Cable Cleanup and Broadcast Upgrade

In the middle of the pandemic, we all suddenly learned how good our video systems were or, in a lot of cases, were not. For New Life Church, a large multi-site church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, the video demands of a pandemic were high. A church of five separate locations citywide, with a moderate streaming presence, suddenly became a church with one location broadcasting five services. Along with the five services and all their other events turned virtual, they were broadcasting almost around the clock.

The Tech Director, Evan Duran, and Creative Pastor, Aaron Olson, took the challenge of streaming and ran with it, but their equipment couldn’t keep up. Suddenly adding different needs to cover worship, and working with the dynamics of five very different congregations and pastors was pushing a minimal, five-year-old video system to its limits. On top of all this, the previous generation video system components were still connected into the racks, with old, bad cable runs covering everything and creating a mess of complications and unreliability. It was a disaster waiting to happen! New Life Church wanted us to gut the system completely in one week and have them back up and running on a new system by the weekend. Challenge accepted!

In designing the system one of the first things we looked at was flexibility. With the needs of many different types of events and several congregations, as well as large-scale special events such as their yearly Desperation Conference, this system needed to be limitless. We based the design around our favorite limitless switcher: the Blackmagic Atem Constellation 8k. With 40 inputs and 24 outputs, it allowed us to design a system accessible by every input and every destination. It was designed so that scaling and resolution of inputs and GFX would never be an issue.  

For the backbone of the system, we placed fiber optics to every major location. We ran fiber optics backstage, fiber optics on the stage, and fiber optics to front of house. This allowed for 4k60 inputs at any location and a “reset” in cable length to keep all signals strong. With custom rack panels from Elite Core, custom labeled with actual switcher inputs and outputs, each of these locations was ready for easy accessibility of these inputs and outputs. In every location, the patches to fiber are rated for 12g 4k60 SDI to allow more growth in the future. 

The racks weren’t the only thing that needed redoing. Even the cameras were replaced! The original cameras, Black Magic Ursa Mini 4.6k cameras were showing their age and old chip technology. We replaced them with the newer Ursa Broadcast 4k cameras for greater clarity and the ability to output 4k video with a broadcast B4 lens. Even the cameras got new tactical-grade fiber optic cabling. This enabled more flexible movement for any setup including the dolly shots. The lensing was the Fujinon LA16 glass, specifically designed for these cameras to create digital back focus and clarity end to end.
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We can talk cameras and switcher and fiber all day, but the best parts of this install were really in the details and how it was all put together. One of our most important pieces to this system was the Clearcom Freespeak intercom. Clearcom Freespeak is a high clarity digital wireless intercom system with multi-channels and flexibility in its abilities to matrix all different conversation groups.  What most people don’t know about Clearcom is that it integrates seamlessly with the ATEM Constellation 8k. Simply plugging a four-wire cable between the Freespeak brain and the Constellation 8k allows the video switcher to extend the comms system over SDI directly to cameras. The camera operators then can plug directly into their cameras and use the zoom hand controls to talk with near-perfect clarity. Integrated comm functionality provides not only easy communication between team members but the ability to move the camera anywhere and have comm functionality remain the same no matter where they are and without a cumbersome belt pack.

New Life Church, like many churches now days, uses LED walls to display much of its content. LED walls can be hard to tune color for a life-like representation. In this visual system upgrade, we added a Blackmagic Terranex AV to each wall for the added ability to adjust color from a more controllable platform and then save settings. The new processing units also have a greater capacity for mapping content if required.  

The last bit that New Life needed to complete the system was setting up the streaming devices. We moved New Life and all its campuses over to the Boxcast streaming system. There isn't a more awesome, flexible, and reliable streaming platform than Boxcast! With a cloud-based scheduling platform, multi-stream output capability, and encoders with no hardware buttons, Boxcast provides a reliable platform. With this equipment, New Life essentially added an additional “campus” location to keep church members safe and reach them from wherever they are.

In working through these new solutions, one of the things New Life needed the most was a complete cleanup of systems. So, the Lambda AV team set about to do one of the things we do best! We removed every old, unused wire we could get our hands on and even removed every single piece of equipment in the control room and started over. We simplified 3 racks filled with piles of old equipment and narrowed it down to one rack of all new equipment. We then re-ran every cable in the room and re-worked every GFX and control position. Everything finally had a place and was labeled for easy reference and location. With all the old clutter out of the way, we even hung five new multi-view screens from the ceiling those who would be working in the room could receive information about what is happening everywhere and at all times.

In the end, New Life Church has a reliable, creative, and dynamic video system ready for whatever challenges the future may hold and a place for staff and volunteers to grow alike.

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