Church Turns to Sony for Easy,
Flexible Broadcast System
Customer:
• Church of the Highlands,
Birmingham, AL
Industry:
• Faith-ministry
Challenges:
• Providing clear sharp
broadcasts to 11 of their
campuses and 13 correctional
facilities each week
• Supporting volunteers who
may not be knowledgeable
about equipment
• Saving time and money
Solution:
• Sony HDC-2400 HD camera systems, MCS-8M compact
production switchers, and VPL-FHZ55 and VPL-FHZ700L laser projectors
Benefits:
• Delivers brilliant color and
clear audio for all services
• O ffers ease of use for
volunteers
• Provides future-proofed
technology with 1080p
Beyond Definition
Church of the Highlands in Birmingham,
Alabama was founded in 2001 and has
since grown to host more than 30,000
members at 11 campuses across the state
each week. The church aims to help people
connect with God in their own way, offering
regular services on-site, plus streaming
and on-demand services for members
across the country. The church also works
closely with more than a dozen correctional
facilities to offer worship services for those
who are incarcerated.
Recently, Church of the Highlands
completed an extensive high-tech upgrade
under the guidance of Atlanta-based
system integrator Clark, which has a
longstanding relationship with the church.
Clark helped the church define its needs
and, after carefully reviewing options,
selected a comprehensive complement
of Sony’s broadcast and A/V equipment,
including cameras, projectors, and
switchers to meet the needs of their local
and nationwide audience. According to
Justin Firesheets, Production Manager at
Church of the Highlands, who oversees
all of the live production elements and
equipment for the church’s campuses, Sony
offered the right combination of quality
products and project expertise.
“We really wanted to make sure we were
partnered with a company that we felt
confident in our relationship with, and
confident in both their products and their
level of support,” Firesheets said. “Sony’s
products are easy to use, which benefits
the volunteers running and setting up our
equipment, and the quality looks great to
those participating in a service.”
This installation, which came together in
stages, serves as a technology upgrade for
the church. Progressively they purchased
several of Sony’s HDC-2400 HD camera
systems, multiple MCS-8M compact
production switchers and a variety of Sony’s
laser projectors, the 4,000 lumen VPL-FHZ55
and the 7,000 lumen VPL-FHZ700L.
“Over time the technology that we were
using, including our cameras, was really
starting to show its age,” Firesheets said.
“The quality was no longer there, and
it wasn’t handling the full range of the
next
color spectrum very well. The colors
didn’t pop, and they weren’t as crisp
as they were when the technology was
newer. Compared to newer technology,
it became apparent that there was a gap
in performance.”
“There’s a tremendous
emphasis on having the
best possible quality
of experience, whether
that’s audio or video,
and the quality of
Sony’s products is
really impressive.”
Justin Firesheets,
Production Manager,
Church of the Highlands
He added, “Because we’re streaming
all of our services live online to several
thousand viewers, there’s a tremendous
emphasis on having a high-quality
experience originating from our main
campus. We decided to invest in an
upgrade, because it would make everything downstream look that much better,
because we were starting off with a betterquality product. We chose Sony because
they offered a package with a variety of
different features that we really liked.”
He noted that the facility has always been
HD, but this project marked the church’s
second camera upgrade. The new cameras
have already proven their performance in
low light and overall imaging quality, and
Firesheets believes they now have a system
that can grow with them.
“As the church has grown and we added
another auditorium, we purchased new
cameras for the main room and we
moved our older cameras to the second
auditorium,” he said. “But this is the first
camera package that we’ve had that would
ultimately allow us to broadcast or capture
in 1080p. For now, we’re staying at 720p,
because that’s what our current system is
set up for, but it obviously helps from an
archive standpoint, because if you’ve got
to re-edit for something down the road,
having a better-quality file to start with is
going to give you a better end-product.”
Expanding on this notion, Firesheets added,
“For us, as a result of our in-person and
online audience, there’s a tremendous
emphasis on having the best possible
quality of experience, whether that’s audio
or video, and the quality of Sony’s products
is really impressive. When we know that we
can give those people a better experience, it
behooves us to take whatever steps we can
to make improvements, wherever they are
practical. When you start off with a highquality ingest at the broadcast location, then
everything downstream is automatically
going to get better.”
Firesheets maintained that Sony’s switchers
are essential for a church with multiple
campuses. “From a switcher standpoint,
we have seven portable campuses
throughout the state of Alabama that set
up and tear down at their facility every
week,” he said. “We had always used
several different audio and video sources,
so when we became familiar with Sony’s
MCS-8M, which allows us to manage all
of the audio and video in one switcher,
it’s made for a much more efficient way of
managing our equipment. The switchers
have assignable aux outputs for the audio,
so we can easily route different sources
and monitor in headphones. This amounts
to fewer pieces of gear, and it also makes
transitions go a little bit smoother, because
when audio is following video, you don’t
have to turn knobs or change anything.”
Making it easy for volunteers
Firesheets detailed the need for a product
that is easy to understand and to use, since
many churches rely upon the assistance of
a staff of volunteers, who are trained to use
the systems and are given troubleshooting
guides and documentation for a number of
issues that can arise throughout the course
of a service.
next
“We wanted a simple
system that we could
easily replicate from one
location to another and
do it in a way in which
our volunteers could
understand. That’s one
of the benefits of Sony’s
smaller switchers.”
Of the MCS-8M switchers, Firesheets said,
“You just have to hit one button or push
one fader, and the audio and the video
are changing at the same time, which
has been a benefit for us because we
use volunteers at all of our campuses.
Keeping things simple and efficient is very
important for us, especially because these
are people that don’t live in a production
world on a consistent basis. We wanted
a simple system that we could easily
replicate from one location to another
and do it in a way in which our volunteers
could understand. That’s one of the
benefits of Sony’s smaller switchers; they
are very simple and very easy to use and
that’s why they have been a big win for
us. There aren’t many buttons and it’s not
overly complicated to set up or use, so our
volunteers are able to jump right in and
learn how to use the equipment.”
Justin Firesheets,
Production Manager,
Church of the Highlands
Church of the Highlands had a history and
familiarity with using Sony’s projectors.
Firesheets noted, “On the projector front,
technology has continued to evolve. Right
now you can get products that are better
quality for a cheaper price than you could
a few years ago. With the emergence of
laser technology, some of the entry prices
are a little bit higher, but it allows us to
consider the long-term benefits of changing
to technology that’s more efficient. Once
you take into account not having to change
lamps out and the limited maintenance laser
requires, you know you’re saving man-hours
and you’re cutting down on how much
time you’ve got to spend maintaining the
product, which is really nice.”
considers this group of parishioners
an extremely important part of their
community, and directs several messages to
those in the state prison system. The church
knows the value of having their services
available to correctional facilities, and often
buys A/V equipment for the facilities and
donates it to the prison to use as a source
of hope and inspiration, allowing inmates to
have an important and constant connection
to a larger community. Those in the prison
system are even invited to submit their
information for prayer requests.
The members have noticed a change,
now that Church of the Highlands is
using new state-of-the-art technology.
“Several people in the congregation
have commented on how everything
looks, and that’s been people here at our
main campus, at our broadcast location
and at other locations,” he said. “So our
congregants have noticed it. In addition,
people on other teams within the church
have said that something looks better,
something looks different and asked if we
have been doing something differently
or got new cameras. Everything looks
great, everything is bright and vibrant, and
most important, we’re accomplishing our
ultimate goal – getting our message out to
more people, more clearly than ever.”
Another unique way that the Church of
the Highlands connects with the faithful is
through correctional facilities. The church
works closely with 13 different prisons
across the state, welcoming prisoners to
view their services, which are recorded at
the main campus and played back through
Sony’s projectors. Church of the Highlands
Sony Electronics Inc.
1 Sony Drive
Park Ridge, NJ 07656
sony.com/faith
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