We stream our services live each week from Blackwood Hills Baptist Church.
We are incredibly grateful for those who have donated or loaned us the resources to allow us to do this.
Each week the AV team set up sound, camera and lighting specifically optimised for streaming. Much of this is often done in the days prior after consultation with whoever is leading the service.
The audio is mixed so that it sounds acceptable on a mobile phone speaker but still good on anything better such as a TV or headphones.
The lighting is set specifically for the cameras so that directions and angles produce the best possible image from our re-purposed hardware.
The three BirdDog P200 PTZ (Pan/Tilt/Zoom) cameras are connected to the streaming PC via Ethernet using NDI (a low latency video standard) on a dedicated network. The GoPro is converted from Micro-HDMI to HDMI, then to SDI using a Decimator to send back to the streaming PC.
As the service is live, everything has to be prepared and tested in advance. Any pre-recorded sections are queued up in vMix. Words overlay is done through chroma key of Easy Worship which is sent using NDI Scan Converter to the vMix computer. (the background of the slide is green allowing just that colour to be made transparent, then overlayed on top of the video)
Because we are using three PTZ cameras with about 10 presets each, it means we can run the stream with only one operator.
Much of this was supplied to us in consultation with Pro AV Solutions SA. We are incredibly grateful to them for all their efforts.
Note: I can not speak more highly of the Decimator MD-CROSS which we use primarily for troubleshooting. It saves hours of hair-pulling frustration. The MD-HX version is more than adequate, but we went for the MD-CROSS for the additional test signal generation functions.
We are using the following equipment:
- vMix 4K Software
- Used for video switching, mixing and streaming
- Used OBS Studio (Open Broadcaster Software) until June because it is free
- 3 x BirdDog P200 pan/tilt/zoom cameras
- Sends video over both ethernet using NDI and RG59 coax using 3G-SDI
- Each camera can have up to 256 presets which include:
- Where it is pointing
- How much zoom
- Picture settings such as apeture, shutter speed, colour, focus, etc.
- BirdDog PTZ Keyboard
- Used to control the three P200 cameras
- BMD Decklink Quad 2 capture card
- Used as backup for NDI for the three P200 cameras in case of network failure, as well as input from the GoPro and other cameras
- In future, it will be used to output to the main projection screens to replace the old RGB analog connections.
- Decimator MD-LX
- To convert between HDMI and SDI or SDI to HDMI
- Decimator MD-CROSS
- SDI/HDMI converter plus scaler, tester and signal generator. Used primarily for troubleshooting or when something just won’t produce an output in a format compatible with the streaming system.
- Epson EV-100 laser projector for back-wall lyrics from EasyWorship
- Interesting reason for choosing this is that it supports in-projector cropping and sizing of the input so that the foldback input of EasyWorship can be spread over a very wide but short area on the rear wall of the church for the worship leader and singers.
- Singular.Live titling system (donated)
- GoPro 7 (loaned)
- Used as a drum-cam
- Eventually will be replaced with something like a Marshall CV-503
- Windows 10 PC (part-donated)
- AMD 5800X 8-core CPU
- 32GB Memory
- nVidia GTX1070
- 500GB SSD
- 3TB HDD
- Past equipment now repurposed, returned or retired:
- 2 x Nikon DSLRs (loaned)
- 2 x Canon DSLRs (loaned)
- BMD Decklink Quad HDMI capture card
- To be installed in another system as a backup to our main streaming computer
- Windows 10 PC (donated)
- i7-3930K 6 core CPU
- 32GB Memory
- nVidia GTX1070
- 500GB SSD
- 3TB HDD
- Behringer Xenyx Q502USB mixer
- Bring audio into the PC from an XLR connection to the mixing desk
- SparkoCam software for USB connected DSLR (loaned)
- This allows you to connect a Nikon or Canon DSLR to a PC using a USB cable and it appears as a webcam in any software which supports webcam video.
- For Canon, this may no longer be required as Canon released a beta EOS Webcam Utility to allow the same functionality, we have not tested this because “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”.
- Sony 55″ LCD TV (donated)
- 3 x Astrotek HDMI 2.0 cables
- Note: We have had excellent results with this brand for long HDMI runs up to 25M with no signal issues. Other brands may not give you as reliable results. The specific models are AT-HDMI-MM-15 (15M). AT-HDMI-MM-20 (20M), and AT-HDMI-MM-25 (25M).
Using vMix (and OBS in the past) we stream via our Aussie Broadband NBN Internet Connection (FTTN 100/40Mbit) in H.264 at 9Mbit in 1080p60 to our YouTube channel.
If your church would like to chat with us about how we are streaming our services, we’d love to talk and share our knowledge with you. Please contact media@bhbc.org.au for information.