NTM echo - my Nightmare

Many things went wrong this day. In fact, many things went wrong from the start when we wanted to do the video. Let me recount the story (Erh... the NTM installment has to wait while i write this)....

Xin Hao, Kian Hwee & Shing Shyan were tasked to do the video (Iz too but he was plain lazy). Before they could edit, we needed to download the video from the small VHS tapes. Both Iz & my comp couldnt do the job coz we dont have the input for the videocam. Xin Hao's lappy & Shing's comp also couldnt. Last resort was Ah Hwee's comp. While waiting for him to check if able to connect, i managed to borrow Rachel's mini laptop (the one she carried to school) and used it overnight for 2 nights to download. And so, all was done and ready to be used.

The team started on 19 Jan and was progressing fine. I visited ah hao's place on Thursday to check if all in place, as in those video clips they selected were appropriate for Tengah's viewing. Ah Hao & family scheduled to go to Malaysia the following day and so it was decided that the team finished up on Thursday and pass the comp (ah hao's) to ah hwee to bring over to my place the next day for selection of music to accompany the video. All went well and just as we were about to render the movie & burn into DVD, the first sign of nightmare surfaced.

Ah Hao has been using MAGIX prog for video thingy. He did it for 2007 and should be fine for 2008. The team carried on using this prog but we just couldnt burn. We couldnt even render it into a WMV file so i could transfer it out to another lappy to burn into DVD. The prog only had the option to burn and so we tried. Not enough disk space. We thot it was the hard disk and so we transferred some of ah hao's files into shing's changjing. Then it kept telling us the same message. It wasnt until ah hwee figured out that we didnt select the correct disk drive. We tried again but failed. The message kept telling us to cut short the movie clip coz too big. From what i do know, a 40min clip is never too big for a 4GB DVD. What was really happening? It was super frustrating and time checked was 11plus in the night.

Told ah hwee to save the movie project file as another name. Then open that new file and cut away half of the clips. Then save it another name again and try to burn half half. WHOA!!! I saw him did the steps i said but lo and behold.....we ended with half of the movie and 2nd half was like totally eradicated from the surface of the hao's lappy! It was nightmarish and all the hard work gone! Time was running out and so i told them to come back next day and do those clips that disappeared. Then with the half movie file (size visibly reduced), we managed to start burning into DVD. It was past 12 midnight. I send them home while DVD was burning.

An error message greeted me at 1plus when i returned. IT COULDNT BURN!!! ARgh....5 days of hard work all inside there and now just couldnt extract it out. I tried one more time and thank God it worked perfectly. While waiting for that to burn, i didnt have the mood to sleep tho very tired. Wanted to stay awake to see that it could burn till the end. And so i started doing on the 2nd half of the video that went missing (using my own laptop and windows movie maker prog).

By 2 plus and close to 3am, it was finally done. I was very tired but decided to check one more thing before i went to sleep. Somehow i had this naggy feeling that the 2nd half movie clips didnt disappear. The files were there but just couldnt find them. I searched diligently... seriously.....trying so hard to keep awake and saw a funny file name but size was suggestive of my missing file. I clicked and open with the appropriate software and voila, i found it!!!! Thank God. And so cut and pasted and then put the 2nd half video to burn into DVD. With that, i put my heavy head onto my trusty pillow and hugged my beloved bolster.

What greeted me the next morning was a rude shock. The 2nd half DVD was completed... thank God and so i put both DVDs to play... test it out. 1st one refused to play. And when i tried again, it played and stopped and played and stopped. the 2nd one was ok but some scenes and words were cut off and so needed to redo. Sigh... now it seemed we not only have to redo the 2nd half but the 1st half... that meant the entire thingy!!!

Ah hwee and Shing came at 10am and told them the bad & good news... well i would say all bad lah. We split into 3 coms and do short clips. Thank God just before YF started, we finished about 7clips. Had 9 more to go and split bet ah hwee and myself. Basically ah hao had already done the work, as in from the hours of video, he zoomed in on those he wanted and so we followed his choice and got right into the video. Thanks to ah hao and his hard work, we didnt have to play the whole thingy to select.

CNY... spend doing video....nah! Ah Hwee did and he was kind of challenging me... heard from Joanne that he guessed i would have finished and so he rushed. Haha...i didnt. I spend CNY doing CNY thingy. Visited and spend time with my dad. Told myself to start on 3rd day of CNY. Well, by the 4th day, it was all done. Got ah hwee's clips from yousendit and compiled altogether. Render one last movie and burn into DVD. Tada....thank God it was successful but some of the titles were kind of out of screen a little. But i didnt really care. I didnt want to do again to change the 3 secs title. Duplicated another DVD for ah hwee (special request) and i was free to plan for the Amazing Pilgrim's Race (1 day left for me to do and time running out......oh boy....).

AND SO....this was the first time the DVD or movie was ready 2 days before Sunday. After trying out with the DVD player in my home, decided to use the same player in church for echo. Put aside the player and the DVD. Prepared everything for Sunday...and so it seemed.

We had a practice on the lahu songs for presentation and i told the YFers the sequence and stuff. I even sang wrongly for one line (wrong tune) and thot i was right. Hmmm....but there were other parts they were wrong... but we had no time to polish and so just present. Besides, no one would really know we were wrong... except for the two original lahu men present...hahahaha.

The thing i feared most happened. First there was no sound when we attached the DVD player to church PA system. When they finally "made" the sound come out, my DVD couldnt play. As in all DVD movies, there is the MENU selection and front page thingy. It will play over and over again until you press the button to select play. I did. I pressed "play" but it didnt play. There were only 3 buttons on my DVD player and the other two were OPEN/CLOSE & STOP. OH MAN... i realised i should have brought the REMOTE CONTROL!!! THere was an "ENTER" button on it BUT this button not found on the DVD player itself!!

It was 4pm. Echo scheduled at 4.30pm. I wanted to ask Peggy to take someone's car and drive to JJ's house to get the remote control (Lowly & BK bought the same china DVD player when they went to Xiamen previously). it shouldnt take too long. Meanwhile, i asked wei heng to get the sunday school DVD player and hooked up. While arranging that, JJ said he will try to make it play. He did! I dont know how he did but he did. he said i never pressed hard enough. Oh well... since it could play, i thot no need to fetch the remote control nor the SS DVD player.

4.30pm came and after Eld Boon gave an intro on BDC, i went forward to press play. IT DIDNT WORK! I pressed real hard and clearly it wasnt going to work. I asked JJ to come and press. He did and movie never played. I had 2 options. Get another DVD player (the SS one) or play from laptop... the latter was not what i desire coz different resolution could mean words cut off or heads cut off. Shing ran to take the SS DVD while Shaun told me PA room has a DVD player too. Quickly took it out to hook up. Meanwhile, i told Eld Boon to stall time. He did. He asked Billy to come up to testify his calling. Oh man...i was sweating cold blood already....

The PA DVD looked old but nevertheless, beggars couldnt be choosers, right? We attached all the cables. The movie was able to play but it kept jumping. So we adjusted the cable till it didnt. Next was the sound. it failed again. Kok Soon & Shaun tried to make the sound come out but couldnt. Then Shing came with the SS DVD player. We thot perhaps it was the DVD player... coz when it was hooked to my player, there was sound. Lo and behold, SS DVD player also had no sound. I knew then it wasnt the players.. it was our own PA. Why did it had to fail me time and time again? It always plagued me...aarggh.

Dr Lowly came forward during this time. He asked us to play directly from the projector but that would mean the sound would be very soft coz projector speakers are small. I wasnt keen but he had to try all ways. Then he said play from laptop. Someone (couldnt remember which youth) ran to youth hall to get the ACER laptop over. Meanwhile we tried to play on my DVD player and dr lowly tried to press the play button but it didnt make the movie move. Sigh...it was supposed to be perfect but now... everyone was waiting and Billy had to give last min testimony. I felt sooo bad. WHY OH WHY DID I NOT TAKE THE STUPID REMOTE CONTROL?????

Laptop came. Powered up. Hooked and whoosh.. the movie played and there was sound. But cable too short coz laptop had to connect to projector and also to the PA connector. Decided to move projector to the right of the sanctuary and so all preparations were made to run movie from laptop. Someone ran to PA room and got hold of a longer cable but i didnt want to jeopardise the situation after we got sound and sight. Decided to play with the screen concentrated on right side of the whole hall. Sorry folks... those seated on the left.. you needed to strain your necks a little. And so, i signalled to Eld Boon ok and we made preparations for laptop to sit on the organ's chair. While placing the laptop on the chair, i accidentally PRESSED the poweroff button on the laptop. It happened at the same moment i told Eld Boon that everything was ok. My next lament: WHY OH WHY DID I HAVE SUCH BUTTER FINGERS AND DEPRESS THAT BUTTON AT THAT CRUCIAL MOMENT??? Actually i didnt know i pressed it. Dr lowly told me. He saw me pressed. ARgh....could have slapped myself real hard.

And so, everyone had to wait for it to power on. Thank God the sound and visual were intact and finally... at 5 or 5.05pm, we watched the movie. It went smoothly and when the end came, it was a huge burden off my back but i was still kind of visibly shaken because of so many wrongs that happened.

Then came our item. 2 lahu songs. the First one... we had practiced before. I knew the sequence too well. Stanza and chorus, then intermission, chorus twice and then last line and end. Somehow during the presentation, i kept telling myself "chorus sing twice, dont forget" and so after we sang stanza and chorus, i made the BOO BOO!!!! I sang Ye Su O.... when iz and hwee were supposed to play the intermission!!! This was SUPER SUPER EMBARASSING. NEver mind i was the one who kept telling YFers dont sing wrongly. NEver mind i was the one to correct them the timing. NEver mind i was the one who corrected them on the tune also. OH MAN!!!! I hid my face behind my paper. I wished there was a hole to sink in and sink in real fast.

When everything was finally over, i heaved the greatest sigh of relief ever and yes, i learned my lesson real hard that day. It was all my fault and i didnt do 4 things right:

1) REMOTE CONTROL!!!! Why didnt i take it in the first place?
2) REMOTE CONTROL AGAIN!!! Why didnt i follow my gut feeling and get Peggy to take for me (just in case) Or perhaps got hold of SS DVD player out front to stand by?
3) SILLY FINGER!!! Clumsy oh me to press that one dreadful button
4) MEMORY BANK FAIL!!! Tried to end the song when it was just halfway over.

1 Feb.... the day i would never forget. Thank you all who helped to run around and made things happen. Thank you all who had so much patience and waited for us to figure out how to run the movie. Thank God for dr lowly who helped...very safe with him around :) Thank God for enabling...even tho with the awful nightmare right from the start. Now i know... even when i do get ready the video 2 days before Sunday, awful things do happen......

Oh yes... thank u all who prayed :)