First Baptist Church of Spartanburg Goes HD

By Britt Dillard
The first weekly broadcasts live from First Baptist Spartanburg began in 1956 on local CBS affiliate WSPA. Since that time, the church has grown to include more than 7,000 members and to reach, through broadcasts of the church services and "The Encouraging Word" ministry, an average weekly viewing audience of more than 150,000 people.

In 2006 we realized that the analog infrastructure supporting our broadcast production was nearing the end of its useful life and would need to be replaced and updated with current digital technologies. We planned the overhaul of our production facilities as part of a larger upgrade to our sanctuary, and we worked with systems integrator TI Broadcast Solutions Group to design and install new digital routing and switching, audio selection, and graphics systems that would enhance and extend our production and broadcasting capacity now and into the future. To ensure we reached this goal, we chose to make the leap from analog to HD.

The decision to go all the way to high definition (HD) was difficult for us. While we want to push our productions toward excellence, we don't want to indulge in extravagance. Members of First Baptist Spartanburg range from 14-year-old students tithing as best they can, to the hard-hit business person, to retired individuals no longer bringing in an income. We want to show good stewardship to each member. Choosing high-quality equipment was a priority because we need to know that our systems are solidly built and will serve the church into another generation. The decreasing cost differential separating digital standard definition (SD) equipment from HD made it clear that the best use of our budget would be to invest in HD-capable products. We also understood that, as religious networks made their shift to HD, our new production facilities would put First Baptist Spartanburg on a short list of churches generating much-in-demand HD content.

After a careful evaluation process and advice from TI Broadcast Solutions Group, we decided to build our HD production operations on a Kahuna SD/HD multiformat production switcher from Snell. We use the switcher to produce a live-to-air feed of Sunday morning services and also for an image magnification (IMAG in HD) center cut and in-house video (16:9) distribution to overflow and satellite worship venues (all SD). We use a pair of IMAG screens in the sanctuary and also have created a campus-wide video-loop system with four players distributing four in-house channels to 37 screens.

The ability to create SD and HD feeds for network broadcast while simultaneously switching our internal video feed was a critical factor in our selection of the Kahuna. The 4-M/E Kahuna switcher allows two operators, working on two separate control panels, to create two different productions from six manually controlled cameras and one pan/tilt/zoom camera. Because it's a large switcher with unique internal conversion capabilities, it can accommodate virtually any input and provide the variety of SD and HD outputs we require. In addition to reducing the external conversion gear required, this functionality reduces potential points of error within our production workflow.

In putting the Kahuna at the heart of our HD production workflow, we realized a few unexpected benefits, as well. We have been able to integrate the switcher with our Harris server system to allow Kahuna operators to roll opens, closes, welcome messages and other clips from the switcher GUI.

The Kahuna interface was also important in our purchase decision, as we work with a large volunteer staff. The switcher has proved very intuitive, and our staff likes its feel both in terms of ergonomics and operation. Over the course of this project, we have made a lot of major decisions in implementing new equipment. As we installed and brought these systems online, the Kahuna easily presented the least trouble and facilitated the most error-free transition. It's been a seamless shift, and some of the credit for this goes to the support team at Snell. The engineer who assisted us in initializing the system immediately understood our desired workflow and was immensely helpful in easing the transition to this new environment.

Our confidence in the Kahuna has been borne out by its outstanding performance so far, and our experiences with the Snell team and Kahuna Care program have been excellent. As the company continues to develop the switcher, we anticipate getting many more years of good service out of the Kahuna.

Britt Dillard has been the minister of media for First Baptist Spartanburg in S.C. since 1983.