If your church is anything like mine, the facility is one of our biggest assets and we strive to leverage it as much as possible. During our building process we envisioned our church being used seven days a week. Nowadays we regularly open our building up during the week to businesses and other organizations to have meetings and hold conferences. It is a staple in our ministry philosophy. It's yet another avenue that gets people in the door that might not ever set foot in a church otherwise.
However, if you're going to invite outside groups to use your facility, you have to be prepared to support those events on a technical level.
Enter the Extron SMP 351 Streaming Media Processor. This single rack-space unit has a dizzying array of features that make it a great fit for this type of multi-purpose environment in the house of worship, including: the ability to record a local camera and ingest a local computer (PowerPoint), merge the two into one stream with 16 different customizable screen layouts, and record it all locally.
Key Features
Extron has a proud heritage of producing a wide range of audio and video products, including switchers and scalers. That lineage continues in the SMP 351. A second model, the SMP 351 3G-SDI, accepts serial digital video signals supplied by high-end cameras and other professional video sources such as production switchers.
Both the SMP 351 and SMP 351 3G-SDI are single rack units. The front panel offers source select buttons for both A and B channels and controls for record, pause, mark, and stop. They also feature layout buttons for layout presets and swapping the position of channel A and B in the layout. The buttons are large, have great tactile response, and illuminate when selected. The front panel also features two USB ports, one for configuring and one for recording storage. Audio meters and a small but very readable LED status display also adorn the unit. The display is navigated by radial dials (rotary encoders), making menu navigation easy.
Despite the fact that the SMP 351 can be configured in many different ways, all controls and menu selections can be made from the front panel. Extron sent us the standard SMP 351 for review. On this unit, one of two HDMI input signals can be selected from channel A, along with analog or HDMI-embedded stereo audio. Channel A also provides a loop-through HDMI and audio connection, which can be passed directly to a presentation display. Channel B inputs support common camera formats, including composite, component HD and HDMI.
"The Extron SMP 351 is a convergence of the AV and IT worlds and pulls double duty as a streaming encoder and local recorder."
Mark Hanna
Reviewer
All of this is contained in the familiar Extron grey chassis; if you have ever used an Extron product before, the interface and menu navigation on the SMP 351 will be familiar. If you are new to Extron, its products typically feature intuitive interfaces and menu navigations, and the SMP 351 is no exception.
The SMP 351 gives you the ability to ingest and merge a local computer (Channel A) and a local camera (Channel B) and encode the two into one stream. The channel A and B input signals can be presented on the output individually at full screen or together in any two-window display arrangement, including side-by-side with 16 different canned presets and another 16 customizable screen layouts. The entire customization process is controlled via an internal web page that is very intuitive and easy to operate.
The channel A and B input connections both support computer-video formats from 640x480 to 1920x1200, and video formats from 480p to 1080p/60. The layout can be switched live, and updates to custom layouts will render.
In addition to recording and streaming smaller business meetings and related presentations, the SMP 351 would be a good partner product for large venues that distribute video signals all over their buildings. With the standard SMP 351 that Extron sent us for review, it would be easy to create content for audiences who are in the building but are not in the auditorium. For example, our church has TVs distributed all around our facility. It's a digital signage system. But during a typical worship service those TVs display the same content as our IMAG screen in the auditorium. With the SMP 351 it would be possible to distribute a mixed signal of the sermon notes and/or song lyrics along with a camera shot from the worship service to those viewing from other locations in our building. Also, it is becoming commonplace for a church to have a TV on stage to display the pastor's notes. It's basically a digital chalk board. The SMP 351 would be able to help combine that content into the external feed, as well.
Encoding / Recording
Like many newer tech devices, the Extron SMP 351 is a convergence of the AV and IT worlds and pulls double duty as a streaming encoder and local recorder. On the streaming side, it supports H.264/MPEG-4 AVC video compression, which has become a standard format for many streaming providers. The SMP 351 will also stream at two different bit rates, giving you the option to use the higher bit rate locally for distribution and the lower bit rate for uploading to a streaming service or archive via push or pull streaming. On the recording side, the SMP 351 has an internal SSD. It's available in an 80 GB or 400 GB option that can record locally for later recall and playback. At the highest quality, the SMP 351 can record for 16 hours on the 80-gig SSD. It also has two USB ports, enabling it to record to flash drives. This is a great option that adds value to any business organization interested in using your facility; you can record their presentation and simply hand them an SSD card or USB thumb drive of their event as soon as they finish.
EDID/HDCP
One of the issues with using DVI/HDMI sources with professional video systems is managing the Extended Display Identification Data (EDID) and the High Bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP). It's one of the reasons HDMI is still a four-letter word in many professional technical environments. Encrypted signals can be viewed on compliant displays connected to the SMP 351 loop through, which is great, but it defeats the purpose of the encryption. Extron says they aren't actually defeating the encryption, and protected content is passed to authorized displays. An HDCP warning message is presented on non-compliant displays and encoded media and is not recorded. The SMP 351 also utilizes EDID Minder which automatically manages EDID communications between devices, ensuring use of optimal signal formats.
Conclusion
One of the tough things about allowing outside groups to use your space for conferences and business meetings is the extra work it adds to the church's tech staff/volunteers. At our church, it means a job that already has long hours—including nights and weekends, just got longer. One of the things that really appeals to me from that standpoint is the fact that the SMP 351 can be scheduled in iCalendar. So if the event is on your calendar it's not a problem to set it up so that you don't even have to be there to manage it.
Besides being a powerful tool for combining, recording and streaming video, the fact that the Extron SMP 351 can help a church save on man-hours means it's worth its weight in gold.
With 20 years technical ministry experience across multiple churches, Mark Hanna now operates his own company, FxN Productions. The company focuses on creative services, training and consulting for corporations and churches. You can follow his blog at .
