Hello dear readers. It's been some time since my last update, so here's some news 🙂
We reached a milestone earlier this year - 10 wedding ceremony livestream gigs completed!
Its been a journey of upskilling - both technically, and also with providing this as a service to friends - figuring out how the communication, emails, mangaging payments and expenditure, etc ya'know?
Ironing out technical difficulties
You'd think HDMI cables and adapters just work. I've found that you also must test how you fit and attach the cable to prevent drop outs 😪
New gear
We've begun experimenting with a third camera angle via a wireless HDMI transmitter & extra DSLR camera plus capture card. Also testing the stability of a different laptop for streaming - USB bandwidth can be quite finicky..
Video Editing
I've also been learning how to video edit between multiple cameras. We bought a Studio license for DaVinci Resolve back in early 2021 ($434 AUD bundled with the Speed Editor, great bargain!) I still have yet to complete tutorials to properly utilise the Speed Editor and other things. And so of current I am not-so-speedy in getting the final cut edit done! But much improved I hope, given its been a year!!
All in all, not bad for a 2 year+ side gig! I do love finding ways to serve others through tech 🙂
A novel use of an external camera-mounted monitor: the OBS multi-view
Church Tech
Pulling together events - and the people for it - is a skill. I'm still learning. I had to work alongside various people to sort out logistics for Easter services, which was a learning experience (and God provides in the end!). Training volunteers to operate the "AV desk" on Sundays has been going well.
Tech Side Projects
Before "Covid changed everything" I used to enjoy some programming outside of my day job work hours. But I have since been spending time on other hobbies, projects, and other things in life (yay for growing up 😅). I've previously written blog posts on feeling too busy about side projects and mental fitness / wellbeing. Figuring out how to live in the rhythms of work and rest is certainly not so simple.
I do hope get some further work done on "VisionScreens" sometime soon - my longest running idea/dream/vision to build a modern, flexible and easy-to-use church presentation software package. I has been a few months since I last touched the codebase.
Apart from coding, I am currently playing with some used server hardware to build some NAS solutions. Including a Dell PowerEdge T320 that had been thrown out as rubbish somewhere in North Sydney. Another ongoing project is recovering data off a QNAP NAS that was hit by QLocker ransomware (being hacked and loosing data is terrible). And next up: OpenWrt failover WAN through a VLAN switch.
I'll claim the title of 'nerdy' 😂🤣
Time off and outside tech
I've enjoyed recent opportunities to enjoy the outdoors and hang with friends 🙂
Btw my friend Jason and I dropped in to The Little Lost Bookshop whilst in Katoomba - Jason bought 'a few' books on 'discount' (Karl is well known, or maybe it is the other way around?) and I laughed over a quality book-related meme with the lovely staff.
Oh, and have you ever heard about the Puritans? 😂🤣