Project: ORAC part 2

Yesterday I spent about 8 hours on my computer re-build project.  I've decided to name him ORAC.  Double-geek points if you know what ORAC is without following the link to Wikipedia.  

Eight hours was long enough to assemble the whole thing from the parts and get Vista installed (thought not completely working, yet). I didn't run into any insurmountable obstacles, but this is by far the most complex computer build I've done to date.  Lots of little, sensitive pieces.  A few highlights:

• Quad-Core (Extreme Edition) Intel CPU
• 4 GB DDR3 RAM
• Asus Formula Extreme Motherboard (including water-cooled North-Bridge)
• Two 750 GB Hard-Drives in RAID 0 configuration
• Two ATI Radeon 3870 Video Cards

The CPU, as well as the Motherboard, are water-cooled, which means that water is pumped in a loop through two copper water blocks and then through a radiator on the exterior of the case. Because water cooling is much more efficient than water, the components will stay cooler, last longer, and can also over-clocked well beyond factory specs. Normally, my CPU should run at 3.0GHz, but with water cooling I should be able to manage 4.0GHz easy.

Of course, running plastic tubing with pressurized water through a case of precision electronics is a little nerve-wracking, but I managed it with only one leak! Luckily, I used a non-electrically conductive fluid in the loop--specially made for the task. This stuff also changes color from orange to green depending on the ambient light spectrum (cool, heh).

This whole system comprises a blazing fast workstation that will be great for video, audio, and still-image editing. The shear processing horsepower will make short work of the otherwise time-intensive work of transcoding video from one format to another. Even opening a 1.5 hour MP3 recording of the service into my editing program takes about 15 minutes with my current set-up (which ain't weak).

Of course, all this hardware depends on a working operating system! Vista (64-bit edition) loaded okay (it only took 26 minutes), but then I ran into problems getting the video cards' drivers to work. This whole driver issue has been a problem for many of the Vista early adopters, but I think I know how to fix it tomorrow. Eventually I plan to make this computer a dual-boot Vista/Linux system, so that I boot either operating system. Linux can be much more efficient for certain kinds of tasks, and mastering it will be a good challenge. I like learning new geeky skills.

What to with my old box? Maybe make it into a media file server for home? Perhaps. It's already four years old, so I won't get very much for selling it....

Here are some pictures of the build...

The components laid out.  Note the bottle of orange liquid cooling fluid.

Assembling the motherboard.

Denise supervises as I assemble the hard drive cage.

Me, liking my life.

The completed motherboard assembly.  Note the plastic tubing for liquid to flow from the CPU cooling block to the motherboard's cooling block.  You can also see the impressive silver-colored heat sinks of the two RAM modules.

ORAC completed.  Note the radiator on the back of the case and the wide tubes within.

-t

Video Workflow for the Geeky...

Okay, here's the workflow for posting that kind of video for those interested in such things...

I record the video of the service with a Canon HV-20 camcorder on a tripod at 1060i30 resolution. I also record the audio with an M-Audio Microtrack-II (MP3 at 224kbps / 44.1kHz) using a small stereo condenser mic clipped to the same stand that is holding the wireless handheld for the PA system).

I transfer the audio file to ORAC (my computer) and load it into Adobe Audition 3.0. I cut out the sermon, fix the levels and any problems, then save it at 128kps/44.1kHz and upload it to G-Cast where I can pull it later.

Next, I capture the video to my hard drive using HDVSplit. It's a very handy little app that does a good job of capture and happens to be free, too! Normally at this point I just capture what I need, as doing the whole tape takes about an hour.

In Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 I start a new project with the presets for 720p30. I copy and paste the title sequence from the last sermon video into the new project. I modify the things that need modifying and then put the new sermon video in place. Adjust the image, crop and zoom, etc. I then swap the audio track from the video camera with the audio I recorded with the Microtrack and sync them. This step, replacing the audio, makes a HUGE difference.

Once all that's done I export using the Adobe Media Encoder to a Flash video file (.flv) at 425X240, 29.97fps, 1.8kbps, using On2VP6 codec. 10 minutes equals about 150MB. I need to do some experimenting to find the right bandwidth sweet spot to get the size down, but that's not bad as long as my audience has broadband. Rendering an 11 minute file takes about 8 minutes thanks to ORAC's quad core.

At this point I upload the flv file to the COTM server using Dreamweaver (though you can FTP straight from Premiere Pro). I update an XML playlist to make sure the video gets pulled into my video player on the COTM website. And I can make a stand-alone viewing embed video (like the one below) using the same JWZ Player applet. Note that to pull videos from the COTM website onto the blog using the JWZ Player it is essential to have a "crossdomain.xml" file in the root directory of the COTM website.

I know, that sounds really complicated, doesn't it? In some ways it would be easier just to upload everything to You Tube or another video hosting website. But I like the added control of configuring my own player. I also like not being limited to the 10 minutes You Tube allows. Still, these 150MB files chew up server space real quick!

1ee7 users may note that I'm filming in 1060i and editing in 720p. The reason for that is simply that my video camera can't shoot in a progressive 30fps mode (not 720p nor 1080p), but flash does a better job with progressive video--so I have to deinterlace anyway and I might as well do so is such a way as to preserve some of the HD detail. Might be interesting to try the 1080p editing mode for comparison. But you really don't want to shink it down to 425X240 until the very end.

-t

Holy Cross's New Website

Okay, the new website for Holy Cross Monastery is up and running. Still a lot to do, but it's ready for it's "shakedown" cruise. If you spot any typos, do let me know...

Still left to do:

1. Redo the Order's Website (as opposed to the Monastery's website that I just did!)
2. Implement an .htaccess to execute server-side 301 redirects (though I did put HTML-based redirects in temporarily)
3. Add a search engine
4. Add a shopping cart front/back end to process online book store orders
5. Add a Script to auto-generate RSS feeds
6. Migrate the site over to a CMS back-end
7. Add a social-networking site for Associates (possibly Jomsocial?)
8. Add videos highlighting aspects of HCM life including worship, community life, vocations, hospitality ministry, outreach, history of the order, etc.
9. Train the monks to maintain the site
10. Possibly add dynamically-generated Ordo?

Anyway, it's an ambitious project. I'm pleased to be this far with it. Obviously, a lot of content came from the monks (especially the photos from Br. Randy). But as usual I relied on my trusty ORAC running Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and Bridge to compile everything and make it look pretty. Thank God for Photoshop scripts! I saved myself a lot of time by creating batch processes to add drop shadows and borders and such.

For the next stage (CMS-Content Management System) I've set up a testing server on ORAC that basically creates an emulation of an Apache Server with MySQL so that I can set up and test my scripts locally before I go live with them.



I'm particularly proud of some of the detail touches like a new Incense order form that is a fill-able PDF form.

The monks say that virtually everyone that books a retreat or comes considering vocation has spent considerable time looking over the website, so having a decent one is an obvious priority. I was glad things worked out for me to help them with it!

As for the videos. I have two of twelve interviews done. Each is a about an hour. Plenty of content coming together already, but I have more B-Roll to shoot (tomorrow I'll get Edward cooking) and won't be able to film much for the next 10 days anyway as the monks are on "Long Retreat."

You see, now that the Guest House is closed it's time to take a break. 10 days of silence and prayer and meditation. We kicked it off with a party, of course (read Bede's description if you're curious), and now things will get deep in a different way.

My project for Long Retreat (since I can't interview any of the monks, anyway) is to build my amplifier. I've got almost all the parts (still need the wood and brass to build an enclosure) and have started assembling the circuit board. I'm substantially modifying the K-12G design using VoltSecond and Bruce Heran's recommendations. I find myself really wishing I had a good bench Oscilloscope with an audio analysis module. Both VoltSecond and Bruce did a lot of trial and error and testing to perfect their builds, and I'm just standing on their shoulders.

Still, the smell of solder is pleases me!

-t

Adobe CS4

Today I spent some time in the office answering e-mails, a few phone calls, and I made a pastoral visit.

I can't really talk about the interesting adventure that was that pastoral visit (ever put together shelves on such a visit). So instead I'll talk about the interesting adventure that is the new Adobe CS4 Suite. This is a set of professional-level programmes for producing all kinds of media including websites (Dreamweaver), photos (Photoshop), movies (Premiere Pro), etc. I've been using CS3 for a while, but there are at least three features I found missing, all of which have been resolved with the latest version.

First, the old version of the Adobe Suite did not have the ability to take advantage of the complete power of my workstation (ORAC)--principally in that it didn't take advantage of the 64-bit architecture (though most of the suite was able to use the four-processors simultaneously). The new version makes much more efficient use of the latest processors/operating systems.

Second, I was always frustrated that Premiere Pro Couldn't import the MP4 files from my Flip HD camera. The Flip Cam takes surprisingly good footage considering that it is very small (easily fits in a chest pocket), but I was limited to using the editing software that came with the camera. I had yet to find a good (lossless) way to convert the footage into a format Premiere Pro could work with. So it was good for spontaneous, informal video snapshots, but that was it. Now, however, that problem with CS4 is solved! It has no problem at all taking the footage at 720p and editing it.

Third, here is a feature I didn't know I wanted until someone invented it: speech recognition. Basically, CS4 can create a transcription of the speech in a video that is then searchable as meta-data. Searchable not only from within Premiere Pro, but from within other programmes like Adobe Bridge. Imagine you just shot a three hour interview with two cameras. That's six hours of footage, and you want to find where your subject said something distinctive like, "it was at that moment that I knew that pickles are good in hamburgers." Rather than have to "scrub" (fast forward) through hours of footage, you can simply search through the automatically generated transcript! How cool is that? Here's a demo:



There are lots of other improvements, as well. The media encoder is much improved, especially because you can have it running in the background while you do other work. There are also a lot more pre-sets and options for importing and exporting data. it's all very, very cool.

-t

Project: ORAC Part 1

This week I ordered the first of the parts for my computer rebuild. They included a Thermaltake Black Armor Full-Tower ATX Case, An Asus Maximus Extreme Motherboard, and an Intel Core 2 Extreme Quad-Core Processor (3.0 GHz). This is just the beginning of what is going to be one bad-ass workstation. My intention is to get back into creating websites for the church, and that means being able to edit image, sound, and video files. With my current computer I can do those first two fairly easily, but editing video has been difficult and inefficient. The transcoding alone (taking it from one format to another) takes hours with my single Pentium 4. More than quadrupling my processor power ought to help with all kinds of media-creation tasks.

I'm also looking forward to the craftsmanship aspect of the project. the "Leviathan" is going to require some new skills from me. I've never done water-cooling, for example, until now. That's right, my computer will use a system of circulating water to cool down some critical components. Stay tuned for more updates as I assemble the components...

-t

Stewardship

Just recently the Stewardship Committee of the church had it's first meeting. It went extremely well and the ideas flowed fast and furious. Lots of creativity and energy! I'm looking forward to sharing more of what we came up with once it's formed. We looked at the programme recommended by the Diocese, but then took it a few steps further that take it into new ground. More specifically, we've cup with a way of making it more missional. I'll write more about what we have in mind later...

This week has been busy, I'm definitely looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow morning and then having a relatively light day at work. Perhaps I'll finally finish editing the video from Sunday's sermon!

Lately I've been intrigued by the possibility of building my own sports car--specifically a variation of the Shelby Cobra. I'm not talking about building a replica of the 60's era car, but rather marrying the classic styling with the best of modern technologies. For instance, you can build a cobra-like roadster with anti-lock breaks and an advanced dual-overhead cam, fuel injected engine. Many people do this by buying a used Mustang to use as a "donor." The engine, transmission, breaks, power steering etc. are then used in conjunction with a kit that provides the frame, suspension, body, etc., etc. The other option is to build car completely from new parts, also with a kit. Either way, one the most popular such kits, made by Factory Five, is designed to keep project costs to about $24,000 (including the donor car) and 200 hours of labour. That's an extremely reasonable price (both in terms of time and money) when you consider that the typical Cobra kit-built car can outperform almost any production exotic sports car. Even with a 350HP V-8 it can accelerate faster than a Porsche 911 and is only beaten in 0-60 by the $650,000 Enzo Ferrari! If that's not good enough, you can get even more powerful engines until you reach the car's design limit of 1,000HP. Yes, people have put a 1,000HP engine in a 2,000 lbs convertible!

A Factory Five Mark 3 Roadster
These kits are available from a number of different companies, and there is a very large community of helpful enthusiasts to lend advice during the project. Reading about it on-line, I'm extremely impressed by what "average joes" have been able to build in their home garages without a lot of special equipment or even experience at car-building.

So my fantasy is to spend two months some summer building my own car by hand. Alas, this will probably have to wait a few years until whatever kids we might have are off to University and I've got both the time and the money to do such a project. I'm reminded of the New York Times reporter that built a Cobra as a father-son project. Maybe when Betsy and I have kids I'll take on a project like that with my son or daughter. We'll see, I'm getting ahead of myself!

Why do I find this so compelling? I think I just enjoy the craft of building something as complex and sexy as a really hot car. I get great satisfaction from using a computer that I built myself, and this is really just an extension of that. What can I say, I like building stuff!

Speaking of ORAC (my computer)... That project went extremely well. I've had no troubles at all with that set-up. At least, not from a hardware point of view--Windows Vista can be temperamental sometimes. But I find the processing horsepower of that beast very helpful with all the video and audio editing I've been doing lately.

Anyway, time for bed. I'm tired.

-t

Sunday Morning Grace

This morning, as I went through my usual before-Sunday-morning routine, I did not feel god about it at all. I was particularly fretting over my sermon, given how disappointing I found last week. I also had other things on my mind that made me feel less than stellar about my ministry. All the way down the hill on my 15 minute walk I second guessed various decisions that I've made over the last seven months. It was not a good day to be Tay.

But then I sat down at my computer (ORAC) in my office and worked on my sermon some more. As is often the case, the breakthrough came when I read someone else's inspiring sermon. So true--you have to hear the Word before you can preach the word. In particular, it was this sermon by the Rev'd Dr James Lemler, Priest-in-Charge at Christ Church, Greenwich, CT, that struck me. It's entitled, "Blah, Blah, Blah... Love." Essentially, it's about how the Trinity is way of saying that at the heart of God is love. Earlier I had read some more academic versions of the same idea (including something by Jürgen Moltmann).

Attendance was low--the rain and the long Victoria Day weekend didn't help--but everyone was there that was supposed to be there, and as soon as the service started I could tell that it would be a graceful, if quiet, morning. I wouldn't say it was solemn, exactly, more like "gentle." Hard to know what takes a service in the direction of one mood or another. Is it the weather? It is it me? Hard to know.

But as soon as I started my sermon I knew that I was in the zone. It was a quiet sermon, but really smooth and nice. I thought it was the strongest sermon I've given for a few weeks--but it's hard to know how other people liked it. Anyway, I'll post it when I get a chance.

What struck me, even during the service, was the way in which you can receive grace from the Sunday morning worship if you allow yourself to be open to the Spirit. For instance, since I had to do anointing and laying on of hands, I had to ask an extra person to be a Minister of Communion who normally doesn't get to do it. Many more than usual came up to receive anointing than usual, and since I didn't have to worry about distributing communion I could take my time and really pray for each of them. After everyone had received the sacraments, I kneeled at the rail myself and asked one of the Ministers of Communion to pray over and anoint me. Many priests do not have the humility to allow someone to pray over them during a service they are supposed to be leading--but why not? How do you expect your people to accept prayers for healing, in public, if you yourself will not submit to receive this grace?

How can this not be what I'm supposed to do at COTM? Preach the Gospel and convey God's Grace... what else is there for a parish priest?

-t

The Busy Beehive of the Mind

Today was filled with various projects. One of the more significant things I did was finally post the job description for the Director of Children's and Youth Ministry. We are hoping to hire someone part-time. They would partly pick-up where Megan left-off, and partly take things in a slightly different direction in accord with the emerging vision of Children's and Youth ministry here. That means, for example, developing a youth program that will suit our kids growing into their teen years.

I posted the job description in various places, including the COTM website and the Diocesan website. I've also listed with an on-line job database (Christian Careers Canada). Trinity and Wycliffe have agreed to post and distribute the posting, as well. So we'll see what kind of response that gets!

Although originally I was supposed to have gotten this posted months ago, I'm glad I waited. I'm in a MUCH better position now to understand where our program is and where I want it go than I was even a month or two ago. I really feel like I'm ready to make that hire, now. Stay tuned for developments.

Lots of e-mails back and forth today. For one thing, I've been corresponding with the priest of the Anglican Church in Istanbul seeking advice about finding reasonably priced accommodation, etc. Fr. Ian Sherwood has a fascinating ministry. He has done a ton (or as he would say, "tonne") to develop the Anglican ministry in his city. He restored their historic church (apparently even sleeping in it for a while to protest a planned sale of the property), built up a thriving ministry to immigrants, and generally has done the Lord's work in a land where even possessing Christian literature in Turkish can get you in serious trouble. I'm looking forward to meeting him.

Also on my mind--the possibility of starting a MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) program here at COTM. It's basically an opportunity for mothers in the community to gather, share fellowship, enjoy peer-support, and receive mentoring. What I've found so far tells me that it requires little parish resources, and it seems to fit our demographics well. In fact, several members of the congregation recall a similar group that met here years ago. Stay tuned...

Oh, and I monkeyed around with Adobe Premiere Pro. Editing Video these days is all about knowing your formats. I miss the good-old days of the VHS editing suite in the basement of Hampden-Sydney College. (Actually, I don't mean that. Premiere Pro works like a champ on ORAC and I'm having a ball learning how to do this stuff.) Here's a first attempt on my new rig. Of course, I need to put together some Title Cards and all that good stuff--but it's a proof of concept and good experiment in work-flow.



Oh yes, something else on my mind, I think I need to do some teaching around the use of female images of God in liturgy. I'm not sure what shape that will take, but the congregation seems curious about it. (Partly because we use hymns from time-to-time that refer to God with feminine pronouns.) I keep thinking of some of the things Siobhán Garrigan (one of Betsy and my Professors back at YDS) had to say about shifting congregations to more inclusive language--mainly that it requires a long time and much education and patience. Yet the results seem worth it to me--nothing less than a more correct and Biblical (yes, Biblical!) expression of the Truth. Yes, I know many of you read this could give me a good argument about that, and that's all good. I think that theology (that is, how we speak of God) ought to be something that stirs up passions.

-t

Vista

So today I pulled the principle hard drive from my old computer and installed it into my new one to facilitate moving my e-mail, etc., over to the machine. So what work I did on my computer today I did on Vista 64. So far, it seems okay. Not much different from XP, really, which is to say that most of the problems that XP had are still there (although people do say it's a bit more crash-resistant than XP).

The real proof will come once I get the Adobe suite installed and start putting ORAC through his paces! I expect to have some problems with software that was designed to run on XP(32-bit), etc. Since the photos from Palm Sunday arrived today, I have PLENTY of content to start editing and putting onto the website. I also have my Easter Sermon to post. Of course, I made the current COTM website in Wordpad and could keep coding by hand if necessary, but editing the image, audio, and video files will require that I get the Adobe Suite going. (Or, worst case, alternative editors).

Today I brought Easter Communion to a couple unable to come to church for health reasons. As I'm not keeping Reserve Sacrament at COTM until I get my tabernacle (currently on order), I called down to Redeemer and they were more than happy to give me some of theirs. The couple I visited received me graciously and gave me some tea and "biscuits" after I gave them the sacrament. Nice people.

Life is good.

-t

Road Trip!

Photo by Randy, OHC

Last night I was exhausted by the time I picked up a friend from the airport and got home and had supper. Plans to pack up my computer last night dissolved under the influence of red wine and pizza! But I did manage to pack my suitcase.

This morning I got up at reasonable hour (7 A.M.) and loaded the car with the stuff I'm taking from home. Then I said goodbye to the cats and headed over to my office to do some last minute stuff (like burn CD's to listen to in the car) and pack up my computer. My computer ("ORAC") includes a VERY heavy full-tower unit that houses the drives and motherboard and all that, there are two-monitors and two external hard drives and a gazillion cords. But I couldn't imagine producing these videos for the Order without my workstation, so it was worth the effort.

After some last minute banking I finally got on the road at 11 a.m., but I made excellent time (7.5 hours) and managed to sneak in to the last part of supper before they cleared away the food! On the drive down I listened a pretty eclectic selection that included Tori Amos, Jay-Z, Neil Diamond, and even a bit of Enya! The border crossing into the U.S. was faster than usual and the roads were relatively clear. Being alone for a while gave me the chance to think through a number of things on my mind. I used to drive like this often all over Connecticut.

After supper I unpacked my car and went to a flute recital in the church. A well-known flutist is holding a "master class" workshop this week and kicked it off with a recital of his own. On Sunday afternoon the whole group will perform a concert together in the church. I attended it in years past when I was in Residency here, and I can tell you that the voice of the flute just sores in the church acoustic! Most of the students that come to study the flute here for an intensive week are already very committed and skillful, as you might expect! I also have permission to record the concert.

When I went to the recital this evening I noticed something right away. The windows were open. The city-sounds would make this unthinkable for a recital in Toronto, but out here all I could hear were a few faint song birds. I sort of forgot how quiet it can be outside until this afternoon!

The monks put me in the same rooms were in the last time I visited. Sort of a guest suite for Residents. It's quite, and very spacious. I set up one room as my office and still have a bedroom and a sitting room to spare! Once up a time this was the publications office. Long before that (when the building was built) I believe these were small chapels. Back then Anglo-Catholic priests (and back then all the Brothers of the Order were also priests) would say a Mass once a day as part of their vocational piety. To accomplish this in a house full of priests you naturally need a lot of little chapels! They would take turns saying the Mass and being the acolyte, then switching. No congregation except the heavenly hosts. All that changed after Vatican II, of course.

It's 11 P.M. and I'm exhausted. Time for bed. Mattins in the morning!

-t