Yorba Linda Friends Church Installs For-A Hanabi HVS-3800s Production Switcher
Dec 21, 2006 8:00 AM
After years of exponential growth, Yorba Linda Friends Church, an Evangelical Christian Friends denomination in Yorba Linda, Calif., moved its congregation to a new 2,800-seat worship center. For-A’s Hanabi HVS-3800S two-M/E SD digital video switcher was recently chosen to replace a single-M/E switcher in order to provide sophisticated signal routing of the array of broadcast-quality video equipment the church uses to produce an impressive multimedia presentation during worship services.
“The For-A Hanabi HVS-3800S switcher was chosen because it offered the best price performance while meeting all of our technical requirements,” says Jeff Polen, technical coordinator at the church. “After careful consideration of competitive brand switchers, the For-A switcher was chosen primarily because it was a two-M/E switcher that included 10 integrated, auxiliary outputs for sophisticated routing of signals to feed every part of our multimedia staging and closed-circuit TV operation.” The HVS-3800S also includes native 16:9 support, an integrated still store, and Digital Video Effects (DVE) capabilities.
“Since our new worship center has a fairly large interior, our goal is to enable everyone to see our pastor, our live band [including guitars, drums, percussion, bass, and piano], song lyrics scrolling on monitors, the emotions on people’s faces, and every aspect of our worship services,” Polen continues. To achieve this, imagery is captured by five handheld digital video cameras and switched live using the HVS-3800S switcher.
“The switcher’s two M/Es are critical to our ability to feed one 16:9 video program to our two rear-projected flatscreens on the sides of the stage and an alternate 16:9 video program to our front-projected 30’x20’ screen that stands center stage,” Polen says. “Our ability to deliver two different video programs, complete with fades, dissolves, and effects, results in greater visual impact and a more captivating presentation.” Occasionally, for weekend services, a fourth large screen is mounted below the center screen, and its content can mirror the display on the two side screens.
The screens also support the worship service by displaying song lyrics and text that reinforces the sermon’s key points. The For-A switcher controls an Inscriber CG Extreme character generator, which provides powerful text generation.
The Hanabi switcher features 10 integrated auxiliary outputs and provides the option to add six or eight more.
These auxiliary outputs enable the church to distribute video signals throughout its premises, including the coffee shop, the bookstore, monitors in the hallways and classrooms, and even the cry room. Also, people can access video of the worship services on a video-on-demand basis via the church’s website, www.ylfc.org. Yorba Linda Friends Church does not televise its services outside of its facility—preferring instead to foster a close-knit community that must come to the church to attend services.
“Having video monitors throughout our new building enables people to observe the service from wherever they are, and this is all made possible by the switcher’s indispensable auxiliaries. Being able to use those auxiliaries without the use of any outboard routing gear is really great. It’s very easy to designate which signal needs to be fed to which output,” Polen says.
Describing the church’s services as “contemporary worship,” Polen says that every aspect of the multimedia staging adheres to the highest production standards. The church uses a GrandMA theatrical lighting console from MA Lighting, as well as a Yamaha PM1D 96-channel digital audio console for front-of-house audio mixing. The studio production control room, which houses the For-A production switcher, has a wall of program and preview monitors.
“In our church’s 100-year history, we’ve occupied three different locations. In our last location, we were limited to overhead projectors and PowerPoint slides. Now that our congregation has experienced the caliber of multimedia that’s been installed at this new location, they really appreciate it, and there’s no going back.”
For more information, visit www.for-a.com.
