Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Update

All,

I'm going through some changes in family life right now that's caused MDTV to take a back burner for the time being. Don't worry, though; details are getting worked out and MDTV will have some new programs up before too long.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

AJPM,
Chuck, MI

Saturday, April 4, 2009

Well...Obviously it's now up...

We're online.

Of course, that's probably abundantly clear by now, unless you read the blog first, in which case, you probably didn't know (because I'm not very good at updating this blog admittedly), but we went online on March 30, 2009. Our first two programs are from the show from the 1950s called "The Catholic Hour", this particular episode called "Exploring New Horizons" from 1956, and a short from 1941 called "The Trail of Fr. Kino".

So, thanks for all the prayers and support, and now we just keep moving forward. We have some great ideas for projects in the works as we speak, but as per usual, these generally take money to actually do them. I mean, I could get a second job or something, but then it'd be harder for me to get out and produce these programs. In the short term, we'd like to do some rosary clips, some devotionals, and the basic stuff that one would expect from a Catholic TV network. We're also thinking perhaps some children's programming, perhaps a series on various scholas around the country, and some special programming as well. We'll also be in touch with the Wyoming Carmelites and the Clear Creek Benedictines before too long so that we can develop some programming with them as well.

If you feel called to donate, please do so. We can accept PayPal with this address:

donate@mater-dei-television.org

If nothing else, please pray that we receive the resources to keep this online and chugging along. That's actually first and foremost, to be quite honest with you, but all the synapses aren't quite firing yet as I've not had my morning coffee as of yet (and it's 11:07am. Yikes!).

Stay Tuned!

Chuck, MI

Friday, March 27, 2009

Final Testing Stages

We've successfully migrated over to Bluehost from CHS Webmaster and so far, things are looking good. I've asked some friends to do a final quality test that goes over things like bandwidth, quality, and the like, and the great majority of the friends I asked to help on the final test are those who've been with me through the talking ("I'm gonna do this..."), the planning, the testing, and just being there, so I thank all of them profusely for being there for me while I got this thing off the ground.

I'd like to add special thanks to Michelle Grunkemeyer from CHS Webmaster and Catholic Homeschool website, who was instrumental in getting the MDTV webpage off the ground from a technical standpoint and even found Bluehost when it was realized we were going to need a ton more bandwidth. Colleen Hammond, a wonderful traditional Catholic and TV person herself who I've been able to bounce ideas off of and get another perspective from a professional standpoint. Paul Nichols from Catholic Cartoon Blog who's been extremely supportive of this concept throughout the years that I know him, and the fact that he's a hockey fan is cool too (Alexander Ovechkin rocks, man!), and there are many, many others who've been praying for this to finally come up, and to all those who I know I've talked to but are too numerous to list, thank you for everything. It's really meant a lot to me.

Stay tuned! Almost there!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Bringing you up to speed...

The beta tests for quality and bandwidth have concluded and went well. The only thing I have yet to do is check and see how well they work on an actual TV, as these videos are set up more for a Media Center computer in the first place. They might look a little muddy on fullscreen TV, but they still look pretty good for this being web video.

We will be transferring service from CHS Webmaster to Bluehost at the end of this week, so we will be up and flying shortly. CHS Webmaster is a great, inexpensive service with a LOT of bandwidth for those needing average websites. MDTV, unfortunately, is not average in terms of bandwidth consumption and thus we'll be moving to a hosting service that has no bandwidth limitations.

We can make this grow, though, with your support (prayer, financial, old equipment, whatever), and perhaps move to our own T1 where we host it all ourselves. Keep praying for this to grow, and who knows; perhaps we'll even be on satellite.

Stay tuned!

Monday, February 16, 2009

Potential Disaster Averted, But...

...the problem is simply this: The bandwidth charges would financially devestate us.

What we're in the process of doing now is finding ways to host these videos much cheaper than we could otherwise do so at the present. Ultimately, a T1 line with our own server would be the best, but in the short term, we need something else to insure that we have the best possible product delivered in the least expensive possible way.

We're almost there! Keep praying!

Stand By...

Barring disaster, Mater Dei Television will begin programming on Feb 17, 2009.

Donations can be accepted through PayPal at this address: donate@mater-dei-television.org

Keep checking back to this blog for programming updates and other pertinent information regarding Mater Dei Television.

I sincerely hope that MDTV will inspire, inform and educate all who view it.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Progress!

OK, I've taken a template that was downloaded from the Open Source Web Design website and am molding it (finally) into something that will be Mater Dei Television's first website.

Well, first usable one anyway.

I have also embedded the JW FLV Player into the website, complete with sample video that came bundled with it, and it worked...to a point. The player I embedded was actually in the place I wanted it to be (seeing that I've had about 3 weeks of coding experience up to this point - remember? I'm using a TEMPLATE), but I need to find out how to get more than one window embedded. When we can figure that much out, we are SO in business!

So, while my Adventures in Coding are put on hold, I wait and I blog.

Stay Tuned!