South African CRC Church Installs End-to-End AV System with Blackmagic

An ATEM mixer has been installed in the new Johannesburg center 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K and an ATEM device 1 M/E Advanced Panel. The system delivers big-screen content during worship services and streams it live to other churches in the network.

With more than 90 congregations in South Africa and more than 15 all over the world, including places like London, Amsterdam and Perth, South African Christian Revival Church (CRC) was established in 1994 by Pastor At Boshoff and his wife Nyretta Boshoff in the city of Bloemfontein.

The new auditorium in Johannesburg, with capacity for more than 5500 personas, required a solution that would allow “not only to transmit live and over the Internet, but it also had to cover our audiovisual needs within the church. Y, besides, “It had to be a high-end technology that reflected our ambition to satisfy modern society.”, Francois Griesel points out, CRC production manager.

In this way, In the new center of this South African church, an end-to-end multi-use audiovisual solution based on technology from Blackmagic Design. Specifically, an ATEM mixer has been installed 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K and an ATEM device 1 M/E Advanced Panel.

System delivers big screen content during worship services, but it also allows you to broadcast live to other churches on the network, which includes more than 90 congregations in South Africa and more than 15 all over the world.

The church uses this technology to connect multiple locations during live church services., where video plays a crucial role in its ability to reach more people and surpass its own borders.

The venue relies on a work dynamic based on three URSA cameras to capture the audiovisual material and an ATEM mixer. 4 M/E Broadcast Studio 4K to switch between images. "At first, We rent the equipment for the purpose of testing it at an event in Pretoria. The quality and production capacity exceeded our expectations and, besides, “The fact that they are affordable products cemented our idea that Blackmagic Design was the best option to invest in.”, Francois adds.

The production team is made up of two full-time people and between 12 y 14 volunteers. “This is why the system needed to be highly competent yet simple enough to use so that the most inexperienced operators could get started instantly.. We rely on two ATEM control panels 1 M/E to create separate program mixes. One for internal audiovisual projection, including enlarged images, and another to transmit church services over the Internet to other church locations.”.

Additionally, The team relies on a SmartScope Duo 4K monitor to match signals coming from the cameras using the ATEM Camera Control Panel device., providing remote and independent control of up to four units. On the other hand, a HyperDeck Studio Pro device records the main stream, while three other HyperDeck Minis offer the possibility of recording images from each camera in isolation.

"In addition, development tools (SDK) from Blackmagic allowed us to develop a custom graphics solution, based on two high-performance computers, equipped with DeckLink Duo capture and playback cards. This gave us the opportunity to layer content onto the main mix., such as the lyrics of the hymns and messages of the congregation”, explains Francois.

For live broadcasts, CRC uses Teradek encoders and decoders along with Teranex Mini Audio to SDI and SDI to Audio converters to integrate and isolate audio..

“Since the auditoriums are so large, The immersive nature of the videos makes each person feel part of the community, and live Internet broadcasts with augmented images allow us to go further and gather congregations across other continents. Due to the success of this new installation, “We have also improved production capacity at our headquarters in Pretoria with URSA Broadcast cameras and ATEM switchers.”, concludes Francois.