This year's NAB Show featured a new tag line: “The M.E.T. Effect.” It stands for media, entertainment and technology. It's the perfect description of the NAB Show. The National Association of Broadcasters is still the name of the organization that hosts the event, but it's certainly an outdated name.
If you've never attended NAB, it's hard to adequately describe its size and scale. According to the NAB, this year's show attracted over 103,000 attendees and had more than 1,800 exhibitors covering over one million square feet of exhibit space. To put it in perspective, there are only three convention centers in the United States that could handle a show of this size: Chicago's McCormick Place, the Las Vegas Convention Center and Orlando's Orange County Convention Center. While the NAB Show was held in Chicago for a number of years, it's called Las Vegas home for at least the past 30 years.
Church Production had six staff members on site for this year's NAB Show, held April 24-27. Our team attended nearly 100 meetings, press conferences and exhibitor booth appointments over five days. It was a fantastic, exhilarating and exhausting week.
Each year our staff and contributors select the “Top 5 Products for Churches from NAB.” The products we recognize must have 1) innovative feature sets that are 2) designed, at least in part, with churches in mind and 3) be reasonably affordable. With nearly 2,000 exhibitors showing tens, if not hundreds of thousands of products, it's always a major challenge to narrow it down to just five. With due respect to the other 1,800+ companies at NAB that also showed great products for churches, we proudly announce Church Production Magazine's “Top 5 Products for Churches from NAB 2017.”
Blackmagic Design Atem Television Studio Pro HD Live Production Switcher
We first learned about the new Atem Television Studio Pro HD at Blackmagic's annual Monday morning pre-show NAB press conference held in the company's massive exhibit booth near the entrance to the South Hall.
This remarkable new eight-input switcher is miniscule in size and price (List Price: $2,295) yet offers four SDI and four HDMI inputs with re-sync, built-in graphics, DVE, transition effects and keyers. And if you're using Blackmagic cameras, the unit offers complete camera control including intercom.
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Broadcast Pix BPswitch family of live production switchers
We were tipped off to the new Broadcast Pix BPswitch live production switcher a few weeks before NAB during a press briefing by the company's founder, Ken Swanton.
While the company has long been known for its line of affordable switchers, what's truly remarkable about the new BPswitch is the assertion that it is “the industry's first control-over-IP from anywhere by tablets, phones, and panels.”
What does this mean for churches? It means the cameras, the switcher processor and the control panel can be in three different locations – even three different continents. Besides being convenient, imagine the savings if a church could stagger its start times and use one switcher for several different locations.
A company representative told us of a church in Atlanta that is looking at the BPswitch as a solution to help manage its satellite locations in Africa. Imagine a situation where the video director could fire up his iPad while he's on vacation in nearby Hilton Head, S.C., and switch a church service in Africa by controlling a switcher based in Atlanta. Later, while that video director is relaxing on the beach, another video director could use that same Atlanta-based switcher processor to switch a church service across town in nearby Buckhead. The possibilities are amazing.
Point Source Audio CO2-8WL lavalier and earmount microphone
This is one of those new products that makes you say to yourself, “Well, duh! Why didn't someone else think of that first?”
The concept couldn't be simpler: it's a lavalier-style microphone (though it can be fitted to Point Source Audio's Embrace headset) with two matched elements and two output connectors. The second output can be used as a back-up, or for a broadcast or monitor split.
While the CO2-8WL made its NAB debut in late April, we first saw the innovative new microphone when it was introduced to the theater market at the USITT event in St Louis back in March.
Ross Graphite all-in-one video production suite
We're not sure any other company at NAB could successfully pull off a three-hour press conference. For the past several years Ross has done just that. Held Sunday night, before the Monday morning mayhem of the show's first day, the highlight of this year's press conference, at least for the church market, is the introduction of Graphite. Think of it as a full-on production system based on a 24-input, two M/E Carbonite switcher, with the addition of 3D motion graphics, clip server, and audio engine. For less than $25,000, the new Ross Graphite delivers a cost-effective, step-up solution for churches seeking broadcast-level video production tools.
Shure Axient Digital Wireless System
Shure's Axient technology is nothing new. Axient Digital is. The analog version has been available for several years, but Shure announced the addition of Axient technology to its digital wireless systems at NAB 2017.
In our opinion, Axient technology offers two remarkable features for the church market: High-density Mode and ShowLink. High-density Mode more than doubles the number of simultaneous wireless systems (from 17 to 47) that can operate in a 6 MHz band, albeit at lower power. Low-power operation simply means the transmitters and receivers need to be closer together. ShowLink allows a technician real-time wireless control of all transmitter parameters like channel selection and gain.
While it's still on the expensive side (we were told approximately $2,300 per channel) Axient Digital is significantly less expensive than its analog cousin. And with the increasingly complicated wireless landscape, churches in dense wireless environments will certainly be interested in learning more about Shure's new Axient Digital Wireless Systems.
For information on next year's NAB Show, April 7-12, 2018, please visit
