In churches today it's pretty common to have content come from a computer, usually using one of the standard worship-based generators (ProPresenter, Easy Worship, Sunday plus, etc. …) or PowerPoint. In the real video production world, graphics come from a character generator designed to work with your switcher. However, recently many switcher manufacturers are making it easier to get computer-generated content into their products. It's becoming more common to see computer input ports on switchers, and I have heard rumor of some manufacturers adding a Thunderbolt port.
These are all great advancements in the industry, and if you are in the market for some of these products there has never been a better time to get them. However, if you did an update or an install in the past five years, then you have gone through the headache of interfacing a computer to a switcher that is not designed to accept it, and you might be looking for a workaround for this problem. This is where I found myself with the AJA ROI; the only problem I could find with this box is that it wasn't available two years ago.
Setting the stage
Production switchers are really making serious inroads into the house-of-worship market. With cameras and infrastructure becoming cheaper and more compatible, more and more churches are making large investments in live production gear. However, if you have any experience with this at all you know it's never as easy as it sounds. One of the big problems is the house-of-worship market's use of computers as graphics generators. On the up side, they are comparatively cheap and, with the right software, you can generate great content. On the down side, computer resolutions and TV resolutions and frame rates are not the same—and there are few things more frustrating than plugging in a computer to your system and discovering that while your entire system may be 720p, the closest thing the computer can produce is 1,280x768. This typically leads to one of two problems: either you lose 61,440 pixels of content or worse; since it's not really 720p, the signal simply goes unrecognized and is unusable. In the past few years more computer companies have developed computers to recognize TVs, and while this has made some issues easier, it is still not perfect.
I am actually not sure what the ROI would be used for except in the church market. It meets a need that I think is unique to our requirements.
Computer content converter
AJA has introduced a product that is uniquely suited for getting the computer output (DVI or HDMI) to a SDI production switcher input with their new mini-converter, the ROI. ROI is an abbreviation for “Region Of Interest”; it means it has the ability to use only a selection of your potential input as your functional output. So it gives you the option to remove menu bars, letterbox, pillar-box, and the like from your signal by cropping them out and only using a portion of the overall image, while scaling it through its hardware to the resolution of the output needed. It also gives you the option of how you use that image; for instance, you could take a low-resolution output like 800x600 that has a menu bar on it and use that as a full-screen output at 720p, or 1080. The ROI enables this level of control through a robust graphical user interface (GUI), controlling the robust hardware scaling engine. Through the GUI you can control output aspect ratio, frame rate, crop selection, audio routing and output location, all though the supplied USB cable. This can be done through quick menu choices, numerical entry, or most simply by drawing out the area you wish to select in the graphical interface.
At this point we have talked about how the ROI is superior to your standard DVI to SDI converter box due to the quality scaling, but there are two features that really make this box even more suited for the church market than its competitors, and those are DVI loop through and reference in. In our church there are several DVI to SDI converter boxes throughout our system, and the two main failures of all those converter boxes is this—they require a distribution amplifier to get a local monitor and they require a separate frame synchronizer. Meaning they cost more in the long run because you have to throw the good money
after bad to make them work properly.
With the ROI, both of these issues have been addressed. The ROI has a DVI loop through for local monitor out, so you can have a secondary monitor that your presentation person can be looking at. It also has a reference-in BNC port for gunlock; if you have a production switcher, this is a big deal. Genlock is a timing signal used by most video production gear to keep synchronization of timing. This timing signal locks horizontal and vertical timing so that switching sources doesn't cause the output signal to jump as your switcher corrects for the independent timings. Some scaling switchers can correct for this lack of sync by holding the signal for a few frames; this however, introduces latency to your signal chain.
The last thing the ROI has is a 3.5-mm analog audio plug, which it will embed in the SDI output. It is also capable of accepting eight channels of embedded audio from an HDMI source. Selection and routing for these sources is configurable in the GUI, so you can easily embed your computer audio for synchronized routing.
In (church) practice
So if you haven't already wasted money finding a workaround for getting your computer signal into your switcher—or if, like me, you have—then adding the AJA ROI is a great way to trim some fat out of your video rig. The ROI is also ideal for those of us who allow third parties to use our worship centers for outside gatherings. If you church does this, then you know someone will eventually show up with a really old computer running PowerPoint and you will have a nightmare trying to get their computer into your video system.
I am actually not sure what the ROI would be used for except in the church market. It meets a need that I think is unique to our requirements. Retail price on the ROI is $995, which compared to other converter boxes is slightly more expensive. However, keep in mind you will not have to spend extra money on frame synchronizers, distribution amplifiers, or audio embedders. When you weigh those costs, the return on investment for AJA ROI is very high.
