The Worship Silver Streaming Kit from Adorama includes all the necessary parts, products, cables, and cards needed to get a great recording or web stream.
The pandemic caused most churches to reevaluate their online presence. Many churches were particularly caught flat-footed with no obvious way forward and no real idea of what to do. Recognizing this, Adorama has come to the rescue with their Worship Streaming Silver Kit. This kit includes all the necessary parts, products, cables, and cards needed to get a great recording or web stream.
The first and most prominent highlight is the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro ISO video switcher.
The Worship Streaming Kit Silver that I used for a few weeks is an excellent kit. It is a complete turnkey content delivery solution; all you have to do is set it up and hit record. Set up was easy. As a long time event production tech, I found the kit no challenge to assemble and robust enough to do what it needed to do. Even novice tech people should find no trouble building this kit and figuring out how it functions. I would almost go as far as to say, “it’s so easy even a pastor could do it.” The Worship Streaming Kit Silver offers an excellent bang for the buck.
The Sony Alpha a6100 Mirrorless digital cameras are an excellent selection for their clear picture, great autofocus, and fantastic low light performance.
Highlights
The first and most prominent highlight is the Blackmagic Design ATEM Mini Pro ISO. For those not familiar with this product, where have you been the last few months? This small-format switcher has quickly become the solid gold standard of small production switchers. With its sub $1,000 price point and ability to switch, stream, and record isolated camera feeds simultaneously, it is the most capable switcher at that price-point on the market. This ATEM Mini Pro ISO is not just great for live streaming but also in a live-to-tape workflow because it records all the inputs as isolated channels. Once done, you can open the recorded files in DaVinci Resolve and fix your missed cues or cover bad shots with other camera angles very quickly.
The sleeper product in this kit was the Litra Litra Pro lighting fixture. It’s a small light, small being the size of a GoPro. It is a sun that fits in your pocket. This little light is ridiculously bright! When I reviewed it, I was utterly lulled into a false sense of security by its size. The build quality should have given me a hint because it is built like a tank. The size-to-weight ratio is insane because it’s completely solid metal. I thought the softbox was a cute gimmick. It’s not. This light is bright enough to punch through the softbox and still get the job done. The Litra Pro is an excellent choice for people starting a YouTube channel who don’t have a lot of space for a studio or a run-and-gun on-location setup. The only drawbacks I found are that it does get hot, not real hot but noticeable. At 100% brightness, the run time in my test was a little over an hour. However, this light may never need to be at 100%. It’s that bright.
Sony Alpha a6100 Mirrorless digital cameras are an excellent selection for their clear picture, great autofocus, and fantastic low light performance. I tested this system out in a small office and found that the image with just the office overhead lights was completely acceptable. When I added the Litra Pros into the mix and turned off the overhead light, it upgraded from “acceptable” to “really good.” The 16-50mm lens is versatile enough to be usable at close distances. However, if the camera will be further than about 20 feet, a longer lens is needed.
The invidual products combine to something that’s greater than the sum of their parts because of what they enable the end-user to do. I have pulled off many quality productions for companies and churches with products that weren’t near this good and, at the time, were far more expensive. While this is an excellent primary system for small churches, it’s also a good setup for churches like mine where they have everything they need in the auditorium, but it can’t be broken down and moved quickly. Having something like the Worship Streaming Silver Kit from Adorama would allow them to stream from the pastor’s office, a remote location or pretty much anywhere and still produce an excellent quality result.
As I mentioned in my First Impression article on the Silver system, I would have chosen a few different products for this package. As you might have suspected, the Silver in the title means that it is only one of several designs; the others being Gold and Platinum. Adorama has done a great job of meeting the needs of the church market with these systems. Based on my test, the Silver system would work great in a variety of different circumstances. It’s equally great for small churches with no streaming or live production recording capabilities or larger churches looking for a portable set up. These systems also work equally well in a live-to-post workflow or live streaming, so no matter how your church is getting content online, there is an option for your church. If your church is looking for a content delivery solution, be sure and look at these systems.
