Multi-Campus AV Upgrade Strategy

Hope Chapel In Kansas City recently upgraded their two main cameras to Blackmagic’s new Ursa Broadcast G2 and, along with that, upgraded their Tv Studio 4k switcher to a Blackmagic 8k Constellation and 2ME Panel. Why the upgrades when their equipment isn’t that old? And what do these upgrades mean for usability? ​

Hope Chapel in Kansas City has worked with Lambda for many years now. With each new piece comes a talk about what the end goal is and how best to allocate equipment to meet that goal. This time, the conversation started with Ronnie, the church’s lead worship pastor and tech liaison extraordinaire, asking Ryan, our owner, about equipment for new small satellite campuses. A budget was set for those campuses, but it wasn’t very big. The central campus also was looking to take the next step after years of growth, but also without a larger budget. The idea discussed was to take all the campus budgets and put them together into a “hand me down” model. Brand new equipment for the central site, generating the most content and with the highest needs, and older equipment moved from the main campus to the newer smaller campuses. This model allows for larger gains in equipment and higher quality for all campuses involved. The key to this model is always buying quality gear and caring for it. Upgrading also needs to be done regularly, so that the gear being replaced still has usable service life when it moves to the new campus.

With this model in mind, the first piece to be upgraded was the switcher. The original switcher was a Blackmagic TV studio 4k switcher. This is an excellent small integrated panel switcher with 8 auto-scaling inputs and 1 aux. The system also included a 40x40 Blackmagic router for sending sources and destinations to other locations. The upgrade was to a Blackmagic 8K constellation and 2 ME panel. The great thing about these switchers is the sheer number of inputs and outputs. The switcher has 40 inputs and 24 outputs making a router unnecessary and improving usability. The switcher still has auto-scaling inputs allowing connections of lots of different camera resolution types. The switcher also has 4 M/E’s, or mix effects busses, allowing easy dissolving or embedding of sources to multiple destinations such as screens or streams or even complicated picture-in-picture arrangements.

When it comes to cameras Blackmagic has continued to make leaps and bounds in its products, and the new Ursa Broadcast G2 is no exception.

It is Blackmagic's most versatile camera. It has the same familiar frame but with a few key added features.

​One of the most significant upgrades to the Ursa is the integration of Dual Native ISO. Dual Native ISO gives you incredible low-light performance, allowing even more flexibility when filming under various circumstances.  So even in limited lighting, you can still have a clean and crisp image.

​What exactly is Dual Native ISO?

​Well, let's start by talking about ISO in general and stay with us while we get technical for a moment. ISO represents a camera sensor's sensitivity to light. A sensor is composed of photosites. The photosites generate an analog signal based on the light they get. This signal then runs into an Analog amplifier. This analog amplifier's gain determines a camera's base or native ISO. The signal then gets converted to digital by an analog-to-digital converter (ADC).

You are applying digital gain when you adjust the ISO beyond this native ISO/Gain setting. Since the signal is just 1s and 0s now, the camera (or post machine, if filming raw) is simply multiplying these numbers to achieve the desired result, but this also results in quality loss and increased noise.

The cause for the increase in noise in filming is the same cause of noise when recording audio. You have a signal-to-noise ratio. And if your audio signal is low, say -30db, and you increase it to -10db, you raise the signal, but you also raise the noise floor.

​So, with a dual native ISO, the camera has two analog amplifiers with different gains. For example, the Ursa broadcast G2 has a native 400 ISO gain and a native 3,200 ISO gain. The camera switches the analog signal routing when you want to use one amplifier or the other.

A close second behind the considerable addition of Dual Native ISO to the camera is the new USB-C port on the rear of the camera. This port not only lets you record directly to an SSD drive but also lets you use Blackmagics' new focus and zoom demands when using a full servo lens, such as the Fujinon LA16.

The lens we used for the new cameras for HC were the Fujinon LA16. The Fujinon LA16 lens is a 16x lens- 8-128mm that was specifically manufactured for use with the Ursa. Its versatile zoom range enables it to be effectively used on sticks or handheld. Glass is as important as what camera you are shooting on, and the LA16 does not disappoint. 

With the main campus receiving the new G2s, the smaller campuses then each received an older Ursa Broadcast camera with a similar setup from the main campus. In addition, one new campus got the old TV Studio 4k and another campus a Tv Studio HD. This was a great way to leverage good working equipment and elevate all campuses at the same time with good use of budget! We love figuring out upgrade strategies and helping to leverage both new and old equipment. Let us know if you have a situation like this, we can solve it for you!