The pandemic turned the church world’s idea of video production on its head. Many churches with no interest in streaming found themselves having no option but to invest in video production gear that they had no idea how to use. The number of manufacturers, resolutions, connections makes it challenging for trained professionals to have all their bases covered. It’s even more challenging for volunteer-led teams. Take your standard broadcast switcher. The control panel will be dominated by a crosspoint interface, which is not the most intuitive interface known to man. However, it’s what we trained on as broadcast professionals, and it’s pretty much all we have ever known. In the church world, the end-users are usually people without a broadcast background. To lower the barrier for entry into live event production, BroadcastPix has released its new ChurchPix live production system.
The system
This turnkey system features two NDI RoboPix PTZ cameras, a small form factor PC workstation, and a dedicated user interface. Now one of the big selling points of this ChurchPix system is not just that it’s turnkey, but it’s also easy to set up. Plug-and-play is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but the ChurchPix system really is plug-and-play. The RoboPix cameras are power-over-ethernet (POE) and self-discoverable, so one cable will handle all the signal and power requirements for the camera. Once it’s plugged in, they are ready to go. All this system needs is an audio feed and internet connection; it’s ready to stream and record.
ChurchPix offers multiple delivery options, including recording an internal hard drive or an external hard drive via USB 3. It can also stream to all the standard sites like YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo/Livestream, or any CDNs using RTMP. It can also multi-stream to up to 5 online destinations simultaneously through the Switchboard Cloud Pro Platform, which requires a subscription, but is an excellent option for increasing your audience. All of this is controlled from a simple user interface, which can be monitored via and HDMI. A multiview output is available on the hardware, and the ChurchPix can be controlled through the dedicated user interface or multiple user interfaces. The UI is lightweight enough to run on a browser, so it can run on a touch screen or a tablet making the whole system as intuitive as “touch what you want to see.”
The royalty-free library provided by BroadcastPix is robust. It comes with a variety of presets and templates to suit almost any occasion. However, if you are dead set on using ProPresenter, that’s fine because the ChurchPix supports 3 NDI inputs so that the presentation computer can still function in this ecosystem.
Macros
Now in the big-boy production world, macros are the king of the hill. It’s straightforward; they allow consistent and accurate recall of tasks ensuring your production is precisely what it should be. For those unfamiliar with macros, they work like this; you do a task, and it gets recorded to be recalled later. That task could be one step or ten steps, or 100 steps; it doesn’t matter. Later, those steps can just be replayed like when you did it initially. So while the cross point interface is a lot to take in, here is an industry secret, most technical directors don’t even use it; they rely heavily on macros. ChurchPix is designed with this in mind; the interface allows macros to be programmed for simple tasks like adding graphics to recalling camera movements. This makes it an excellent option for volunteer-driven ministries because once it’s programmed, it’s a single button push.
If it seems like I am stressing the macros, it’s because I am. In my current role, I have been hired by integrators for the sole purpose of programming a church’s macros for a switcher that was just installed. Using macros properly distills the production process to the point most children can run complicated productions accurately and consistently. The best part is they don’t have to understand what is being done; they only have to know when to do it.
I am always pleased when manufacturers build products with the house of worship market specifically in mind. Our needs, end-users, and budgets are just different than other markets. The great thing about a product like the ChurchPix is that it was designed with this in mind. Also it can grow with you. Once you set it up and program three or four macros to get you through the average weekend, you are set. Then, come Christmas, when you want to do something special, a little research and some trial and error will allow you to pull off far more complicated effects and still not be a burden on your volunteers. While I have yet to use it, based on the specs and my conversations with BroadcastPix, the ChurchPix is an excellent system that will be a great addition to the church market.
