Reinforcing The Church

For a perfect program run on a perfect computer, it sure is out to get me.  This past Sunday morning I was running sound/video for a volunteer orientation.  Part of that orientation was to show a video, which was given to me on a USB stick.  On the disk were two copies of the video, higher quality and lower quality.  I added the lower quality video to the playlist and tested it, video played in its entirety with no problem.

Later my boss came in (still before the event started) and asked if the higher quality video had worked and if I tested it.  I explained that I just worked with the lower quality and she requested that I try the higher quality.  By this time people were already gathered in the room and I had no video switcher to keep the video off the screens for people to see.  So she says just to try it out in Quicktime “because if it works in Quicktime, it will definitely work in ProPresenter”.

So I do, and the video stutters a little.  Then I open the lower quality video and play the whole thing in Quicktime, which works fine.  I add the video back to the playlist and the event starts.

It comes time to start the video, and it doesn’t start.  I click.  Nothing happens, I click a couple of times, finally the video starts.  And stutters, and pauses, and resumes and stutters.  It stopped for 1 second every 4 or 5 seconds.  I was so embarrassed, I tested this video in advance, even played it in Quicktime, there is no reason why this should have been happening.  I’m guessing the CPU was busy working on something else, but darned if I know what.  Do Macs have an equivalent to the Task Manager in Windows that lets you see all running processes and their CPU usage?

So that’s my story.  I don’t know what I could have done differently.  I was wrestling with whether or not to stop the video or try something else, but I didn’t have DVD backup or anything to fall back on, so I let it run through the whole 3 minutes that way.  I’m thinking I’m just going to use my own laptop and MediaShout for all future events.  At least until North Point kicks me out for defiling their equipment like that.

MediaShout and ProPresenter have some big differences in how they operate that are inherited from their platform. ProPresenter uses QuickTime, MediaShout uses DirectX, etc. But there’s also a big difference in the user interface that is by design and not just because of the computer the program runs on.

The person responsible for making MediaShout work uses tools such as Scripts and Cues. The ProPresenter operator relies on playlists and miniature versions of the actual slide as you would see it on the big screen. This isn’t a matter of one method being superior to the other, but they are completely different in how easy it is for a user to get results and be able to make last minute changes. And as the ongoing debates I participate in demonstrate, everyone has their own preference for which option is better.

As I said, MediaShout’s primary tool is called a script. This is because it can have all the same content as the actual script for your production. The content of your production is placed in order from top to bottom. Section headers can divide the script into different parts, such as “Announcements”, “Music”, “Sermon”, etc. The lyrics or notes can be seen like normal written text, or hidden away to only see titles. The user interface isn’t so much a preview of what you will get on the big screen, it is a detailed view of what is coming up and can give you enough information that you won’t need a copy of the script next to you. The contents of the full script appear from top to bottom much like a document.

On the contrary, a preview is exactly what you get with ProPresenter. The operator selects what goes on the screen by clicking on a miniature picture of exactly how the output will appear. The Renewed Vision team wanted to give you a full “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWG) experience. So rather than see the lyrics in a paragraph format like you would find in a script, you see the individual lines inside boxes positioned exactly as they will appear on the projector once you click on them. Likewise, the background and foreground elements are divided so that you can click on different backgrounds for the same slide as you feel compelled to. All the background options appear on the bottom half of the screen and you can click on them at any time without affecting the foreground (the words or pictures being presented).

Generally speaking, MediaShout is geared more for the person who has planned the whole script in advance, while ProPresenter allows for more fluid on-the-fly options. The MediaShout operator can go through the whole production by hitting nothing more than the spacebar over and over because the whole script is already present and in order, while the ProPresenter operator will have to rely on the mouse to change songs or find the appropriate video clip or background graphic. On the other hand, the ProPresenter user will have an easier time switching between slides if last minute changes means you need to find a different slide than was already planned for a given segment.

I’m not saying the MediaShout operator can’t stray from the script or be more dynamic, it just isn’t the default mode. You can scroll up and down the script and double-click any entry that you want to switch to right away. And there’s a couple of additional windows MediaShout has that works much like ProPresenter, showing thumbnail views of different video clips, graphics, or even songs that you can have sitting on the side just in case.

If you’re following along at home, we’ve discussed how the GAIN control works to control the input level into the mixing console. When you plug in that guitar, microphone, mp3 player, etc, that signal goes into one of the many input jacks on the back of the console, gets amplified or softened by the gain control, and then goes to the EQ controls. The EQ knobs also amplify or soften the signal, but it does so only at selective frequencies. (More on this someday)

After the EQ, the signal splits and goes to a couple of different places. The most obvious is the main volume fader, the big control closest to you that slides up and down. Though there may be rare exceptions, this is generally used to control the main volume in the house speakers. At the same time, the signal is also going to anything that is marked “PFL”, which stands for “Pre-Fade Listen”. Pre-fade, as in “the signal before it is affected by the main volume fader.” These are additional outputs on the board that have their own volume control and are not affected by what volume you set on the fader. The easiest one to spot is the button labeled PFL that usually appears above each fader. Mackie and some other brands call this SOLO, but it is the same thing. Pressing this button takes the signal from that channel and sends it to the headphone/control room output of the board. Because it is pre-fade, you can listen to that channel in the headphones even if the volume is turned all the way down. The gain will still have an impact on the volume you hear on pre-fade outputs, but the main fader will not.

In addition to the PFL headphone output, there are also a number of pre-fade auxiliary (AUX) outputs on the console. The Aux controls on the mixing console are basically separate volume controls for different outputs. Your primary fader will control the house speakers. The Aux controls will control everything else from monitors and in-ears for the band to hear themselves, recording outputs, effects units, etc. There are two types of aux controls on the typical board, and they are labeled as Pre or Post, or they have a button to press to switch between the two options. The “Pre” controls are outputs that ignore the fader volume you set. The “Post” controls are post-fade, their output volume is in direct relationship to the main fader. For example, if you have your volume turned all the way down so you don’t hear anything, any monitors on pre-fade may still be making noise, the post fade outputs will be silent. As you turn up the fader and begin to hear the music in the main speakers, so too will you hear them in the post-fade monitors. The pre-fade monitors will stay at the same volume regardless.

The average mixer (in my experience) has 6 aux outputs. I’ve worked with some that only have 1, and some high-end consoles that have 16, and some digital consoles with far more. But 6 is the most common, and is likely what you will be working with at an entry level position. Typically the Aux 1 and 2 controls are pre-fade, 5 and 6 are post, and the middle controls have a button to switch between the two modes. The more expensive boards may have buttons on 1 through 4, or possibly all 6 controls. The point is, you may have a choice about when to use a pre-fade or post-fade output. There is no simple definition about which to choose. Most aux controls are used for the band to control monitors and everyone may have a different opinion on whether to be pre or post-fade.

The second most common use for auxiliaries is effects. Reverb is the most common effects unit you’ll find in the typical setup. The shortest description of a reverb unit is that it takes a singers voice and makes them sound like they are in a bathroom. Done right, this is a good thing, that’s why your own voice tends to sound better in the shower. In order for it to work, you have to send the singers voice to the unit and then have the echo effect get put back into the mix. This is where the post-fade aux works best. Turn up the aux for a given singer until you have just enough of the effect to sound good (subtle is good!), and as you turn up or down the volume on that singer, the effect will change as well. The effects processor’s output will likely have its own input on the board, or the console will have a set of controls labeled “Return” that are used to put the echo or whatever effect back into the house and/or monitor mix.

This is just an introduction to the AUX controls and the idea of pre and post fade levels. In upcoming posts I will go into more detail about mixing the monitors and useful information for making the most out of an effects processor.

I’m glad to see that Renewed Vision is actively adding to the feature list in ProPresenter. Mike’s recent posting inspired me to write about one of the features unique to MediaShout that I love to use.

Above is the screen you get when you insert a “Script Control” type cue into the MediaShout script. If you want to loop through a series of announcements (stills or videos, or any other type of cue), and then automatically start a video (opener or countdown) at a given time, you can do so with two script controls. The first control tells the system to loop, the second has the box marked “Start Action At:” with the appropriate start time.

This means that I can start the announcements and then go backstage to talk to the worship team or whatever, and even without my presence the announcements fade out and automatically begins the opening video (which then cues me that I have x minutes to get back to the booth).

Pan is a knob you’ll find on most mixing consoles, usually the first knob right above the main volume fader. It’s function is fairly simple, it assigns that channel to go out the left or right output. Yes, that sounds a lot like the “Balance” you find on your home and car stereos, but there is a subtle difference. In fact, most boards today will have a few channels where the knob is labeled Balance (or BAL) instead of Pan. Those are the channels with stereo inputs.
When you pan an input, you are taking a single input, for example a microphone or instrument, and pushing it to either the left or right output. When you turn the balance to one direction or another, you are choosing between two different inputs, left or right from stereo inputs such as MP3 players, computers, CD players, etc.
If your mixing console doesn’t have those stereo channels and you want to run your sound system in true stereo, then you can have the same effect by using two channels, and pan your left input to the left, and the second channel with the right input to the right.

Keep in mind, the pan has no effect if you are using only a mono output where your main speakers are only connected to one output on the amp or mixer. However, even in a mono system, the balance does allow you to adjust the volume between the left and right inputs. If you turn the balance to the far right, you are muting the left input. I don’t recommend it, but if you are in a bind and need to have more channels to work with, you can plug similar instruments into the two inputs of a stereo channel and use the pan as your volume. But this will only work with mono outputs and you lose the ability to EQ the two sources individually, and can’t have separate control to the monitors (auxiliary outputs).

Look for a future post that will have some tips and application ideas regarding split track CD’s. Also, the Pan plays an important role when dealing with subgroups, which will be discussed in detail also in a future post.

I’m willing to bet that most of my readers are going to favor ProPresenter since that is the type of people I am doing ministry with most of the time.

But I’ve been using MediaShout more often recently with a couple of events and I’ve decided to pursue becoming an official reseller.

I’ll be doing video (and possibly sound) for the Southeast Conference of the Covenant Church in a couple of weeks, and I’m building a custom desktop for the job, which will be for sale including MediaShout after the event.

Here’s what’s included:

• nVidia card with 256 MB RAM
• Windows Vista Home Premium (can be upgraded to Business if your church has a domain)
• 2 x 160 GB hard drives with RAID mirroring protection (the two hard drives work together as one and keep functioning in case a drive failes)
• 2 GB of RAM
• Duo Core processor, not sure of the GHz yet
• 19″ widescreen LCD

I’m estimating the price tag will be somewhere around $1600, including the licensed copy of MediaShout. I’m also considering the idea of providing a support plan for an additional $300 or so, but not sure about this yet. The support plan would include LogMeIn.com IT tools so I can remote into the machine when you call about various problems, AVG anti-virus, and CounterSpy anti-spyware, in addition to automated patch management and monitoring software that will warn of any hardware failures or other preventable issues.

Anybody have any feedback? The price seems high to me, but it is quite low compared to the ProPresenter prices, and you get the extra features like the redundant hard drives (something I would never live without on a production machine).

I received an e-mail from Chris:

What a blessing it was to find your site!

I searched for over an hour to find exactly what you talk about on your site. How grateful I am that you offer your email and even phone number - so I thank you in advance.

You are very welcome, but I have to give all the credit to God.  Before he transformed my life I was quite self centered and lazy.  Now I have been rewired and helping others in a production ministry just comes naturally.

 

I’ll be brief for now and hit my greatest need:

 

Is there  a decibel meter one could set up in the sanctuary which will transmit a reading to the board operator in the sound booth?

Why? You may ask… We have a problem with things getting too loud during worship. Subjective control of music volume is just not cutting it (actually the pastor’s mic runs hot most of the time too).  My objective is to help volunteers avoid getting too high - particularly the very young who seem to have lost all sensitivity to volume and the very old who… may be a little hard of hearing.

North Point and other big budget environments will setup dedicated mics  and use expensive software that not only shows the decibels coming out of the speakers, but a full break down of the frequencies and a history (to analyze feedback or odd noises).

But of course, if you could afford such a package, you probably would likely have compressors and other high end equipment that can help control the volume levels.

So here’s my low budget suggestion.  Download a FREE program called jDFT and put it on a laptop or computer that can be placed near the sound board.  Instead of using a reference mic, use the Tape Out or some other output of the sound board and run it into the computer.  Now you can have a visual view of what is coming out of the sound board.

This is a limited solution.  You have to keep in mind that the readout is subjective to the volume levels set by the mixing console, and the volume level on the input of the computer.  So the program can’t tell you exactly how many decibels you are working with.  But it does give you a visual image of what is coming out of the sound board.  And as long as you keep the amp levels and computer input volume at the same place week to week, you can establish a rule to keep the sound under -10 or whatever you decide during the first few weeks you monitor the levels.

One more caveat - a reference mic tells you exactly how loud a room is, while this program merely tells you how loud the output of the mixer is.  This isn’t the same thing.  An empty room vs a full house will sound quite different.  Human bodies tend to absorb sound and drain some of the energy from the room.  So do not choose a volume level to work with during a rehearsal or time when the room is relatively empty, it may be too quiet or low energy when the room fills up.

If you have the money and resources, you could run a microphone straight into the computer without going through the mixer.  In fact, if you look at the iPod accessories available at an electronics store, you can sometimes find a mic cable that has a 3.5 mm plug at the other end to go straight into the computer’s input.

In the typical American church service, you begin with a band and have to mix a couple of songs, then you get to the “easy part” where you turn on the pastor’s microphone and take a break while he speaks. But I would argue that it is so much more important that you get the volume and EQ just right for a speaker teaching the word of God than it is during the live music part of a service. For one thing, a band has multiple voices and instruments that compliment each other and even draw attention away from mistakes. But when a person is up on stage speaking, there is just one microphone on and that is the sole focus that everyone is hearing in the audience.

The overall rule is still the same - you want to be an unnoticed and invisible part of the equation. The best way to accomplish this during the sermon is to get the volume just right so that each and every person listening feels like they are in a small room hearing the pastor or teacher speaking directly to them. If the volume is too loud, they will feel like they are in an auditorium listening to a sermon with hundreds or thousands of others. In other words, if a pastor sounds like he’s going through a sound system and attention is drawn to how loud it is, you missed that mark of excellence. You also draw more attention to the sound system (vs the content of the message) when the volume is too low, leaving people wishing they had sat more up front and they might be missing words and parts of the teaching.

When the Holy Spirit is blessing the speaker with right words to say, and you have the volume just right, then you get the positive feedback of hearing people as they exit the building saying things like, “It seemed like he was speaking directly to me.”

Likewise, it is so important to get the EQ just right for that single microphone. Otherwise members of the audience may have a stray thought or two about how the microphone sounds like it’s going over a telephone or that the speaker is utilizing a tin can. The goal is to get the EQ settings just right so that it sounds like the person is speaking to you without a microphone or sound system at all.

You know how you can give people a “blind taste test” by blindfolding a person and then giving them two samples of a drink or certain food to see which they like better or whether or not they can tell a difference between Coca Cola vs Pepsi? Imagine a blind sound test. You will know that you have the volume and EQ settings absolutely perfect if a blindfolded person can’t tell how far away the pastor is or if he is even using a microphone at all. People who close their eyes during a message should be able to imagine the speaker standing a couple feet in front of them just sharing the words on their heart to the people next to them.

It is impossible to design an auditorium or sound system that can accomplish that level of perfection for every single seat in the house. But with the right loudspeaker placement and a knowledgeable person behind the mixing console practicing at getting the volume just right, it should be possible to make yourself completely invisible to most of the members of the audience.

Some of the common obstacles against such transparency include:

• The loudspeakers being too low. When you increase the volume for the sake of the people in the rear of the auditorium, you end up making it too loud for the people in the front. Keep this in mind, especially since you will likely be controlling the volume from the rear or very back of the room. It is likely that the best volume is achieved when it sounds too quiet in the sound booth area. The higher the loudspeakers are mounted, the more similar the distance sound has to travel whether to the people seated in front or rear of the auditorium. You can also setup extra sets of speakers set farther back. In either case, you should get an experienced consultant involved when your church is deciding where to mount speakers or how many sets should be used.
• Echoes and reverberations - Sound travels relatively slow, and it does bounce off the walls and ceilings. When you hear the same sound waves coming from the speaker and again after they bounce off the rear walls or ceiling, it tends to give the speaker a “muddy” effect and can make it hard to discern individual words. In some rooms, certain frequencies may be more likely to bounce and echo than others, which may require you to compensate by cutting those frequencies on the EQ. If this is a common problem in your church, you may want to look into more sophisticated equipment such as a parametric EQ which allows you to modify a narrower range of frequencies and be less noticeable if you have to compensate for a room that reverberates too much.
• Microphone placement - The best type of microphone to have for someone teaching is an earset style, generally known as a “Countryman” microphone. It is a razor thin flesh colored microphone that hangs over a person’s ear and sits right at the corner of the speaker’s mouth. Unfortunately these are still quite expensive, so the most common type of microphone you will likely be working with is a lavalier. These are the wireless microphones you see clipped to someone’s tie or jacket a couple of inches under the speaker’s mouth. The biggest problem with lavaliers is that once you’ve found the perfect volume, the speaker will turn his head or look down at the podium which completely changes the volume in the microphone and ultimately the room. So pay attention and turn down the volume if you know the person speaking is going to be looking down to read, and you might need to increase the volume if that person turns his or her head to talk about something on the side of the stage (such as a chart or content projected on the screen). In this case, a compressor would be a useful piece of equipment that can handle such volume changes automatically.
• “Essing” - If you notice how often the words end in an “s” sound as a person is speaking, you may need to de-ess the EQ. The “S” sounds and certain other emphasized consonants, or extra hissing or static like sounds can be reduced by turning down the high or upper-mid range frequencies on the equalizer.
• Leaving the room - I’ve visited some churches where the sound person gets up and leaves the auditorium after turning on the pastor’s mic. While it may be true that the mixing console doesn’t need a baby sitter and hearing the message being taught once during the first service is enough, I recommend that you do stay during all services. You may find the message “boring” by the fifth time you’ve heard it, but if you try you may learn something that you missed the first four times. This way you can be proactive in making sure that lavalier microphone sounds its best. You can be more responsive if something goes wrong, such as a wireless microphone suddenly going dead or picking up intererence. You can be ready to prevent feedback if the pastor spontaneously decides to make his message more interactive and walks in front of the stage and into the audience, etc. The same may not be true if your church utilizes video sermons, microphones are always open to surprises and risk of feedback, prerecorded video doesn’t include too many unexpected audio changes. One final point to consider: in recent auditorium designs, the mixing console is set 2/3rds or 3/4ths of the way from the stage in the middle of the audience. When you get up to leave a few minutes after the sermon starts, you changed your status from unnoticed to noticed for the people seated behind you.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  And that Word was preached from the hilltops and in front of the temple.  A reader would shout the Word of the Lord as loud as they could, and hopefully the crowd would be able to hear him.  Over the years people have learned how to build amphitheaters and project their voice so that more and more people could hear the Good News.  Until one day someone found a way to use electricity to amplify the voice out of speakers that could enable thousands to hear at one time and even at multiple locations at once. 

Sharing the Word used to mean one person would yell really loud.  But now we have mixing consoles and microphones and amplifiers, which all help of course, but what used to be a one person operation now requires people who know how to manipulate the dozens of knobs and controls so that the reader or speaker can be heard by crowds of all sizes. 

And that’s why you’re reading this book.  You have either asked or have been asked to volunteer to be a part of the team of people it takes to share God’s Word through the use of modern audio equipment.  Or perhaps you are a builder and mistakenly thought this book, Reinforcing the Church, was about how to engineer and build the structures that people meet in every Sunday.  Sorry about that, this book isn’t for you.

And in fact, this book may also not be for you even if you were intentionally looking for a beginners guide to audio systems.  It isn’t the right job for everyone.  Running the sound board and most of the tech production volunteer jobs require a special kind of person to be able to handle it.  One challenge that makes the job geared for a particular type of person is that it requires a strong level of humility (or it will teach it if you aren’t humble already). 

Think about this: how many famous audio engineers can you name?  If you are a true Beatles fan, you may know the name of some of the people involved in their recording process.  But more than likely, you don’t know any.  That’s because it is a thankless and invisible job.  Or at least, as a good engineer you hope it is.  The only time someone thinks about the sound guy or looks back to see what’s going on in the booth is when something is horribly wrong: shrieking feedback, horrible noises, no sound, etc.  Otherwise, all the attention is up on stage and you will be invisible.

And that means that it has to be your goal to be unnoticed and invisible when you are volunteering in the audio or other production environment.  The best you can hope for is that nobody notices you are there.  If you are lucky, or in a good environment with great people, you’ll at least get some praise and gratitude from the pastor, worship team, and other staff or volunteers.

Below is a list of traits that make a good audio engineer, as well as a list of warning signs that may want to prompt you to consider looking elsewhere for volunteer opportunities:

You can be a great, invisible, and unnoticed audio engineer if:

• You love music and like having the control over how loud it is
• Your picky about how the music coming out of your stereo sounds.  You’d rather have the stereo with full Bass, Treble, and other tone controls over the basic stereo that has a “Tone” knob if that (whatever that is). 
• You are or want to be a musician
• You would rather work behind the scenes to bring glory to God than be out on stage struggling against the temptation of drawing attention to yourself.
• One of your primary spiritual gifts is that of service, or helps. 
• You don’t mind some heavy lifting every once in a while.  Speakers and other gear can weigh a lot and sometimes they need to be moved.

You may want to talk to the volunteer coordinators in your particular ministry if any of the following can apply to you:

• You get frustrated that nobody ever appreciates the hours you put in or shows gratitude for a job well done.
• You have some level of tone-deafness.  If you can’t tell whether the sound from an instrument or microphone sounds natural or not, then you may have a physical handicap that prevents you from being able to mix well.
• If you have never thought about what the Bass or Treble controls do on your stereo and have never cared what setting they are at, then you may not have the attention to detail that is required to adjust settings towards the goal of invisibility.  For some people this can be a learned skill, but I have met some who for whatever reason never quite get the whole equalizer thing and may end up creating an environment where the audience is thinking about how the microphone sounds like a telephone or whatever.  The fact that the general audience would think about the fact that there is a microphone already means that you haven’t yet achieved the goal of invisibility. 
• If you think you’ll get to hang out with or meet famous people when you run sound for them, you may find nothing but disappointment.  I once was working in production for a venue where Dave Ramsey was speaking.  The closest I got to meeting him was being able to hand the microphone to one of his staff members that then passed it along.  I have yet to ever say “Hello” to Andy Stanley and have never had the chance to hang out with any of the “celebrities” at North Point Community Church where I currently spend most of my time volunteering.  If that were my goal, the staff responsible for where I volunteer should be concerned. 

None of the above automatically disqualifies you from being a part of the audio, video, or production crew.  But it may mean you aren’t best suited for the role directly behind the mixing console itself. 

Still reading?  Great, it is my hope that you find the remaining chapters informative and educational.  If you have never worked with a mixing console before, you should be able to manage your way through turning on microphones and even mixing a band by the time you finish.  And with enough practice, you too can be an unnoticed and invisible part of your church.  Fortunately that’s not the end of the story.  I don’t doubt for a minute how much God values the giving of your time and talents to help other people hear the story of the Word made flesh.  And that’s all that matters. 

May God bless you and show you directly his gratitude for your giving heart, willingness to volunteer, and humility. 

Question for you ProPresenter fans out there:

On Wednesday nights there’s a group that meets in the room I volunteer at. They watch a 35 minute clip that’s on a DVD and then break out into small groups. I’m trying to simplify my life by capturing the DVD clips and converting them to H.264 format. This would be particularly useful next week because I will be absent, and they are showing 2 clips from 2 different DVD’s. So my preference would be to have the clips on the hard drive ready to go in ProPresenter rather than have my substitute mess with switching discs, etc.

So, last Wednesday, I tried running my H.264 clip. It was 640×480 and encoded at 1200 kbps. I figured this was a reasonable quality for a standard definition projector, not too high, not too low. I watched the first five minutes before hand, everything looked good. So the event starts, I click the video. And about 10 minutes in, the audio and video get out of sync. After a few more minutes it got so bad that people started coming up to the sound board to see if I noticed (Yes, I did, thanks). I ended up switching to the DVD mid clip.

What’s weird is that the video on the local computer display was fine, it was the projector feed that was horribly out of sync. I’m thinking it was just too high quality for feed for that computer. Am I right? How low can I go without noticeable loss? Any other recommendations?

When a program like ProPresenter or MediaShout runs the video in two different places at once (on the projector’s output and on the preview display), it takes quite a few computer resources to pull that off. That’s why MediaShout defaults to not showing the video on the local display, it only shows the thumbnail (along with Play/Pause, seek bar, etc), but there is an option to turn it on if you think your computer can handle it.

Does ProPresenter have any such option to turn off the local preview? Would it help in this case?