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"Great in a volunteer-heavy environment. It’s simple to use—anyone can learn how to use it in a few minutes."
With the expanded use of video in today's churches, the video staff and volunteers need a way to select from a variety of inputs and direct them to the video screens or your live internet video streamer quickly and easily. When you start getting into switching between multiple cameras, you need more than an inexpensive "fade-through-black" switcher, and way more than selecting between different inputs on your projectors.
Roland has a new entry in the video switcher space-the V-1600HD high-definition 1ME (mix-effect engine) video switcher. To summarize its features, the V-1600HD provides for 16 input channels, an image store, one program output, one preview output, one aux output, a downstream keyer (DSK), chroma/luma keyer, sync in and pass-through, tally light output, and built-in monitor.
The Ins and Outs
For output, the switcher can be set to operate in standard definition mode (SD), at 480i or 576i. HD modes include 480p, 720p, 1,080i, and 1,080p. RGB output modes include 640x480 through 1,920x1,200.
The input channels can handle a wide variety of formats, anywhere from 480i through 1,080p for video sources, and 640x480 through 1,920x1,200 for computer video. The switcher handles scaling a selected input up (or down) to the required output format, enabling you to connect a wide variety of equipment to the switcher without the need for buying format converters (some switchers require all inputs be the exact same format). This is good news for churches who often need to use consumer-grade gear in their video systems.
The V-1600HD has frame synchronizers, enabling it to use unsynchronized sources and switch between them. This does introduce a small amount of delay in the output, however. If you'd like to make your video switching more efficient, the V-1600HD does have the option of accepting a synchronization signal, to manually sync it to all your other video equipment in more professional installations. It's nice to have this flexibility, so that as your budget and needs grow, the switcher can grow into a synchronized environment with you.
The input connectors for the channels include DVI and VGA connectors for computer-type connections; and BNC connectors for SDI (both HS and SD) inputs as well as composite/component inputs. You can connect HDMI sources to the switcher as well through an inexpensive HDMI to DVI adapter-I bought two of these from a local source for about $7 each to use for this review.
The switcher's control surface starts at the bottom-left with a row of preview selection buttons; above that is the row of program selection buttons; above that are some memory buttons used for saving the operating settings of the switcher; above that are setup buttons and monitor source selection buttons, and then the built-in monitor.
On the right side are controls for managing the transition between inputs (which includes a nice T-bar transition control), Picture-in-Picture controls, chroma/luma key controls, and DSK controls.
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Jim Kumorek is the owner of Spreading Flames Media, providing video/media production and writing services to the A/V/L, technology, architectural and hospitality industries. He has led audio, video and lighting teams in churches as both staff and a volunteer for over 10 years. He can be contacted at james@spreadingflamesmedia.com.
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ADD NEW COMMENTIt’s a shame a nod wasn’t made towards the cheaper and simpler LVS-400 which would suit ‘volunteers’ of a church. Sure it’s missing a number of features compared to the V-1600HD (most notably the HD support) but given that “churches ... often need to use consumer-grade gear in their video systems”, I wouldn’t have thought opting for a product 10 times the cost of what could be considered a suitable alternative would be a great choice. A good overview all the same, thanks.
Posted by Aled on 04/09/2012 report abuse