How's everybody doing?
Hope everybody just heard that.
I know John's not here.
So we'll see how it goes in the, in the final minutes.
It's good to be back.
It's been a while.
It has been a while.
Thanks for hanging with us.
Yeah.
Have you, John in particular, attempted to listen to the previous show at all?
No, I didn't get to.
Okay.
I threw a extra bonus in there if anybody was willing to kind of stick around and listen.
I took an episode of No Agenda that is kind of their episode that's best for people to
listen to, to learn the podcast and smash it on the end and then made sure to put stuff
in the show notes.
So like, Hey, if you enjoyed that bonus, go send those guys some sats.
Nice.
So I also put a question in the show notes to see if anybody was even just reading them.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
We'll see.
Yeah, we'll see.
Nothing yet.
Okay.
I mean, you know, still early.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
So, Hey, what you drinking?
What are we drinking tonight, boys?
I have a Dragon's Milk Crenzen Keep.
This is from a brewery in Michigan.
Jason Court brought it to me.
Okay.
Yeah.
So it's a Red Ale aged in a bourbon barrel.
I haven't tried it yet.
So here goes for the first week.
Ooh.
Yeah.
You drink too many of those.
They'll put you on your hind end.
That's good.
It's like basically liquor, right?
Yeah.
You can really taste the bourbon.
But that's, that's good.
That's good.
You know, typically you have a Red Ale, you don't, you don't get anything like that.
So the fact that it came out of a bourbon barrel, that's a nice change.
I'm drinking the world's oldest brewery via Stefano.
Yeah.
I love that.
I'm impressed that you could pronounce it.
Premium.
Well, I tried a few times.
I don't actually know if that's, I mean, you know, it's one of those things.
Anyone here know how to say Worcestershire sauce?
I mean, we're all just butchering it.
But I've actually had this beer quite a few times and I like it.
It is a milder, blonder beer.
And it's perfect for those not laying down on your backside after the end of it.
Yes.
So we'll see how I hold up throughout the show.
Yeah.
Cheers.
That's good.
Yes.
I'll go slow on this one.
I'm not going to try one of those red keeps now.
I haven't seen this one in Tyler, but fresh does have the stout.
And I've had that before.
This is pretty good too.
Okay.
So.
All right.
Well, everybody, it's new year.
New show.
New year 2024.
Yeah.
Yeah, I've already heard people joking while I've already screwed up.
So 2025 is my year.
I can't, I can't say I haven't screwed up yet, but I'm, I'm doing better in 2024 than
I was in 2023.
Holy cow.
That was a rough one.
Yeah.
I'm, I'm not prepared to say that it can't get any worse.
It seems like every year just keeps finding a new way to say, hold my beer.
So I'm going to, I'm going to lay off on that and we'll see what 2024 has in store.
Yeah, for sure.
I'm, I'm looking forward to it.
I think that it has the potential to, if I'll just let it come to me as opposed to trying
to, you know, muscle my way through it.
Maybe, maybe this will be a better year, but you know, in the, in the, I guess, way of
the new year, I'm praying blessings over your year for sure.
Yes.
Yeah.
Hopefully we finally get this thing figured out and worst case scenario, I guess we'll,
we'll have to go back to doing the shows.
I guess, well, I say worst case, but if it comes down to it, we'll just go back to where
we did the first show.
Cause it worked like a champ.
Yeah, it did.
Seems like everything works a little bit easier when everybody's in the, in the same location.
Same room.
So, yeah.
So in going through this, I would have to say that some of the shows that I listened
to, they do a great job of making this remote piece look easy.
Yeah.
What is that?
Yeah.
They're just better at this than we are.
I guess when you do it for a living and you have, neither one of us is getting paid for
the crack.
There's no, no paid.
We're using our own gear.
We're not Chad Larsh's and we're not formally trained.
No, not formally trained.
We're informally trained.
Informally.
That's correct.
Yeah.
I actually, man, I almost bought some gear this December at the end of the year, I guess.
I just, I'm realizing more and more like the, the majority of what I do is just me and I
want to be able to, you know, you know, like part of me wants to have a road caster or
like the, probably the duo or something like that.
We've joked about the streamer and things like that, but you know, at the end of the
day, it might just make better sense for me to get like a really high end USB-C mic and
stop messing with half of what I'm doing.
But yeah, I just always want a little more control.
Absolutely.
So if, if I was buying now, I probably would buy the duo because it has everything that
this road caster has just minus the two channels and that wouldn't hurt me one bit.
No.
And there's been a lot of like, it's kind of funny.
I don't know if you've kept up with the, the X, the road, road X stuff that they're, that
they're doing.
Like they're not the only ones, but just as an example, because we were talking about
road caster this idea of, Oh no, we're, we're, we're going to look at the solo podcaster
or the streamer real hard and say, like, if we can put everything in the road caster on
a software and you just plug in your USB-C like that, that's pretty attractive to be
able to do all of that.
Like you know, you're, you're running your from one computer.
You're still only using one computer, right?
Yep.
You're running your, your voice in through the road caster, but then you're also running
audio from your computer into the road caster and then back out to the computer, at least
the ones that I can hear then for me to be able to hear them.
And so there's, there's like, there's extra hurdles inside of that where they're saying
like, no, I can actually, and it actually works better.
Chris, this works better on windows machines than it does on Macs because windows has that
the ability to split audio out inside of per app.
What's going to it and what's not.
Whereas Mac has held onto that control because that's Apple.
Do it, do it our way is their motto.
Yeah.
Now with road, I think they're calling, they're still calling that software unity.
Is that correct?
Yeah.
They, so it started out as a windows only piece of software, but now they've got a Mac
version.
It was, it may be out of beta.
I don't think it's in beta anymore.
But I've got it on this machine.
I've messed with it a little bit and it's, it's very nice.
I don't, I don't have any hesitation recommending it for people that are like, you know what,
that's a two or what is the, the duo, I think is it 500 or is it 600?
No, yeah, I think it is fine.
It's amazing that
It's like seven or eight for the full road caster.
Yes.
And the stream is only like, or is the stream X streamer X.
Streamer X.
That's, that's another, I think it's 300 or something.
350 now.
Yeah.
And it's like, that's just a lot of money.
So if you're, if you're like, Hey, I found this USB-C mic that I really like, which I'm
telling you, like they've got the XDM 100 and the XCM.
And again, I'm just talking about road.
There's plenty of others.
But the, the XDM I think is 250.
So it's a savings in itself.
And then the XCM, which is a condenser mic, but it still sounds like, I mean, I say it
still sounds really good.
Condenser condenser mic sounds really good.
But when I heard it, I didn't hear a lot of other room noise around it.
So that made me think maybe it could be just as good.
I'm really partial to dynamic microphones.
But that's me.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, if you noticed, I've gone back to mine, I'm not on the, the Luit tonight
to see if it helps with some of the background pickup.
I mean, the Luit is amazing.
The sound quality.
I love it.
Yeah.
I just need a, it's hard to get away from that.
Like once you've heard that like really crisp sparkle, like clear clarity that comes from,
you know, these condenser microphones, they're, they're addictive.
And that's why, you know, you can easily spend thousands of dollars on a condenser microphone.
Yep.
I need a dedicated room that has sound treatment on the walls and the ceiling.
And then I can go back to the Luit full time.
Yeah, we all, we all need that.
The little booth.
You've seen those portable recording booths that are like just around your head.
I haven't seen that.
I've seen where you can buy basically a booth and it's kind of like three foot by maybe
four foot and you actually have a door so you can kind of walk in and shut the door
and you're inside of a mini, mini sound booth.
I know some folks use those for doing a voiceover from home.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, I've seen those.
We just bought, at the church, we just bought a full drum enclosure.
So it is intense.
It is, it is a, the box that it came in was more engineered than most things that I've
done.
It was ridiculous.
But it's going to be really good.
You know, that sound isolation is important.
Yeah, they'll definitely have to make sure they keep good cans on their ears so they
don't go deaf extra fast.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, I almost bought my, or brought my custom molds for use today, but yeah, I forgot them.
They had no big deal.
No big deal.
All right.
Well for tonight, came up with an idea to talk about trends that we're seeing.
AV, IT, some of those may be good, some of those may be bad.
So any fellow employees that are listening, I'm not trying to be mean.
I'm not trying to be, to be bad.
I'm just sharing some opinion and it doesn't mean that it reflects on you in any way.
So get that full disclosure.
My mother would say, choose not to be offended.
There you go.
So I'm going to lead with the big one and that is going to be, for me, that's AI and
the whole chat GPT.
It has its places.
We've actually used it for basically scripting.
It's perfect for that.
You don't have a background in scripting and you're looking for a little help.
Chat GPT is a great way to go.
Now odds are they're scraping somebody's coat that they spent a lot of time and effort into
and then I get all the benefit without any of the work or knowing who did it.
So you can't even give credit to wherever credit is due, but the scripting that you
get back from it is top notch.
It's really saved us quite a bit when we've needed it, whether that's PowerShell script,
Bash shell.
It's great.
I was about to ask if you're using Basher.
Yeah, yeah.
We have both since we have Mac and PC.
So PC is better.
PC for the win.
So my kids have asked about it for schoolwork and that's where things start to get a little
kind of hairy and it's like, yeah, but you know, it's one thing if you're stuck on like
a math problem and you're looking for a solution.
Yeah, you can get, it can get you stuff like that, but you're not going to actually see
how it's being solved.
And we're constantly hearing stories about people using it to write papers and getting
exposed for the whole paper being chat GPT.
So you're going to have to always deal with that.
And the most recent one that I actually heard on a podcast is somebody had given feedback
to a developer and the feedback was, it was a little harsh and they ran it through chat
GPT and said, make this sound friendly.
And it did an amazing job of taking what was somebody just kind of bashing your app is
horrible.
I'm not going to use it.
It just worked and made it really nice and soft and yeah, where a developer could take
it and go, okay, yeah, those are good points.
You're not just destroying my app.
So that was interesting to see.
They did it in real time.
They found the post, copy paste and said, make this sound friendly.
And then they read it off right there on the show.
Wow.
So it has his use cases.
So I have a friend who's in higher education.
Okay.
And he really is like, he's, he's not just teaching in a university, but he is actively
involved in teaching trends and trying to figure out best best practices when it comes
to a lot of things.
And as you can imagine, this is a big deal in universities and stuff like that.
He had a take that I did not actually see coming.
He was like, I don't think this kind of AI is going away.
What we have to do as educators, especially as college educators is teach our students
how to use the tools that they have the most effective.
And so he was saying, teach them how to use chat GPT in the best way that they can.
And I was like, now that like, that's, that's tough on me because I remember having to write
50 page papers and not enjoying that.
And you're telling me somebody could do a 50 page paper with chat GBT with less effort
because they don't have to come up with exactly the words and the phrasing and all that stuff.
They just kind of have to give an outline of what they want it to be.
And he was like, yes, I think that that is kind of the nature of an evolving tool market.
You don't ask a mechanic anymore if they can redo the, you know, the timing on the spark
or the timing on them.
Oh my gosh.
Now I'm blanking on names.
Timing chain, camshaft.
I was thinking more of the rotor.
Holy crap.
Yeah.
The rotor with the old school rotor cap and button.
There you go.
Trying to, trying to get that to, to, to sing that way because the cars aren't made that
way anymore.
They made a different way.
And I was like, I, I, it's hard for me to like, get over that because it feels like
such an injustice that, you know, they don't have to do what I had to do.
But that's also kind of the nature of everything inside of progress.
We are in fact talking to each other through this computer.
It's a different world.
It is.
And I'm sure the people who had to only use a library were frustrated when people had
encyclopedias to use.
And I'm sure both of those people were frustrated as eventually you had computers that you could
use.
Oh man.
And then now with...
I don't want to like give away ages too much, but I'm telling you, when I was writing books,
when I was writing papers, we weren't allowed to use internet sources, anything that was
Googled or anything, because they were not reputable.
You could not like, not it.
You got to go find it in the library.
And oh my gosh.
Yeah.
It's amazing what can be done with chat GPT.
And I don't like that they call it AI.
It's really not artificial intelligence.
They're really large language models.
And so you're basically giving it all the pieces that it needs.
You're just coming up with the prompting for it to give you what it wants and the structure
that you're looking for.
So AI is a little bit of a misnomer there.
It's almost skip logic in a way, more so than AI.
I'm a hardliner when it comes to AI.
To me, artificial intelligence, I guess, basically I'm talking to chat and GPT, the large language
model is purely the English language.
And it starts coming off.
And I guess even within that, it's going to still be limited in what it can do.
So when it starts coming up with things that are not in the model, okay, now we're talking
AI, something has happened.
It's pulling information that it doesn't have, shouldn't have.
Something is learning.
Something is, we're basically Skynet at that point and we're all in trouble.
That's not coming anytime soon.
Don't talk to Cody about his time in Vegas this past time.
There's a scary video.
Okay.
I will have to ask him about that.
I'd love to know.
There may have been a robotic personage that was making eye contact with people and then
asking them where they were from.
And then based on that, asking them what they like to do and then talking about how they
of course like to do that because there's so many islands around where they live and
having a conversation.
I was like, somebody pull that plug.
But again, that's all happening through large language model.
So there, you've basically, again, it has all of the knowledge that it needs to carry
on a conversation, which is why it can write you a 50 page paper and it makes sense.
It's when it starts skipping out into things that it has no knowledge of.
That's where we've gone.
Artificial intelligence, that's when we have a problem.
So as long as it's returning things that are solely based off of the model that it's running,
it's just running in loops.
It knows how to structure because it's all baked into the model.
So that's why I say to me, I don't see it as AI.
AI is when these things start learning things that we haven't given them.
Now, I have no doubt that it's probably creepy to be looking at a robot and having a conversation
and it sounds like it knows exactly what it's talking about as if it's seen these things,
experienced these things.
And I'm sure that is creepy as all get out, especially when it looks like a human being.
Yeah.
I mean, with the eye contact and everything, that's messed up.
Yeah.
That makes me start thinking of, was it the most recent version of Blade Runner?
Yeah.
Kind of getting into that level.
Yikes.
So I agree.
Yeah, Chachi's a trend for sure.
Oh yeah.
It's not going anywhere.
There's of course now Elon has jumped in the game with Gronk or whatever it is he's calling
his version of it.
I don't know that I share his vision of AI is going to kill us all.
I mean, I could be completely wrong and he ends up being right in the end, but it just
didn't seem like we're anywhere near that.
Close to there.
Yeah.
And I never interpreted scripture to be, Oh, hey, watch out for the AI.
So I don't, I don't, I don't think I've read that.
No, unless there is some newfangled interpretation that I am not aware of.
So, but yeah, unfortunately AI is not going anywhere.
The whole concept of it.
I'd be curious to see how long this train can go because all previous iterations and
attempts at AI, they kind of peaked and it fell apart.
So I'll be curious to see how long, how long this lasts or what potentially is going to
potentially replace it as it starts to fade away.
Cause there's always going to be the next thing.
Always.
That's, it's, I mean, you know, we talk about trends, there's nothing actually new under
the sun.
I do believe that.
So it's just a loop like you were talking about.
Yep.
With stuff like this.
It all repeats itself.
Cause I guess it was sixties was some of the first iteration of AI and then it came back
in the eighties and then now it's back again.
And we've seen, I remember in the eighties, it was kind of like, Oh no, like this isn't
a thing.
And so there was, there was, there was a lot of like buildup and then it just disappeared.
Like it wasn't like we weren't, we're nowhere close.
So VR is another great example of that cycle.
Yeah.
They keep trying to bring it back and bring it back and bring it back.
You know, they're really trying to ride that train now.
It's interesting.
It's fun.
It's, it's actually not bad for games.
It feels, it feels very immersive.
But I just don't think people want to live in a VR environment all day long.
And there may, there may be some, but the vast majority of people, it's, it's not, you
know, it's not going to be like ready player one.
No.
And I like that they've, that they've started doing the, or focusing more on the augmented
reality instead of just virtual reality.
The idea that you can, you can adapt what you're seeing.
I'm actually pretty excited about Apple's headset when it comes to that.
If not, I'm not going to own one, but like, if, if that, if that pushes anything forward
in terms of research and everything like that, I like that idea.
I like the idea that like, I laugh, my wife and her sister have recently picked up Pokemon
Go.
So it's really funny when we're driving in the car and I hear my wife say, slow down.
I need to catch this.
Now that was a great example, I think of augmented reality.
When that game released and seeing on the news of all things, people swarming all over
towns staring at the world through their phone and just kind of like, it was, it was crazy
to see, but again, a great example of augmented reality.
I like the concept of augmented reality.
So you're at a art museum, a history museum, you're at a civil war location where a battle
went on, you know, to be able to augment what you're seeing, you get that extra information,
they get that extra detail.
I really love the idea of that.
I don't know that that's quite catching on, but I certainly love the idea of that far
better than virtual reality.
There was a trend about 10 years ago in worship centers and worship.
I guess it was 10 years ago, maybe later than that.
But the idea was a lot of churches were using multipurpose or just really blank canvas areas
for worship.
You know, this is also doubling as a basketball goal or basketball court, or it's just really
blank.
Like it's a black box studio and we have, you know, these cream colored walls or whatever
is a lot of things painted black and a lot of sound treatment and different things like
that.
And they started doing this thing.
I'm sure you remember at least part of this, where they would bring in projectors and project
all over.
Now I remember, gosh, it must have been longer than 10 years ago, whenever it was first being
a thing.
Because I remember then going to Disney World with my wife and they were projecting things
on the castles for the big shows and everything like that.
And I was like, wow, everybody is catching on to things like this and catching on.
This is a thing for a lot more people than I think I realized at the time that if you
can augment your reality in one way or another, you know, I think in my mind, I had always
considered at that point, anything augmented reality would be through like a Google lens
or whatever it was or something like that.
I kind of saw that as the future, but the idea of just using a projector behind people
to make the area around us be able to transport us into a different frame of mind.
I really enjoy things like that because I think that we neglect, especially us sitting
here in front of computers all day long, you and I have a lot of that same like, excuse
me, our job requires that we really be on a screen and really be whatever.
And there's a posture of sitting and maybe you get a stand desk or something like that
where you can go in between.
But so much of your doing is right here.
And you know, maybe if you're lucky, you have multiple screens.
But the idea that that's not really a human behavior to sit for that long and to look
at pixels for that long, that it's better, our brains function better if we can be in
an environment and manipulate with all of our senses.
That there's a, you know, not to get too granola about it, but the, that there's this sense
that you actually have all of these senses to be used and not just for your consumption
of things.
And that's intense.
Like it gets real quick when you start to realize how important it is.
And so that's kind of a funny thing to talk about when you're talking about an augmented
reality because you are manipulating your senses in a way and not making it, it's not
real.
Excuse me, I'm having a hard time getting that out of my throat.
But I think it's still an important difference.
Man, sorry man.
You have to get your cough button.
Yeah, I don't, it's not growing away.
That's rough.
It just kind of came over me.
Edit this part out.
I'm going to start crying.
What did I do?
You need some water?
Beer.
There you go.
That's always the answer.
Yeah.
So you were talking about projection.
I don't know if they still do it.
But Central Baptist, I don't know if you've visited there, seen, they do projection behind
the band during the worship section.
And so we had visited there because that's where my in-laws go.
And that's the first time I'd ever seen it in person.
It wasn't anything crazy, anything over the top.
It was just really kind of meant to just kind of blend in to the worship service.
And they even got to where they went and painted the walls back there white so they can get
the projection of what they were wanting to do.
So yeah, that was the first time I'd ever seen that in a church service.
I'm a big fan of that.
I think that that's a good use of that type of technology and that type of space.
And there's all kinds of, when we talk about worship centers, worship rooms, what we used
to call sanctuaries, there's a lot of hangups with technology.
And I feel like you're kind of missing the point in a way that I grew up in during worship
wars.
You're either a hymn singing church or a contemporary church.
This one's bad or this one's good or this one is better for this.
This one is, you're just singing those 7-Eleven songs.
Like all of the cliches bouncing around in my head.
And I had really level-headed parents.
So I got to see the, as a kid, I definitely had a preference, but I got to see so much
value in the other side because of the way that my parents interacted with me and with
music in general.
So I feel like that has allowed me to be more platform agnostic with so many things when
it comes to how you do what you do.
And I think that that's an important thing to be able to learn.
Does this help someone?
Does this make this better for someone?
You look at a child in a worship service or at Disney World.
Let's just talk about Disney World.
They're immediately transported.
You go to the Peter Pan ride or something like that and it's super low tech, but they're
actually projecting expressions onto the faces of the dolls in that ride and stuff like that.
And kind of creating motion because of it.
And the child is like, oh, I'm there.
Like I'm in the movie.
This is happening.
I am actually, that is actually Captain Hook.
I can tell because I recognize the way that he's doing his face like that.
And it's like those things, I think, are trigger points in all of us and being able to use
all of that in a way that isn't just sensory overload, but it's actually helping.
I think it's a tough line.
I'm not going to pretend like it's an easy thing to do.
I'm not going to pretend like you can't overdo it or make things so ridiculous that they
are distracting.
But it's also going to be a different line for so many people.
So not easy.
Yeah.
I think I would love to go just to see the Star Wars piece that Disney has without going
too much of a tangent.
I wouldn't want it to be Disney Star Wars.
I want George Lucas Star Wars, but I think it would be an amazing experience.
So I will tell you, we got to go this past summer again.
My best is being able to see things through my kid's eyes.
That is the best.
But when we walked into the Star Wars area of not Hollywood, yeah, Hollywood studios.
When we walked into that area, I was transported.
I was a little kid.
I actually experienced it because there's plenty that's the new Star Wars stuff and
blah, blah, blah.
But just the way that they have everything looking, they did a good job with that.
And walking into it definitely felt like, oh no, I'm there.
Which is, I mean, that was pretty cool.
It's hard to not be a little bit grateful at that point.
Not that gratitude is bad.
I'm sure eventually we'll get there.
I'd love to see it once just to experience it.
And I have no doubt that I'll totally turn into a kid and start making lightsaber sounds
and throwing out quotes.
I almost bought a helmet.
I was like, I'm about to buy an X-Wing fighter helmet.
It doesn't fit my head, but I'm going to buy it.
That's okay.
I'll put it on my desk.
Why not?
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't have room on my desk for that.
You'd make room.
So I do want to circle back to one thing that I just realized.
I forgot to ask you on chat and GPT, just to see if you're hearing anything in the trends
of this in terms of chat GPT impacting Bible study and the concept of chat GPT being used
to try to create the sermon.
Have you heard any trends in that at all?
I haven't.
That's an interesting thing.
I feel like I've got an opinion on that pretty obviously.
I shouldn't even say obviously.
I should say pretty typically have an opinion on that.
When it comes to a sermon, that feels really disingenuous to me because of what a sermon
is supposed to be.
I was just relaying information.
Correct.
But that is in my mind at least a unique point.
A Bible study even like.
Wow, that's something to think about.
I haven't heard it, but I mean it exists.
It absolutely exists because it's out there because it's a tool that people can use.
It absolutely exists.
Oh yeah.
And that's again, that's where the large language model is what would drive it all.
You can literally create a model that is unique to the Bible and any commentary or anything
else that you want to throw in there and then start asking questions and it can just start
throwing stuff back at a rate that we couldn't achieve on our own in such a short period
of time.
Does he didn't know if you'd heard any any impact of that yet?
I'm sure it's it's out there on the on the horizon somewhere.
Yeah, and I would say that it's probably being used and not being advertised as being used
currently.
That's true.
I mean, I can I can almost guarantee it because there's money to be made.
I don't want to be too cynical about that.
It's hard for me to imagine somebody using it and thinking like, oh, I'm really going
to help a lot more people this way.
It doesn't feel right, but you know, feelings aren't everything.
Sure.
I could see it being used as a shortcut to a quick way to get to where you think you're
trying to go.
That's rough.
I know that our pastor, Chris, just he's just finished a book.
I mean, I don't know exactly where they are in the editing process, but I know that he
wouldn't.
That's not something he would have been OK with if they had just chat GPT.
Well, chat GPT could write your book, though.
For sure.
All you got to do is work out your monster.
Monkey's trying to type out Shakespeare.
Yes.
So.
All right.
Well, let's shift gears.
And so what are trends that you're seeing specifically on the AV front?
OK, so a lot of the trends that I'm seeing on the AV front are sorry, one of the trends
that I'm seeing on the AV front, a lot of them seem to be focused around the same type
of thing.
But so when everything had to go mobile in 2020 or not mobile online in 2020, there were
a lot of like quick lessons for everybody on cameras, lighting.
This is really important for you to be able to do really fast.
And so it kind of went big really quick.
Like we got to we got to do big setups.
We got to make sure that like, you know, there was like obviously there was we need to be
able to do small churches, just a camera on a or not a camera, a phone on a tripod type
things.
So when it got past like that level, then it turned into like we got to we got to go
as big as possible.
We got to get the production level.
You know, again, speaking of words that are not.
Smile that in a church setting.
We got to get the production level up and we got to we got to produce something excellent.
And so like that that really drove this, I think.
People you know, doing a whole lot of.
If you're going for a phone, you probably went to a PTZ.
And then if you were going from a PTZ, then you probably went to like a bigger like actual
broadcast type camera.
And you know, there were there were these upgrade trends that were going on.
What I've been most interested by now, four years later.
Is the it seems like right now.
The trend is going.
For gear, at least the most like advancements that we're seeing are in small sensor.
Photos and especially in things like GoPro Insta 360 DJI Pocket Cinema and things like
that that are really like small.
Making one person.
Shooting one person like, you know, you can talk about the like vlog setup or whatever.
Absolutely.
But just that like have all all all you need with just you.
And I'm interested by that because it feels like like that should have been.
The immediate fruit of 2020 because everybody was separated.
And maybe it is maybe like this has taken four years for a lot of these advancements
to really hit.
Or it you know, they got some traction and then they've pulled out or pulled ahead because
of this.
But like image stabilization.
I don't know that that would have happened.
I mean, I know that it would have happened, but I don't know that that would have been
as big of a deal.
If we hadn't had 2020 type things.
And right now, like image stabilization that's going on with all of these different small
cameras is insane.
But you even see it in things like in Canon, the last few cameras that Canon has put out
have had their big lenses on them, the RF lenses.
But they're also all of them have been APS-C style.
Have been a smaller.
I guess more consumer driven package.
And you're kind of seeing that across all these different levels.
I'm hearing less and less about the red Komodo.
Leica sure has hung in there with like their 16 megapixel, $6,000 cameras.
That's crazy.
And I think Sony still has their alpha, I think is pretty big.
47 megapixels.
But a lot of like even the DSLR bodies that are more common or, you know, yeah, we can
say more common are going for less megapixels.
They're going for, they're really going for shutter speed.
They're really going for the f-stop being as low as possible and by low, you know what
I mean?
Low number, high brightness or big opening, whatever you want.
Anyway, and that like portability factor is huge right now.
So it's also really funny because like this camera is ridiculous now, like in so many
ways.
So it's like, well, obviously they're having to compete against everybody having their
own camera that they didn't have to pay extra money for in their pockets.
So they've got to come out with these things that are making it better.
This is why you need this.
This is why you need this extra whatever.
And it's like every one of these producers and I guess I'm thinking GoPro, Insta360,
DJI.
There was another one.
They all have multiple offerings and they're all tweaked a little bit, but it's, it's,
they're all small.
They're all tiny.
Like it's all about portability.
It's all about having it on you.
This is the adage like adage, the best camera for you is the camera that you have on you.
Everybody is like taking that to the like level of just clip it on you, even with you
pointed out all the time.
And it's just like, it's like, there's, there's a lot of use cases.
You know, I don't know how many dash cams I've seen on YouTube catching the craziest
stuff.
Rush is good for that.
The Rush and dash cam videos are off the charts.
They really are.
But things like that, that I, I think I, I was just, I was expecting and maybe the reason
that this hit home to her, that I noticed this so much is that I was expecting, I was
expecting the opposite.
I was expecting once we kind of got through the like run and gun, you need to be able
to do all this by yourself phase, which it seems like we should be past that now.
We should have gone towards the higher stuff, but you know, you also got to think about
things like it's a down economy.
Stuff like that costs more.
They're getting away with selling some of these things for much more than I feel like
that they should be.
Correct.
And then they'd, they'd only be making them higher priced if they were bigger sensors
and things like that.
So I don't know.
Maybe we're setting the stage again for another, like, this is a big thing.
Yeah.
Could be, could be for the next, the next big leap.
I know for me, what I'm seeing on the AV side is the deeper in embracement of IP.
It seems like all AV equipment now is becoming network connected in some way.
And it really blurs the lines between IT and AV.
And it's getting to the point where you're not having to have necessarily a dedicated
network just for it.
It can just flow right over top of all the other existing IP traffic that's out there.
The endpoints can strip out what it is that they need and ignore and ignore the rest.
So I'm excited about that.
I love that they're embracing this footprint of your network and going, yeah, we're going
to pull that right in and we're going to totally leverage that to make devices more accessible
to pass your camera footage across.
I'm really excited about the possibilities of that.
The fact that you can be just about anywhere and gain access to whatever it is that you're
needing to do to troubleshoot.
Even if you still have to VPN to your network from an external, once you're in, you can
pretty well connect to just about all of your AV equipment and troubleshoot with somebody
over the phone.
And it's getting to where less and less you have to actually be there.
And you can just say, okay, I'm in an adjustment.
What are you seeing?
To me, that's huge.
It doesn't necessarily require being physically present with all the equipment anymore.
Yeah, that's the, there was actually a church front is a YouTube channel that they do a
lot of AV and tech videos for guys in, in, you know, worship ministries.
And one of the things that they just, I didn't get to watch it yet, but I didn't notice it
was one of their video titles was about how to run sound not present.
And I was like, Oh my, that's, I mean, it's very possible.
I could VPN and do all kinds of things to our sound boards and to our sound in the room
at our church.
But I'm not there like without being there.
I know I'm not that I, I'm not that guy.
I need to be in the room.
I don't feel right about changing anything, not being present, but it's possible.
And you're right.
Like that, that technology is growing exponentially.
It's I mean, it's funny to think about that one having its roots well before this need
arose, you know, AV was already moving.
Going into being able to remote into it because AV racks, if people that have worked on AV
racks know it's not easy.
If like when, when, when everything was analog, when you were, you know, messing with a class
A amplifier that had to be in a rack because it was just heavy and there was two cables
going into it and two cables coming out of it.
Like there was a, there was a time when you just turn a knob, absolutely.
And it was super important to turn that knob the right way and to the right number.
But now, you know, you're talking about class D amplifiers and that are all also having
DSP inside of them and stuff like that.
And it's, it's just a totally different world.
Like it's not, it's not the same thing.
And you've got FX racks that are not located in the same room as the, that's the sources
that they're affecting.
Like that's, that's crazy to me.
Like it's just, you know, but the network cable has made audio so much easier to do.
I remember hauling big 32 channel snakes and having to untangle them all the way up the
side of a room.
That was not fun.
Nope.
Now it's a single cat five table.
Yep.
It's a win.
I love the Dante.
Absolutely.
I absolutely love that.
We have started getting into some of the QSC.
I forget their, their name of it, but it's basically their version of Dante.
And that's amazing to see.
At that conference that I went to, we talked about a couple episodes back.
QSC was one of the companies that I saw a demo of and their ability to like, they've
taken it into like installation information type things where they're like, no, we're
going to tell you, I'm going to play the music.
You stand there and we're going to tell you exactly where those speakers need to be pointed
to what degree they need to be down.
We're going to then take over the array set up to make sure that the arrays aren't canceling
each other out.
So we're only sending certain frequencies through each of the arrays.
It was like, I was super impressed.
It got real loud in that little room, but they're doing some pretty incredible things.
Yep.
We need to get you to the shores.
So you can see what Jason has put together.
Basically he removed the board.
There's no longer a board in the dining hall.
There is a rack mounted unit.
I know he'd be mad at me for not being able to remember the specifics in the model, but
it's all configured via a web interface.
And then you use their app.
And so the staff have an iPad and it's, you only have the controls that you give them
and that's it.
It's completely simplified and you don't have to worry about all the unnecessary pieces
and somebody made an adjustment to the board and now we've got to figure out what they
did and get that back or find the backup and restore.
None of that exists.
They can only do what he gives them access to and that's it.
And they can be anywhere, anywhere in the room with an iPad and make whatever adjustments
they need to.
That made me think, hold on just a second.
I know this is super unprofessional.
Yeah, I mean, I was looking at the QSC for like, Alan and Heath also has one of these
rack mounts, smaller units that you have some control actually over the unit.
QSC has a bunch of mixers that are like the touch mix style, but he's probably talking
about like the QSC MP-M80 eight zone mixer or the four zone mixer that are just like
they look like Furman almost with the way that they're designed.
Yeah, if I remember the way they work, it's really hard.
No control at the rack.
You have to remote into them to be able to do anything with them.
Yeah.
It's really all about controlling input output and it has so many ins and so many outs and
then you can get the expansion pieces that go in to give you the additional IO and then
you're just programming it and saying, here's your controls.
It's huge.
You don't need all the space for boards anymore.
It goes right in the rack with all the IT gear.
You don't have to have dedicated spaces for a bunch of AV.
It's really interesting to see.
I know we're going to continue that trend.
So I'm ready to see more of that.
Oh, absolutely.
All right.
Well I probably better end it here.
I know we've been in, I hate to stop it because we've just been kind of flowing and going
with it and it feels like we're kind of hitting a stride and now we're shutting it down.
We'll continue that stride into next time.
Yeah.
So unfortunately for this time there is no...
The Boostergram sound booth.
Uh-oh, bummer.
We didn't get any Boostergram.
So we'll see what happens for next time.
So but...
I mean it was just Jason.
Yeah, it was.
It was just Jason.
He's been busy.
I'll be honest.
Yeah, I've traveled back to Michigan to see family and everything, but he's back now.
Kind of a teaser for next show.
We're going to dig into more AV concepts and some of the equipment.
In particular, we're talking about compression and compressors.
Compressors.
Compressors and all the ins and outs.
What do the dials do?
What are the... what is all of the different concepts?
What is it?
You gotta stop the needle before it hits a certain PSI.
PSI.
That's really all you need to worry about.
Yes.
There you go.
Not the compressor I had in mind, but I'll take it.
Okay, fine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So just kind of a... kind of a tease, if you will, for what's coming next.
I am trying to go through some of the videos out there that kind of dig into the concepts
so I don't sound stupid when I'm talking in that show.
But I'm looking forward to that to kind of get into that, see how many shows we have
to do consecutively just to properly get through those concepts.
Yeah, I don't know, because one leads into another so easily.
Yeah, it's...
Same words like compression and limiting and gating and envelopes and I mean, it's gonna
get hairy.
It's an onion.
Lots of layers.
Pretty nerdy.
Yes, lots of nerd dials on that one.
Nerd knobs.
So enjoyed it.
John, it's good to get back to this.
Try to get this produced and out as soon as possible.
And then start back into the research so I can sound educated in the next show.
You're gonna be great.
All right.
See you, man.
See you.