www.churchsoftware.co.uk

Advice on free PC software, multimedia and web design for individuals and churches

Below are personal recommendations on programs and techniques for your consideration. (The adverts on the left will offer alternative commercial products and services)

Recording Your Church Services

With a laptop and a microphone you can make a very good digital recording of your church service. Windows own recorder function is useless for this - it will only record 30 seconds of sound.  The set up I use is to record the service using a cheap logitech web cam.  I did experiment with microphones but for some reason I get a better result when I used the web cam. Its set for a fairly low resolution to keep the filesize down.  

I then use a shareware program called X2CD (shareware cheap, try before you buy) to chop off the bits before and after the service. I used to use it to split the file into tracks but I have found a better way.  You will have to chop it a bit further if it is more than 70 minutes long. I then use the convert function so that the video files become audio files (mp3), (or you could burn the CD directly).  X2CD works fine but it is a bit clumsy to use.  Its tricky to find the right start and stop points, if you have it set to burn CD and decide instead to convert then it will lose any track or file information that you have carefully put in.  

Once I have the whole service as an MP3 audio files then I use Nero 6.6 to burn the CD's. This program is often supplied free with CD writers or for a few pounds on Ebay as an OEM version. I discovered an edit function hidden away in Nero (Open Nero Smartsuit select make an audio CD, add your MP3 file for the whole service - now select the audio track - highlight it and press properties on the left, now select indexs, limits, splits. Nero will now make a loudness graph across the screen - you can enlarge it using zoom. When you look at it you can usually spot the very quiet bits at the end of a hymn, click play and confirm, then split (into tracks) you can usually do this in a few minutes then burn the CD's. It takes me less than 40 minutes to produce 6 CD's for housebound members.  As well as CD's its possible to put services on line in your webpage and even to broadcast them over the internet. Using music in this way raises copyright questions though.

Copyright Law

First of all this applies only to not for profit activities such as making CD's available for the housebound.  If you record only your own material - sermons, songs written by members who give you permission to record them, or hymns which are over 75 years old then you don't need a licence.  But if you are recording songs written less than 75 years ago then you need the CCL licence .  You'll find the exact terms and conditions on their site and the remedy which usually involves sending them money unfortunately. You need another licence if you are copying music and yet another licence if you are showing bits of films in church or using recorded music in church. It can get quite expensive.

Burntisland Parish Church  my church site

alansharp.co.uk   -    devoted to my hobby - electrical madness and highvoltage insanity