Church on the Move in Tulsa, Okla. draws about 10,000 to its multiple weekly services and regularly fills most of the 2,700 seats in its main church. I-Mag gives everyone a better view of what's happening and is a key part of the draw. While the church uses several high-resolution computer graphics sources for imagery sent to the two 16-by-9-foot LED walls (each comprised of 66 Barco iLite 6BK LED tiles with DX-700 LED processors), the crew is still using four standard-definition broadcast video cameras for the I-Mag.
The explanation for how the church was able to achieve HD looks with SD cameras starts with Shawnee, Kan.-based Big Picture Productions. Big Picture was summoned to fix a video delay problem. They solved that issue – up to a half-second delay – by installing a Barco FSN 150 multi-format production/presentation switcher.
The FSN is a 3G-ready switcher that can integrate multiple video and computer graphics formats on a common platform, and Andrew Stone, Church on the Move's production manager, noted that it handled the church's visual delay issues admirably.
"The FSN cut the delay down to almost nothing," Stone said. "There's also no discernable added delay when we add effects like strobing and colorization to shots using the FSN's built-in special effects package. It's been a really slick way for us to go."
Along with the elimination of the half-second delay, the FSN also upscales the church's four existing standard definition cameras to a 720p HD output. And, as Stone noted, that has given an HD look to the images captured by the SD camera gear.
"We can't believe how good our upscaled standard def cameras look," Stone said. "We've had pro video engineers come in here and swear that this is an all-HD house, but we're not; we just run our SD cameras in 16×9 mode and scale up through this awesome switcher."
Barco noted that its Athena scaling engine helps the FSN do this by provided scaled images with only one frame of delay.
"At Church on the Move, we're outputting everything in 720p, and it looks phenomenal," said Evan French, president of Big Picture Productions. "I've done a lot of video in a lot of different venues over the years, but I've never experienced the quality that's coming out of these Barco products, from the FSN, to the DX-700 to the iLite6XP LED walls."
With the FSN switcher, Barco added, upgrading to full HD is accomplished via changing to all HD sources; no extra hardware or software keys are required.
"The FSN was designed with the House of Worship market clearly in mind as a cost-effective switcher solution supporting SD, HD, and a variety of computer sources," said Jed Deame, VP of Image Processing for Barco. "Church on the Move was able to enhance the experience with a switcher that is designed to take them well into the future. Now they are able to take full advantage of their sources, as well as maximizing their LED display investment."
