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DThompson55  
#1 Posted : Saturday, March 26, 2022 10:30:09 AM(UTC)
DThompson55

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Our church has been using VMix for over a year, but I'm kind of new to it. They asked me if I could fill in for the main tech who's going on vacation. They walked me through a typical service and it just seemed to me that they were clicking way too many things and had to remember way too many procedural steps at every scene. They follow a printed run book for each services that tell them which asset to queue up, and then click fade to move it to the right side view, and then look back at the run book, decide if there's an overlay, click that, find the next asset by number queue that up, etc. and it just seems like a lot of clicking and looking at the run book and lots of room for errors. Is that the way it's supposed to work?



paco3346  
#2 Posted : Saturday, March 26, 2022 11:18:41 AM(UTC)
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As with most other software there are a lot of ways to use things. Most experienced vMix users use some form of automation whether its through triggers, scripting, or external devices.

It sounds like the existing tech people at your church are either unaware of some of the automation features or feel more comfortable triggering things by hand. A great stepping stone may be to use something like a Stream Deck (https://www.elgato.com/en/stream-deck).

vMix has a native integration for the Stream Deck or you can use some free third party software (https://bitfocus.io/companion/) that has more features but takes a bit more to set up.
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DThompson55 on 3/26/2022(UTC)
Caroline  
#3 Posted : Wednesday, May 18, 2022 5:24:46 AM(UTC)
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At our church, the one who runs the vMix is the one who created the bundle. That way, that person can decide how automated they want things.

We stream to Youtube so we let new people practice with the previous service. That is, the previous service plays on Youtube on a different computer while they work vMix. Whenever a mistake is made, stop and restart the video until they can do it 2 to 3 times perfectly. Don't let them leave that spot with an "oh, I know what I did wrong." Run the video at 1.5x to 2.0x speed. It keeps their interest up. Never practice at normal speed.

BTW, our Tech Lead likes to set up vMix so that the person only has to hit the NEXT key for the entire service. It takes him hours. AND his playlist cannot be changed without potential problems. I like to set up a minimal playlist with a lot of clicking for PowerPoint, EasyWorship, and sermon overlays. A lot of clicking.
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DThompson55 on 5/18/2022(UTC)
DThompson55  
#4 Posted : Wednesday, May 18, 2022 7:30:16 AM(UTC)
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Thank you Carolyn - We haven't done much with playlists. Maybe that's something to look into. In my spare time I'm working at setting something up so I have 2 buttons, a forward and a back button, (4 if you include FF and REW) and that seems to be coming along pretty well. We use a spreadsheet to drive the content. Each button click will send a spreadsheet row to vMix and then places the next spreadsheet row into preview. It will even renumber the spreadsheet if you happen to move inputs around in vMix. The spreadsheet is all dropdown lists using the vmix configuration as reference data for the dropdowns, so it's always in sync with vMix, and so you can pick inputs as you like and rearrange the spreadsheet rows to match the order of service. All of this because the first time I tried to use vMix to run a service it got out of hand quickly with all the clicking.
MickeyMJJ  
#5 Posted : Wednesday, May 18, 2022 10:25:54 PM(UTC)
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Originally Posted by: DThompson55 Go to Quoted Post
Thank you Carolyn - We haven't done much with playlists. Maybe that's something to look into. In my spare time I'm working at setting something up so I have 2 buttons, a forward and a back button, (4 if you include FF and REW) and that seems to be coming along pretty well. We use a spreadsheet to drive the content. Each button click will send a spreadsheet row to vMix and then places the next spreadsheet row into preview. It will even renumber the spreadsheet if you happen to move inputs around in vMix. The spreadsheet is all dropdown lists using the vmix configuration as reference data for the dropdowns, so it's always in sync with vMix, and so you can pick inputs as you like and rearrange the spreadsheet rows to match the order of service. All of this because the first time I tried to use vMix to run a service it got out of hand quickly with all the clicking.


Hello,
Would it be possible to have an example of what you are doing with an Excel file? I'm quite intrigued.
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