My church has for a while now taped special events at the church. We have always used an NLE to produce the final product.

We are now wanting to do a weekly live production.

I really need help on what equipment and configuration we need
-What is the best way to get the camera feeds (2-4 cameras) back to the video mixer (S-video, firewire???)
-What is the best way to capture the video (from the mixer to a recording source)
-Any other info that might be helpful.

I want to keep the same quality that we have now going through the NLE,but do not know how to go about it.

Any help would be appreciated

Hi Derek,
I work in a church in Canada that has been doing this for some time, so here's what I've learned/noticed over the past few years:

Best way to get camera feeds back to the video mixer is through BNC - it's designed for long runs and is cheap and twists onto the camera so it doesn't get yanked off, very useful if you have a guy on a handheld cam in the band or something like that. Of course, it depends on your cameras and video mixer, so if you could mention those it would help.

Capturing video from the mixer is best done through firewire - if your mixer doesn't have it (most don't) then an analogue to digital converter such as those made by Canopus is your best choice to get it into the computer, if that's what you're recording on.

If the services in your church are short and you have time to edit, you could try taping it or capturing onto firestores.

I think the most important thing about doing video in a church setting is to get good camera operators - it's impossible without a team effort. Since it's a church, I'm assuming you'll be using a few volunteers, which is both good and bad. It's good because it will give people who are talented and passionate about it the opportunity to use those skills and improve, but you'll also get people who need a lot of training to get where you want them.

Hope that's helpful, and let me know if you have any other questions

Derek,
Is this live as in broadcast of a live service or recording for later broadcast?

Sam Gates