, at least you've not spent a ton of money.

On the other hand, cheap equipment can lead you to hate it. You have be able to distinguish what you hate: is it the equipment or the process you hate? If you love the process but hate the equipment, that can always be resolved with the application of money. If you hate the process, no amount of money will make it enjoyable.

As for myself, I started out doing live sound with embarrassingly terrible equipment. (As in worse than Behringer. Worse than Radio Shack.) But I found I enjoyed the process, and worked to upgrade the equipment to something respectable, if not "A-game" level.

When I decided to experiment with recording, I didn't start out with the cheapest things from Amazon -- I actually went for some halfway respectable recording "prosumer" recording equipment. But then I found I hated the process, especially post-processing. There's no amount of money that's going to make that enjoyable for me.

So I just want to encourage Mr. Key. Realize the limitations of your equipment, and look introspectively to decide if you really enjoy it and want to overcome those limitations, or decide if what you're producing is perfectly adequate. One of my churches has a couple of consumer-level camcorders feeding a PC, doing video switching in software for live streaming of the service. Audio is fed from the board to the switcher PC. No, it doesn't look like professional video production. It's not flashy. But it meets their goals, which isn't to impress with video production, but to deliver a message.

[Brian Jojade]

As for myself, I started out doing live sound with embarrassingly terrible equipment. (As in worse than Behringer. Worse than Radio Shack.)

How??  WHy??  This makes my ears hurt just thinking about it.

[Tim Weaver]

I feel at that price point you could likely have used a smartphone and honestly would probably get exactly the same quality. When you can get pretty decent cameras at the $1000 price point why not organize a decent budget and in the mean time shoot on that iphone you have laying around at home? You can likely get the audio into it the same way your doing now and will get about the same quality and will likely not have cost much considering you had to buy a tripod anyway?

The obvious next step from this is the Sling Studio. Which uses any camera that is wifi enabled. Could be an old cell phone, or a GoPro, or a security cam. The Sling has an app that runs on an ipad which lets you live switch the camera's and makes for a reasonably good looking product. The Sling also streams to all the major players.

It's a powerful box for churched that don't want to spend a ton of dough. It is also pretty easy for volunteers to run. The one thing it won't do is imag. The delay is several seconds since everything is running over wifi. You just can't send this to a screen in the same room.

[Bryan Neil]

Add two zeros to get into ballpark.  If you're looking for high enough quality that people aren't turned away at least.

I would disagree, I have read where people are using Iphone 6s for their streaming and have great results. Our camera is less than half that and does a great job. Your response will only result in convincing people they need to spends thousand for a great result and in this day and age that is not true. You will only stop them for looking for different options.

[Bryan Neil]

I have been the primary audio guy at a small church for 10+ years.  We have grabbed audio from the mixer and made our own CDs for a long time.  Now we feel the time is right to start doing full videos and posting content online.  I'm wondering if there is a good cheap camcorder with a mic input out there.  We can zoom in for video from our A/V room 50 feet away, and pull audio from the mixer.  No worries about video upload, as we can do it after the service ends.

If I am going about this the wrong way, I am open to suggestion.

What is the specs on your computer? That will make a difference with video editing. I am having to upgrade the processor on the video pc because of the editing. Recording it to the pc is one thing but editing and putting on a disc is another. We had a video tech that was doing all this at his house, he would also take the computers home when software needed upgrading. But, we had a disagreement and it now all falls on me. Video, sound, and pc tech. Yay me.

You are going to need good video editing software. I am currently using roxio creator nxt7. Burned a couple of services the other day and was informed they work. But roxio doesn't have a lot of features for the editing process. I picked up Corel VideoStudio for $49.95 at Staples the other day on sale it is normally $79.95. Haven't installed it yet since we are in the process of getting the internet at our church. Can't activate without the internet.

Adobe does Premiere Pro by monthly payments now, I beleive about $21 a month.

And you will see some talk about you need to spend several hundred or maybe a thousand on a camera. Nope. I think we paid about $300 for ours(might not have been that much, also it was used) and it works great. May have to change when we go to streaming, but that is another day.

[Mike Caldwell]

Just released from Roland.
Give a new life to your old phone.

https://www.roland.com/us/products/golivecast/

[Wesley Key]

You can take people seriously that have absolutely no clue what it takes to get things done. 

Project is complete.  Total cost, $139.

Latest video taken yesterday ---->   https://youtu.be/tNEaA5NWSto

[Brian Jojade]

Project is complete.  Total cost, $139.

Latest video taken yesterday ---->   https://youtu.be/tNEaA5NWSto

The quality definitely reflects your budget.

[ProSoundWeb Community]