Designing a Broadcast Room

Summit Video System Continued

In addition to adding new audio visual equipment, Summit also decided they wanted to create a broadcast room. We were excited to help them design and add a fully equipped broadcast room for them. Not only are the video switcher, camera control panel and live streaming equipment in the broadcast room, but Summit also moved their audio console there to control stream audio. There are a lot of elements to the broadcast room at Summit and is a visually exciting little room to see!

​You might be wondering why it’s an important decision to add a broadcast room. Do you really need it or does it just add another layer of complexity? A Broadcast room allows for multiple people such as your Producer, Director/Switcher, Camera Shader, broadcast Audio Engineer, etc. to all be in one room and easily communicate with each other. Creating noise or talking is no longer is an issue like it would be if you had all these people at FOH. The broadcast room also uses two Danley cube speakers and a nano sub for live audio monitoring.

What’s difficulty with a broadcast room? Everyone running your equipment still need to be able to see what is going on in the main room, on the event screens and on the Live streams. This is where large multi-view screens come in. The broadcast room has the added benefit of being able to have larger multi-view screens were as at FOH having those larger screens is just not feasible. The broadcast room at Summit has four wall mounted TVs for multi-view and program monitoring. The tech team can change what is shown on any of the TVs allowing them to customize for their specific needs at any given time.  

There are many elements to having a successful broadcast room. Here are a few of the most important pieces in the Summit broadcast room.

​A big piece of the broadcast room is ProPresenter Seven. Partway through the install at Summit, ProPresenter Seven was released. It is not usually recommend to change to a new product that has not had time to be tested and debugged, but the integration of ProPresenter Seven was immediately at the top of the list for things to add for Summit and was a must for them. Because of the features and advantages it has over ProPresenter Six, we agreed that it was worth the risk.

​Ryan reworked the Summit video system plans and we integrated ProPresenter Seven. One of the biggest advantages of Seven is the ability to create multiple screen configurations and looks. This was especially helpful in setting up the configuration of the led walls and lower third lyrics for the stream output.

The integration of ProPresenter Seven also allowed for Summit to be able to switch all their graphics and lyrics from one computer, eliminating a level of complexity and making the process more streamlined for them.

​The other major presenter piece was Boxcast. Boxcaster is an end-to-end streaming platform that gives you extremely powerful and reliable streaming options while, at the same time, being amazingly easy to use. It has an intuitive interface and once set up it does not require any complicated upkeep. Even though it is simple to use, it does not sacrifice or compromise on what it offers. With Boxcast you can always count on buffer-less high-quality video for your streams.
A large portion of the broadcast room is dedicated to producing the video for Summit. The video system wouldn’t be complete without two essential items: a camera control panel and video switcher. 

​With a live production, lighting is constantly changing through the entire event. This is especially true for a church worship service. Because of this, your camera settings will need to be adjusted throughout the event to insure they look accurate and match each other. The Blackmagic Camera Control Panel located in the broadcast room allows for quick adjustments to the camera, whether it be black levels, white balance, ISO, or making minute adjustments to the colors of the camera.

This Camera Control Panel can control four cameras at a time and up to eight cameras total. One of the key things a set of camera controls does is allow remote changes to your camera’s settings. This lets your camera operators be fully focused on the shots they are getting and not worry about changing any camera settings. This is especially important in a setting where you may have different volunteers as camera operators week to week who may not have the experience to adjust camera settings.

The benefit of this panel being in the broadcast room is for the person shading or making the camera corrections to have a clear view of the multi-view screens. This allows them to see all of the camera shots at once. From there they can pick up on and notice any inconsistencies between the cameras and make the required adjustments.

The switcher in the broadcast room is the Blackmagic ATEM 1M/E Advanced panel. The Blackmagic ATEM 1M/E Advanced panel is a great physical panel for controlling BMD ATEM switchers. While all the video and effects can be switched from the ATEM software accessed through a computer, the advantages a physical panel provides is immense. A physical control surface allows for a more intuitive workflow and helps reduce the chance of accidentally hitting the wrong button. The physical controls and professional joystick also give you greater and smoother control over camera and DVE adjustments.

​There’s a lot that went into the broadcast room at Summit. It’s always fun to build a space where people can create great audio and video content for the organization. Next week we will take a look at the last part of the video system: LED walls!