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Although very few public access or religious programs are broadcast in high definition, that's projected to change over the next few years, making the purchase of high-definition cameras a timely move. (Trevor Boyer)
Churches have found that as they compete for people’s attention, well-produced video is an effective way to captivate an audience. Not surprisingly, new cameras are high on the wish lists of many ministries as they look to upgrade their existing video systems, or as they begin recording services that incorporate image magnification (IMAG) and pre-produced video.
Determining the best camera system for any particular church requires a careful examination of its current and future goals, the intended application (IMAG, broadcast, field production), the size of the sanctuary, and ultimately, the church’s budget. As a first step, consult a systems integrator who has a history of specifying successful camera/production systems for clients with goals and budgets similar to yours.
Churches have a wide variety of budgets and needs, and today’s market offers a dizzying variety of professional cameras, many of them tantalizingly powerful and affordable. Listing even a fraction of them is beyond the scope of this article, so I’ve instead explained features that you’ll want to consider as you choose a camera or cameras, highlighting models as examples along the way.
Light Sensitivity
Let’s get this straight at the outset: Most sanctuaries are not lit for broadcast television production. The cameras you choose, therefore, are going to have to perform well under less-than-ideal lighting conditions. Especially if you’re shooting a pastor from far away with a zoom lens. This means, at bare minimum, you’re going to want a three-chip camera (which senses light via separate imagers for red, green, and blue). A consumer or “prosumer” level single-chip model just isn’t going to cut it for most applications.
Many professional standard-definition DV camcorders that have been on the market for years are still selling well, such as Canon’s GL2 and XL2, JVC’s GY-DV5100, Panasonic’s DVX100B and DVC20, and Sony’s DSR-PD170. These are three-chip models that have earned the loyalty of a variety of video departments because of their dependability and strong low-light performance.
A camera’s light sensitivity is its key to capturing acceptable imagery under difficult lighting. The bigger its imaging devices, the more light they’re going to capture. But with HD imagers, that light is dispersed among a greater number of pixels. So lighting becomes even more of a challenge for high-definition recording. Robert Harris, VP of marketing for Panasonic Broadcast, recommends that churches consider HD cameras with 2/3-inch chips, if the budget allows it. These are broadcast-level cameras, of course, and they can top out near the six-figure range, fully configured. However, even these 2/3-inch HD models have become more affordable: Panasonic, for instance, offers the new HPX500, a shoulder-mount camcorder with three 2/3-inch CCDs that records 1080i 720p HD to flash memory (in the form of four P2 cards) starting at $14,000.
Sony, for its part, has improved the light sensitivity of the smaller (and more affordable) members of its HD line. Sony claims that its newest pair of camcorders with CMOS chips, the HVR-S270U and the HVR-Z7U (available in February), match the SD standby PD170 in terms of low-light performance. These two camcorders record DV and HDV to both tape and CompactFlash cards.
Recording Medium
This section applies mostly to camcorders for field production, rather than studio-configured camera systems that are fed through a switcher for IMAG purposes and recorded either to tape or server (or both). Tapeless recording is becoming more attractive as IT-based storage becomes cheaper, and videographers are willing to revise their workflow to reap the benefits, such as the speed of video upload to the editing system.
But tape is still extremely convenient. Full-sized tapes can record for up to 4.5 hours apiece; flash-memory recorders can’t approach that level (yet). It’s also relatively cheap. It’s rarely subject to complete crashes. And once you digitize it into your server, you’ve got an instant archive in the handy form of a plastic brick. Depending on the sophistication of your IT infrastructure, a hybrid approach might be the smartest way to protect your content and take advantage of the speed and flexibility that flash-memory, hard-drive, and optical-disc recording all offer.
Via FireWire, most tape-based standard-definition camcorders can be outfitted with an outboard Focus Enhancements (or similar) hard-drive recorder and still record to tape simultaneously. Panasonic offers several standard-def models in its P2 line that record video to solid-state PCMCIA cards that can be directly loaded onto a computer or a Panasonic P2 Store, a portable hard drive-based recorder.
On the HD side, those hard-drive recorders still apply, and there’s the same variety of options from optical disc (Sony’s XDCAM HD) to flash memory/solid state (Panasonic’s P2 HD). In addition, many HD cameras offer a tape drive and some built-in or dedicated nonlinear recording mechanism for redundant recording.
“If you can pair (a camcorder) up with a FireWire drive, then you’re utilizing the best of both,” says Mitchell Glick, assistant manager of product marketing, video division for Canon USA. “You have it in a ready-to-use form if you want to go directly into your edit suite, and then at the same time you already have that high-quality archive that you can file away and use as needed.”
Centralized Settings
In any setting that uses multiple cameras, such as most church sanctuaries, matching the looks of the various cameras is often a great challenge. If there are a variety of models, that’s an inherent difficulty; even if the cameras are uniform, often their individual lighting conditions are not. Alan Keil, VP of engineering at Ikegami, says that most churches will benefit from a camera system that facilitates consistent matching of pictures without any significant effort by a video operator.
Bob Ott, VP of optical and network systems for Sony, agrees. “When you’re setting up a studio,” he says, “if you’re using an $8-$10,000 camera, you need to be able to control pedestal, gain, gamma, all sorts of aspects of the camera from one spot. So no matter what camera’s punched up, if it’s going through a switcher, it’s the same.”
Most modern cameras and camcorders also offer some sort of media card slot that lets a technical director load profiles of camera settings into each camera, in case direct remote control of settings is not an option. If you’re choosing cameras that will be used by non-technical users, a strong auto focus and auto white balance system will be important (and don’t forget a strong image stabilization system, for handheld operation).
It’s also important to remember that if you’re intending to cut multi-camera programs together for later broadcast, choose cameras with genlock capability in order to match up their timecode.
Robotics
Speaking of remote control, for some sanctuaries, full control over all camera settings—and moves—is the best choice. Also, sight lines are often tricky to preserve when you introduce cameras and their operators. Robotic cameras can be mounted on the edge of a balcony, for instance, and controlled remotely by a single operator.
Multiple cameras means that multiple competent operators need to be on-hand each Sunday. With a production switcher, one or two operators can handle camera adjustments and live switching for IMAG and recording. Ott recommends marrying robotic cameras with a user-friendly production switcher. “(Sony’s) Anycast system is very intuitive and very easy for a volunteer to operate,” he says. “So it’s really been successful for those churches that don’t have a full-time media staff on board.”
A variety of manufacturers offer both HD and SD robotic cameras, and prices for both have come down significantly in recent years.
HD or Just Widescreen?
The widespread adoption of HD-native flatscreen television sets has made a generation of consumers much more discerning about the video images they see. A recent study by research firm Understanding and Solutions estimates that 34% of American homes have “HD-ready” displays, and that figure could reach 90% by 2011.
Still, many of the camera manufacturers agree that HD cameras are not necessary just yet. For churches broadcasting to their local cable station, standard-definition images are generally going to be sufficient; very few public access or religious programs are broadcast in high definition. Ditto for churches primarily focused on DVD production—though church members might have a high-def TV set at home, chances are minuscule that they’re viewing Blu-ray or HD-DVD discs just yet. That’s all certain to change over the next few years, however, so while it’s not too late to buy standard-definition gear, it’s also definitely not too early to go high-definition. Many affordable cameras are switchable between SD and HD.
You’ve probably seen the ads for camcorders that record “true HD” for $1,000 or sometimes even less. While these little marvels are great for certain tasks and conditions, these camcorders generally record a compressed form of HD using tiny imagers that do not offer enough light sensitivity for most real-world applications. You’re almost always better off with a basic, standard-definition professional three-CCD camera.
Many of these can record a native widescreen image, which suits projector resolutions and widescreen TVs in the home. Widescreen SD also integrates well into high-definition programs, so if you’re looking to future-proof your content for later use in an all-HD world, 16x9 standard-definition might be the way to go. “Who knows five years from now how you’re going to repurpose and redistribute some existing content,” says Robin Richards, marketing manager, houses of worship for Sony, “so you’re protecting your assets and your programming.”
That said, IMAG is often displayed on a very high-resolution projector. The currently dominant XGA resolution (1366x768) will display 720p HD natively—with pixels to spare. “Reproducing the detail of high definition on a large screen can carry a lot of impact for ceremonial occasions,” says Craig Yanagi, JVC’s national marketing manager for creation products.
But before you decide it’s time to embrace high-definition, remember that you’ll also need a switcher that can handle HD signals. There are also new demands on your postproduction system. Though most current editing software handles HDV and other forms of HD with no problems, you’re going to need very fast processors, a lot of RAM, and cavernous storage to handle the extra bits of HD video.
Ironically, larger churches might find that making an HD system fit their budget is especially challenging. “HD has really come down, but when you’re in a larger venue, obviously you’re farther away, and you need bigger and more expensive glass (lenses),” says Joe Strobel, senior project manager for Communications Engineering Inc. (CEI), a systems integrator based in Newington, Virginia that works with broadcasters and larger churches. He also notes that there’s still a large price premium for the HD versions of the more robust, higher-end cameras (with remote-controllable settings) that these larger churches demand.
Doubling Up
Many churches with smaller budgets will be tempted to buy camcorders with the intent to use them both in the sanctuary on Sundays and during the week to produce testimonial and other types of video. This might work in certain situations, but consider the following: Though they’re easily mounted on tripods, most affordable, handheld camcorder models feature built-in lenses that are not long enough to capture close-ups of the pastor from far away.
A possible solution to this problem is choosing a smaller camcorder model that offers interchangeable lenses, and buying a separate longer zoom lens. Canon has two very popular models that fit this bill: its HDV-shooting XL H1 and its standard-def XL2 model. JVC also offers affordable HD models with interchangeable lenses: the GY-HD110, HD200, and HD250. The HD250 is a studio-configurable HDV camcorder, and JVC says that a system with an HD250 camera, a lens, studio adapter, viewfinder, rear lens controls, and camera control unit lists for under $23,000. On the shoulder-mounted side, Ikegami’s HDN-X10 is an HD camcorder designed for double-duty in the studio and in the field.
Of course, there’s always the issue of wear-and-tear. Use a camera twice as much, and you’ll likely need to replace it in half the time.
Trevor Boyer is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn, New York. He likes to write professional A/V and video production stories (like this one) that can be reported via subway travel.
