Case Study: Church of Champions
Apr 11, 2012 10:40 AM
The Church of Champions in Houston recently purchased four JVC GY-HM790U ProHD camcorders, along with a KM-H3000U production switcher and DT-V24G11Z 24in. studio monitor. The new equipment is being used to webcast weekly sermons and other projects.
With its growing footprint—it has locations in Texas, Georgia, New Jersey, Colorado, and Hawaii—the assembly and staff of the 23-year-old church felt it was time to replace its outdated SD system. “We needed a more sophisticated way to reach our members, so we decided it was time to make the logical switch from SD to HD,” says David Grigsby, creative pastor at the Church of Champions.
The church produces live coverage of sermons on Sundays for its website, www.champ.tv. Three of the four GY-HM790U cameras, positioned on the left, right, and rear of the church, have full studio configurations. The fourth camera is a handheld unit used on and around the platform and altar. All four ProHD cameras are equipped with KA-M790G multicore studio modules.
Grigsby is pleased with the image quality of the HD cameras and the performance of the switcher. He says the new JVC system has greatly improved the video production of Sunday services, and he plans to produce more sophisticated projects, including webcasts of the church’s roundtable discussions.
The Church of Champions also plans to provide worship and sermons for other locations throughout the nation and the world, as it expands its multi-site capabilities. Other projects in the pipeline include coverage of the church’s community groups, called Champions Life Groups, which meet every week in different locations around the area for discussion. “We want to enable our members in different cities to join these groups virtually,” Grigsby says. “We’d also like to do some electronic newsgathering.”
Product At Work: JVC GY-HM790U
An ideal solution for multicore or fiber-based facilities, the GY-HM790U offers an innovative modular design and a redesigned studio adapter sled. Its three, 1/3in. progressive scan CCDs produce 1280×720 and 1920×1080 images, and its proprietary MPEG-2 encoder supports 1080i, 720p, and SD (480i) for operations that have not yet made the move to HD. The compact, shoulder-mount camera works in ENG applications, with a dual card slot design that records to low-cost, non-proprietary SDHC solid-state media cards in ready-to-edit file formats (.MOV and .MP4) for major NLE systems.
