One of the largest and best ministry tools churches have at their disposal is their building. Many churches rent their overflow space and meeting rooms to businesses and local community organizations so they can have a place to hold events. Some even go one-step further and rent their main auditorium for outside events. This is a great opportunity to get people who might not ever come into the church, in the door. Unfortunately, many times it's also reoccurring pain point for the tech team to support and control these auxiliary rooms and outside functions. Kramer Electronics is trying to ease that pain by introducing their new VS-211HA Automatic HDMI Standby Switcher. Basically this box has two HDMI ins and one HDMI out, and it switches between the two. What makes this box interesting is that it can do this automatically with a variety of predetermined priorities, so no people need be involved.
The Kramer VS-211HA is an interesting piece of gear. Unlike some of the larger switchers which require human interface, the VS-211HA does not. The main function of this box is as a backup switcher, once a signal goes away the switcher will automatically change to the other input. All of this comes in a small form factor of 4.7 x 2.8 x 0.9 inches and has an optional attachment that can mount these boxes three wide in a 1 RU space.
The VS-211HA also has some audio components to it for those times when your audio is not running embedded in your HDMI. It offers two unbalanced audio inputs and an audio return channel pass through and offers parallel unbalanced stereo audio switching.
On the video side, the switcher passes EDID and 3D information and is HDCP-compliant. Dipswitches located on the back of the box are used to select the priority mode in which the device functions. The automatic options are priority mode and last connected mode. In priority mode, input one has priority and will pass through until the switcher loses clocking signal on that input, then it will switch to input two. If the clocking signal in input one returns, the switcher will prioritize that input and switch back to it. In last connected mode, whatever clocking signal is the most recently connected has priority. There is also a manual mode that is controlled via remote terminal block connector that accepts momentary contact closures to select which input passes through.
So what application might this little box have in the church market? Honestly, there are a number of really easy applications. First, if those auxiliary rooms mentioned earlier are pulling double duty as overflow rooms during weekend services, this switcher could automatically switch to a local computer for a meeting or the overflow feed during service. This could save valuable time the staff tech managing the room for the meeting. It would also be a good option in conference rooms or any common area that might have a TV. However, my favorite application would be utilizing the VS-211HA on your digital signage TV's to switch between digital signage feed to local camera feed during services. This essentially turns any TV location into an optional viewing space or overflow for weekend services. The real cost savings with this product are measured in man hours. I think any product that prevents someone from having to make a special trip in on their day off or after hours to make a simple adjustment in a meeting room, is a product worth looking at, and the Kramer VS-211HA is capable of doing just that.
