It's no secret that in the last five years advances in visual technology have brought a new paradigm of really good video equipment with much lower price tags. For example, multiple mix effect (M/E) video switchers were once only accessible to the biggest of mega churches. Now there are products on the market that almost any church can afford. This race to the bottom has been revolutionary for the church market, which we all know is extremely budget-conscious. In the latest installment of this trend, Snell Advanced Media (SAM), the Cadillac of video switchers, introduced a new entry-level switcher, the Kula, at NAB 2016. Built on the pedigree of the larger Kahuna, the Kula brings the same technology, at a price point that is more attainable.
Key Features
The new SAM Kula comes in three control panel configurations; 2 M/E HD/SD that is switchable to 1M/E 4K, 1M/E HD/SD, and 1M/E 4K. Each of these panels routes back to a two rack-space main frame. The panels themselves are exactly what you would expect; crosspoint buttons, transition area, T-bar, key controls, and assignable macro buttons with OLED mnemonic displays. Nothing revolutionary, but a very solid control surface and layout. The 1M/E panel is also available in a 19-inch rack mount option.
Under the hood, the Kula range boasts five keys per M/E and two sub M/Es consisting of A/B mix with two keys, and four floating Down Stream Keys (DSK). The Floating DSKs have resize engines and split dual tile mode to create eight PIPs which can be allocated to any M/E or aux output. All of this means the Kula is capable of allowing for a huge grand total of 32 key layers.
Kula offers a 2.5D DVE resizer capability on the sub M/E keyer. This means you can position X - Y, squeeze, zoom and crop. “Unlike most switchers however, the Kula can also add X or Y rotation with perspective. Don't miss that last point, X or Y perspective can make a big difference in the look of layered videos.” Also included is SAM's unique FormatFusion3 which allows for simultaneously processing and manipulating HD and SD together in the same mainframe, and even the same M/E in real time.
Built on the pedigree of the larger Kahuna, the Kula brings the same technology, at a price point that is more attainable.
Also like many switchers the Kula has a clipstore feature that allows you to preload clips for easy recall. Unlike most other switchers, the Kula offers 16GB of storage, which translates to two minutes of full HD video across ten clipstore outputs.
I/O
In the I/O department, Kula has an interesting feature; the 2 M/E unit has 36 inputs and 12 assignable outputs. This is a lot of I/O, but nothing to write home about. However, it also features six input or output bi-directional ports. This is a feature I would like to see become standard across the switcher industry: flexible discretionary I/O.
The multiviewer from the Kula is also worth noting, because the Kula offers a whopping four multiview heads. Based on the spec sheet each head has up to 16 optional tiles, meaning the Kula has an unprecedented amount of preview options. This gives you the ability to monitor everything. No more trying to decide what is important enough to have to monitor. Just monitor it all.
The Kula is capable of allowing for a huge grand total of 32 key layers.
Future Proof
If you have been to any trade shows this year, you know 4K is all the rage. In fact, check out your local big box retail electronics store and see how many TV's they have that aren't 4K. If 4K is going to permeate the consumer side to the point that it's the only option, then it doesn't matter how outlandish is seems for your church, having the ability to eventually scale up to 4K should certainly be a driving factor in all your video equipment purchases. I don't think you need to make the jump tomorrow, but if you just ignore it completely, you are setting yourself up for failure. Currently there are two ways to transport 4K content that require quad link, which is another way of saying four connectors. The options are two sample interleave (2SI) and square division quad split. The difference is simple but important, in square division each connector receives one quarter of the overall image, in 2SI each connector passes the entire image at one quarter the resolution. To that end the Kula is 4K-compatible. Based on the spec sheet, 4K supports both quad link and 2SI, but 2SI is generally accepted and the preferred method because of the greater flexibility. That said, it is still a fairly new method and one more example of why 4K live production is still not really mainstream yet.
If you are in the market for a sub $20k switcher, believe it or not there is a product with the Snell Advanced Media name in your price range. The Kula comes with all the great features you would expect from a high-end production switcher, but at a bargain price. While not attainable for the entire house of worship market, between the I/O, features, future proofing, and price, it certainly merits consideration for more production-oriented churches.
