Christ Fellowship of Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., has grown from a living room bible study group back in 1984 to a ministry that touches over 16,000 people at five South Florida campuses today. In addition, nearly 10,000 people each week visit the virtual campus, a church online, through live video streaming. The church's outreach continues to grow as it expands via the Internet.
“Technology is a tool that allows us to effectively reach our region,” says Alan Jones, veteran media coordinator at Christ Fellowship. “The technology we use changes, but our message has always been the same.” A key factor in the success of Christ Fellowship is thoughtful planning and careful implementation of technology to support a growing infrastructure; this is evidenced by the church's recent video and audio technology upgrades.
Christ Fellowship places a high priority on excellence in all its ministries, including technology. Technical teams have worked hard to create and maintain an engaging environment for worship services at the church's central Gardens campus. It is from there that a weekly message is broadcast on a two- to three-minute delay to the other South Florida campuses (Royal Palm, Stuart, and City Place), all within a 30-mile radius. The broadcast message serves to unite the campuses with a common purpose while local campus pastors, band, and technical teams work to facilitate live worship at the campuses.
Nathan Carroll is the technical media director for Christ Fellowship and serves as production manager at the Gardens campus. The production manager coordinates communication and timing for services so campuses are aligned with the central Gardens campus. Carroll oversees a production team of approximately 55 team members each weekend. According to Carroll, “The recent upgrade to HD helps us maintain our priority of excellence and facilitates our ever-expanding reach throughout the region.”
Video Upgrade
“Our standard-definition equipment was becoming harder to maintain,” says Carroll, “and the move to high-definition was a necessity to facilitate the addition of new campuses. In order for this to happen, we had to replace the entire video infrastructure of the Gardens campus.”
To make the move to HD, the church added four new Panasonic AK-HC3500 (1080i) studio cameras with AK-HCU3550 control units. These cameras have fixed locations: two at front-of-house position and two on platforms located left and right in the sanctuary. The cameras feature three high-performing 2/3-inch 2.2-megapixel IT CCDs, 38-bit digital signal processors, and 14-bit A/D converters for outstanding quality. For close-up coverage on the platform, two hand-held AG-HPX500 high-definition camcorders were added. Additionally, two “box type” Panasonic cameras (AK-HC1800) were mounted on pan-tilt systems (AW-PH400), equipped with remote pan-tilt controllers (AW-RP400) and remote control units (AW-CB400) to capture platform and congregation shots. These units are portable, so they can be repositioned as needed. In all, the worship center is configured to support 12 SMPTE camera cable locations.
A New Control Room
Christ Fellowship was out of space in its old video control room, but the team wanted to add more than just space. “In addition to the move to HD, our goal for a control room was to make it expandable and not find we're obsolete a couple of years down the road,” says Carroll. “For our church, technology changes fast, so flexibility is important. We don't want to be limited in terms of what we can add in the future.”
To provide more space and flexibility, the Gardens video control room was moved to a separate building and connected to the worship center via 72 fiber optic lines, as well as copper cables. Additional fiber connectivity was provided to connect the student ministry auditorium, Groot Center Building, and the South Campus buildings. Adjacent to the new control room is a recording studio space with seating for about 300. With the new design, cameras can be moved from the main sanctuary to the studio to record live broadcasts, webcasts, or educational video content in a smaller, studio setting. Ultimately, the control complex will also house a broadcast audio room and a dedicated web broadcasting room.
In preparation for the conversion to high-definition video, the church's Ross Video Vision 3MLE (48x48) production video switcher was purchased several years ago with future HD options, so only minor modifications were needed to accommodate the new HD signals. For flexibility, a Pesa high-definition Cheetah 144NE fiber router, fully configured for 144 x 144, was chosen as a high performance and reliable HD fiber optic routing system. Evertz test and synchronization components were installed, including 5600MSC for signal generation. Black Magic Design OpenGear converters (CONVOPENGOF) were selected to convert SDI to optical fiber, and optical fiber to SDI simultaneously. To provide flexibility and preserve the high-definition signal over fiber, Christ Fellowship's technical team installed three Telecast Copperhead fiber optic camera transceivers and two Telecast T-POV (point-of-view) fiber optic control units with high-quality Belden SMPTE cable and Gepco SMPTE distribution racks and breakout panels.
The new control room is also equipped with an Evertz MPV Multiviewer. This unit allows up to 72 video inputs to be directed to 12 outputs including the control room monitor wall and other monitoring positions around the campus to facilitate switching, camera direction, and confidence monitoring. The control room monitor wall is comprised of six Samsung UE46A 46-inch LCD display surfaces in a two (high) by three (wide) configuration. The production manager's multiviewer also allows Carroll to verify the video signal that is sent to the remote campuses.
For intercom communications between the remote campuses and Gardens campus, the team added to the existing Trilogy Communications IP-based intercom system. The Trilogy system interfaces with a Clear-Com SB-704 Switchboard Main Station. Clearcom RS-700 user stations, Clearcom HS-6 handsets and Telex Bosch PH88 headsets complete the intercom system and allow the team to communicate during production.
All video equipment added in the upgrade needed to work seamlessly with the existing streaming hardware used for broadcasting to the satellite campuses. With the control room acting as the hub, as many as 10 video cameras are switched through the Ross switcher to the Pesa router which, in turn, sends signals to the church's Omneon Spectrum server or to the Streambox codec unit that handles the transmission of video-over-managed-fiber connections. At the remote campuses, Streambox units decode the signal, and video servers record and playback the message at the appropriate time in the service.
The upgrade to high-definition video, including construction, moving existing equipment, and outfitting the new control room, was completed in four months. The design team was lead by John Groves of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based Audiographics Engineering, with engineering and integration by Pro Sound and Video's Miami office.
Audio Upgrade
Goals for a new sound system at the Christ Fellowship Gardens campus included improved frequency response, intelligibility, and SPL coverage. Designs that met those needs were completed by Dan Palmer for loudspeaker manufacturer L-Acoustics with system integration by Pro Sound and Video. Implementation was undertaken in two phases for completion by Easter services in 2011.
As a first step, the aging audio console and analog wiring and infrastructure were replaced with an Avid Venue D-Show console configured to support 64 audio inputs with 24 outputs and equipped with ProTools. An Avid Venue Profile system was installed at the monitor mix position. Consoles are connected via RME routers that distribute MADI audio signals over fiber. The audio console replacement work was completed in-house by the Gardens campus technical team.
With new consoles in place, work on the bulk of the audio upgrade was begun by replacing the four clusters of speakers and two delay rings with a new left-center-right design that features L-Acoustics Karai line source systems. Christ Fellowship's process for determining the best speakers for its 2,200-seat, octagonal sanctuary was unusual: Danny Dagher, senior audio engineer at Christ Fellowship Gardens, notes that the church essentially drove the specifications for the L-Acoustics system. “We invited four respected loudspeaker manufacturers to come participate in a comparative listening test to help us discern which system would be the best solution for our room,” Dagher recalls. “So we brought in our entire worship and media staff—there were more than 30 of us critically listening during the shootout—and we unanimously came to the consensus that Karai was the right box.”
Once the system had been installed and commissioned, Dagher and Travis Groat, system tech, were even more elated with their decision. “Our previous house system was an exploded mono cluster design, which was a comb filtering nightmare,” Dagher laughs. “So to go from that to Karai has been absolutely shocking. The intelligibility is breathtakingly clean, but without the fatiguing sterile harshness that one can experience on other PAs.” An interesting side note is that Christ Fellowship houses the first permanent installation of L-Acoustics Karai systems in the United States.
The loudspeaker design was created using L-Acoustics' 3D Acoustical Simulation Program, Soundvision, that features real-time calculation of SPL and detailed visualization of system coverage. The final design incorporated two, eight-cabinet arrays flown left and right with a nine-cabinet array flown in a center. Extending the low frequencies in the air are two four-box SB18i subwoofer arrays between left and right in a cardioid pattern and six SB28 on the floor, a pair positioned beneath each Karai array. To keep the modern look of the room, the flown arrays are located behind an acoustically transparent cover.
To complete sound coverage in the sanctuary, additional L-Acoustics coaxial enclosures were installed. These included one 115XT HiQ flown per side as extreme left and right down fills, and seven 8XTi mounted below the stage lip, for front fill. The entire loudspeaker complement is powered by a combination of L-Acoustics LA8 and LA4 amplified controllers equipped with LA-AES3 (AES/EBU) cards for digital signal distribution.
With revamped audio, a move to high-definition video, and the addition of a video control room complex, Christ Fellowship is poised to continue its growth onto new regional campuses and beyond. “This new technology gives us more capability to expand,” says Carroll. “We strategically created our designs for quality as well as flexibility. That's important when technology is changing fast.”
