Video director, Bill Wyramon used three Sony A7-III cameras to capture the event, a Blackmagic ATEM Mini for switching, a Blackmagic Hyperdeck Mini for recording, and a field mixer for capturing audio, all connected to the Teradek Wave Encoder/Monitor (bottom center).
With campuses in Kernersville and Oak Ridge, N.C., The Summit Church offers services both in-person and via live stream. Recently, Bill Wyramon, video production director at the Kernersville location, spent some time with the Teradek Wave 5-in-1 Smart Streaming monitor––and learned that the system’s promise of truly streamlining the live streaming process is one that the manufacturer has, indeed, kept.
The Teradek Wave Monitor/Encoder has earned the Church Production Road Test certification. Learn more here.
The Teradek Wave is a streaming monitor/encoder featuring smart event creation, network bonding, multi-streaming, and recording via a 7-inch daylight-viewable touchscreen. Its dual monitor/encoder functionality does away with the need for an extra screen, and provides accurate end-of-line monitoring and multi-streaming to several destinations simultaneously. By connecting it to a switcher output, users may prepare multiple streams in advance through its FlowOS workflow solution. And, it alleviates the stress associated with unreliable bandwidth by allowing users to bond several internet connections together.
Approximately 100 family members from The Summit Church attended an Easter early-morning baptism service in person, and the ceremony was streamed live. Portions of this baptism service were shown as part of the church's main Easter celebration held later that morning in the church's worship center.
Upon receiving the Teradek Wave, Wyramon relays that he had everything he needed, out of the box. “There was a quick-start card with a QR code that you could scan for more information, which was all I needed to begin using it,” he said. “It had some weight to it when I held it, and the casing was rugged. It gave me the confidence that it was well-made for field use––which was perfect for us, since the first time we would be using it would be out in a field, literally.”
Wyramon is referring to the pasture behind The Summit Church’s Kernersville building where, at sunrise on Easter morning, Pastor Jonathan Robbins performed a number of baptisms. Approximately 100 family members and congregants attended in person, and the ceremony was streamed live. Wyramon used three Sony A7-III cameras to capture the event, a Blackmagic ATEM Mini for switching, a Blackmagic Hyperdeck Mini for recording, and a field mixer for capturing audio, all connected to the Teradek Wave.
Because the baptisms were performed outdoors, Wyramon was too far away from the church building to tap into wifi; for the same reason, it wasn’t possible to run an Ethernet line. Instead, he tethered the Wave to his mobile phone. “We have 5G out there, and I used a hotspot and connected the Wave to the hotspot on my phone and went live that way,” he explains. He adds that the monitor display quality was also much-appreciated in this outdoor setting. “It’s daylight-viewable, so if you’re outside it’s definitely bright enough.”
Wyramon concedes that while live streaming the baptisms outdoors would have been possible without the Wave, the production quality would not have been the same. “My plan was to use a smartphone to stream to our YouTube channel, so it would have been a single shot with whatever audio we could grab from the phone––I wouldn’t have been able to mic the pastor and take advantage of the audio inputs on the Wave, and viewers would have heard the traffic noise from the highway nearby. This made for a much nicer experience for the people watching online.”
One of Wave’s features Wyramon finds particularly practical is FlowOS, which allows users to pre-configure productions. “You can set up one tab for your Sunday services and it retains all of your configurations, and then you can create a different tab for another production––such as a live stream from the pastor’s home, or a question-and-answer period, or a prayer event. Once you set up each of these productions, all you have to do is literally tap a button and click ‘go live,’ and you’re live, right away.”
After witnessing the ease of use and practicality it offers, Wyramon relays that The Summit Church’s youth ministry is currently budgeting for their own Teradek Wave. “They don’t currently stream their services, so giving them the functionality to stream from different locations––and even take it on the road––is huge,” he says. He adds that the Wave’s user friendliness and portability allow for church techs to produce high quality presentations from the get-go. “I couldn’t believe how easy it is to use. It’s really impressive.”
