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NewTek TriCaster PRO The all-in-one video production system includes a simple production switcher with three component, S-Video, or composite inputs and one output with the same options. For SDI input/output, NewTek makes the TriCaster Broadcast.
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Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, S.C., uses Panasonic’s HS400 switcher and its built-in multiviewer to monitor and switch its productions.
Video switchers are essential whenever you want to change from one video source to another in the middle of a worship service. For any church that wants to use the same projector to display IMAG coverage of the pastor as well as DVD content or song lyrics, a switcher will come into play. Switchers are the traffic cops that route inputs (video sources) to outputs (display, recording and playout devices). They also can layer video or graphics on top of other video, and generate and apply transitions that range from simple wipes to complex three-dimensional effects.
Any all-in-one live production system that you might consider is based around a production switcher. You’re probably familiar with the general functionality and, at least in the abstract, the operation of a switcher. It’s used to switch between video sources such as cameras, DVD players, and computer video sources. Often a switcher generates and/or plays out graphics and transitions between different video sources. There are several rows of colored, backlit buttons, often a joystick and a T-bar controller, and at least a couple of monitors nearby for previewing your sources before executing a switch.
A production switcher is a video switcher that is designed to output a video program signal that’s appropriate for television broadcast. Other terms you might encounter include “routing switcher,” “scaling switcher,” and “seamless switcher.” (Another term, “A/V switcher,” has traditionally referred to any switcher with integrated audio mixing. Today the term refers to a variety of different production switchers that aren’t primarily intended for broadcast applications.) At this point, the biggest difference between seamless/scaling switchers and production switchers might be their pedigree. Seamless switchers were originally designed for switching events for live display to a screen, and not necessarily for broadcasting or recording. Today they often facilitate video and computer graphics that are displayed in non-standard dimensions, such as matrices of projectors that are edge-blended to generate a single image.
Although a professional systems integrator would certainly be able to devise a system that’s appropriate for broadcast around a seamless switcher, this article focuses on production switchers that are designed around a live-television paradigm.
So Many Questions
Whether you’re looking to integrate professional-level graphics and broadcast your services on cable for the first time or simply devising a way to switch between a single camera, a DVD player and song lyrics on a laptop, your church is in the market for a production switcher. It’s time to figure out your goals and needs. What are the right questions to ask?
“What do you want to put into the system, and what do you want the output to do?” asks John Stapsy, managing director of Datavideo, a company that manufactures switchers that are particularly popular with smaller churches. “Do you want to record it, cable-cast it, project it, have large monitors in the same room, monitors in a different room?” According to Stapsy, a holistic approach to your video system is best. A switcher has a finite number of video inputs and outputs, and might or might not include conversion gear that converts a widescreen aspect ratio to a 4:3 window (or vice versa), or allows it to input a DVI signal from a computer. The type of switcher your church needs will be determined by the rest of the video system—How many cameras do you need? What formats can they output? What are you doing with the video? Do you need separate programs for IMAG (a clean feed of the pastor and song lyrics) and for webcast or broadcast (a feed with overlaid graphics and shots of the congregation)? What level of graphics do you want to produce? Do you want to do high-definition switching now, or in the near future?
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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.
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