案例分析

第一联合教会应用Echolab产品建立与信徒的连接。


第一联合教会通讯与科技主任

在威奇托的第一联合Methodist教会，堪萨斯州在现场直播礼拜上有着30多年的著名历史。这个节目是由当地电视台工作人员制作的，一直在利用电台的远程设备进行制作，直到近来，教会的工作人员和管理人员添加了自己的制作设施，得以自己创造这个现场直播。

Several manufacturers and products were evaluated and considered, with the goals of having excellent standard definition capabilities with significant concern with ease of use of the system. Systems integrator Stark Raving Solutions (SRS) worked with the staff in this evaluation process. Dan Stark, president of SRS suggested two Echolab Nova 1716 SDI switchers for their high quality solutions, that also offer an easy to use system. Stark commented “Our past success with the Echolab product line made suggesting these products easy, and the Echolab Classic 7 panel offers a easy to use system that is key when utilizing facilities with limited staff and is operated principally by volunteers”.

As director of communications and technology for First United I agreed with these recommendations. Our objective in selecting a switcher was to find a product with very straightforward operation, yet that would give us the flexibility to produce a world class show. Our technicians are volunteers, with skills ranging from expert to novice. Echolab’s Nova 1716 was a perfect fit. It’s affordable price let us go one step forward. Our control room features two identical Echolab 1716 switchers. One feeds our live broadcast.  The second feeds projection in our Sanctuary.  This provides a great training situation.  A technical director with less experience handles Sanctuary projection, and is paired with an experienced director on the Broadcast switcher. With this arrangement, our volunteer directors are able to slowly make the transition from simply pushing buttons, to calling shots.’

The two identical switchers are fed with identical inputs; one system feeds a distribution system that feeds the local broadcaster a live feed. The second switcher feeds an Image Magnification system of monitors and projectors throughout the building. One of the advantages the Echolab Nova 1716 switcher allows is numerous Aux buss outputs, this IMAG system utilizes these busses to provide unique outputs to different projectors and display zones to allow the technical director to easily route the appropriate signals easily and quickly.

This functionality is very advantageous, for example when the children’s church bring students to the front of the sanctuary for children’s time the IMAG director selects graphics sources to feed the plasma displays that the children can see, while still showing camera shots of the children on the projectors that the congregation watches. This functionality is critical, as we quickly found that if the children could see themselves on the plasma displays they were distracted watching themselves on the displays, losing interest in the service and also made their shots ineffective on the broadcast.

Dan Stark concludes, ‘the effective partnership of reliable, high quality, and easy to use products like the Echolab switchers help to insure that customers with high production requirements and limited staff can be successful. This is of great importance to the house of worship industry. First United is a great success story of this successful integration of products.’