Most recently, we’ve taken Skype to a new level – when we broadcasted JCC and then GLIVE. We’ve even “skyped” people for meetings and such as well.  So let me explain some basics here.  This is delving a little into the video world but you need to understand both to see how this works.

Here’s the flow:

Mixer Board (xlr) –> DV Video Camera (dv) –> Video Switcher (dv) –> dv repeater (dv into computer and dv deck*) –> Computer with Skype (audio input from Dv Deck) –> Recipient Computer with Skype

Flow for this setup is relatively simple.  But this is a much larger setup. We use the video switcher b/c we have multiple cameras and inputs coming into the switcher.  Usually we have 3 cameras and an S-Video (pro-presenter/slides).

For a single camera setup, it’s similar:

* the reason that we need the dv repeater and the deck is b/c Skype cannot handle the video and audio stream in the dv input.  i don’t know why but it will not accept the audio input, so we need to grab the audio from another dv device, hence the repeater. I’m sure i’ve confused a few of you by this point.  that’s b/c it is confusing.  hopefully skype will resolve this issue and then we could just plug the dv camera right into the laptop and we’ll be good.

So this is a rough presentation.  If you have more questions i can try to fill in the gaps.