CCTV Monitors - help!

[Keitha]

I realise that we have touched on CCTV installation generally on occasions, but this is a very specific request for help/advice please.

We are about to install quite a sophisticated multi-purpose CCTV system (a very generous parishioner has agreed to finance it!).  It will have to be digital, but I am comfortable dealing with the time delay.  My problem is selecting the best monitor.  It will not be built into the console.  Given the number of prominent new organs/rebuilds that have taken place in recent years which have digital screens, would some of you who have them be very kind and post details of the makes and types that you have (including the screen size if possible).  I'm not sure that on this forum we should be commenting on them, but I will be very happy to do my own research once I know where to look!

All contributions will be very gratefully received!

[MikeK]

I  realise you stated you would be happy with the digital time delay, however, other players, your successor might not be. Trying to follow a conductor whose beat can be seconds ahead of you is fraught with difficulties. Cannot a ‘stand alone’ analogue system be installed?

[innate]

20 hours ago, MikeK said:

Trying to follow a conductor whose beat can be seconds ahead of you is fraught with difficulties. Cannot a ‘stand alone’ analogue system be installed?

I remember the very early days of digital CCTV involved significant delays although I don’t think it was often more than half a second. But the A/D and D/A convertors are much quicker these days and such systems are now used without difficulty in eg West End and Broadway musicals where precise timing is crucial.

[Keitha]

Many thanks both for your contributions.  However, when I wrote "It will have to be digital" I meant it.  For a whole host of reasons, analogue is not possible, and in any event the system will only be used for watching a conductor for around 1% of its use.  As the technicians keep saying, the system is mainly to enable the organist to "have visuals on"(ie 'see'!) the 5 parts of the church where we have liturgical actions which cannot be seen from the console. innate is also right about the A/D and D/A converters - the delay is much shorter on modern hi-spec digital systems to the point where it's almost non-existent.

[innate]

2 hours ago, Keitha said:

The system is mainly to enable the organist to "have visuals on"(ie 'see'!) the 5 parts of the church where we have liturgical actions which cannot be seen from the console.

I’d be interested in knowing how your plans come to fruition. I’ve played a few cathedral organs where there are quite sophisticated CCTV systems with a number of fixed and moveable cameras. As a very temporary visitor I had to rely on the resident staff turning the system on and I didn’t dare try to adjust anything. Is the ideal to have just one screen for the organist (for neatness) which can be set to a single camera or switched to any combination of cameras in split-screen? 5 separate screens would make me feel like a security guard!

[Keitha]

There will be a single 15.6" screen which can be switched to any split-screen combination.  It will also have all cameras default to wide view on switch-on, so that visiting organists don't have to do anything with the system if they don't want to (but clear instructions will be available if they do!).

My problem is selecting the best monitor...

[MikeK]

Surely, the equipment installer can advise you the best monitor?

[davidh]

Note: this was first published on April 1st one year.

 

Folo Paril told me of a problem that he has just solved. He often has to accompany the church’s favourite soprano, but, as he is high up in the organ loft and she is almost at the other end of the church, it is difficult to provide a sensitive and responsive accompaniment. There is a perceptible delay before the sounds of the organ reach her and the same delay before her voice is heard back in the organ loft.

His first attempted solution was CCTV and the almost instantaneous response  of an old analogue system might have helped, but modern digital systems respond too slowly. Folo eliminated the return time from the singer by placing a radio microphone near the singer to relay her sound back to his headphones, but there was still the delay before the organ sound reached her.

He then had a new idea. He has a digital reverberation system attached to the electronic organ on which he practices at home. His device is entirely digital. It stores sound samples in a circular buffer and the samples are read out with various delays and summed in various proportions to simulate a variety of different acoustics. Folo observed that by selecting only values close to a particular delay it is possible to create an echo effect with a delay expressed in microseconds as a number greater than zero. He has now modified the software in the device so that it accept a negative numbers and this produces a negative delay. Thus he hears the singer in perfect  synchronisation with his playing.

I told him that this contradicted the basic laws of physics. He passed me his Tascam sound recorder and sent me downstairs with the instruction that I should not press the start button until I heard his first note. I protested that the recording would omit much of the first second of his music, but he told me to try it. When we played it back there was a brief silence before his first note was heard clearly from the beginning. Somehow it had started recording before I pressed the start button. If readers doubt this, I urge them to experiment with a Tascam or similar recorder, and they will prove for themselves that these have the gift of prophecy, beginning to record two seconds before the record button is pressed.

 

·*     A Tascam can be set in a ‘ready to record’ mode in which it begins buffering the sound. When the record button is pressed it transfers the content of the buffer to the output file before it starts adding new sounds. For this to work it has to be switched to ‘pre-record’ mode.

 

[Keitha]

Thanks.  It is really fascinating and I read it with interest when it was originally posted. For reasons that I don't fully understand, I regularly accompany solo cantors at this sort of distance and never seem to suffer from sound delay issues - even though we have a very 'warm' acoustic.  I think that I have solved my monitor problems following discussions with a number of colleagues at a Diocesan Music Directors meeting earlier this week.  We will be testing this evening and over the weekend (the monitor is due later this morning).  I will update as soon as I can...