Hillsongs AV System

SFL design, deliver and implement complex, custom AV system to support the high production values and creativity of Hillsong Church?

Background

Hillsong currently meet for three services each Sunday in The Dominion Theatre, home of, 'We Will Rock You', the hottest musical in London's West End. Each Sunday, a team of volunteers arrive at 6:45am, ready to unload a 44' artic trailer full of production equipment into the theatre. The team have three and a half hours to unload, setup and rehearse before a congregation of over 2000 people descend upon the venue at 11:00am. The service kicks off with an edgy video running in sync across three screens which leads into a full contemporary rock worship experience, enhanced by video, music and moving lights. Hillsong believe that people have a certain expectation of what they are going to see when walking into a premiere venue in the heart of London's West End in 2005. Their aim is that church not only meets but exceeds this, a challenge that they gladly rise to and we have been happy to support and advise them in this throughout the year.

Overview

Hillsong had been looking for a while at ways to use video clips and graphics not on a single screen 'perched' in the middle of a stage but as a whole background to the stage. After discussions with Hillsong's senior leaders, creative director and production manager, it was decided that we would design a system that could achieve three main aims. Firstly, computer media such as graphics and video clips (created in Hillsong's media studio) could be moved around a video backdrop the width of the stage. Secondly, a broadcast quality, 4 camera relay setup could be integrated into any position upon the backdrop. Thirdly, song words, vital for a church congregation, could also be integrated into the back drop.

Design

The system was split into three main areas; graphics, camera system and song words. Each of these was looked at individually to ensure that the best option was chosen in terms of hardware and software. As well as the quality of the end result, we also had to be aware of the portable nature of the system, the flexibility required as Hillsong develop what they do and move around different venues and its need to be setup and run by a team of volunteers.

Graphics System - Dataton Watchout

'Watchout is a multi-display production and presentation system. It provides previously unattainable image quality and resolution based on standard computers, network and display technologies. It can be used with plasmas, monitors, or video cubes to build a unique presentation set, or with video projectors for giant, seamless panoramas'. Watchout is a software solution that uses multiple computers to achieve placement of media across a customisable canvas. A 3-screen production and display system was designed with separate computers for multi-channel audio and built in redundancy. These were racked up in 2x 34U Shock Mount flight cases with full UPS protection and previewing capabilities.

Camera System - Sony PPU

The next part of the system was the 4 camera relay setup. This was a lot easier as we were essentially adapting the use of equipment we have already chosen for our own hire stock use. We settled on Sony DXC-D50 WSP cameras with Canon lenses and Sachtler tripods. These were controlled over triax cable from CCU's equipped with remote panels and equipped with full EFP kits for operator ease of use. We chose triax for its abilities to run over much greater distances than CCZ multicore and we also managed to interface the Clearcom comms system to the cameras over the triax. The whole system was run in SDI to maximise image quality and a separate vision mixing rack (Sony DFS-700) and camera engineering rack (again 34U shockmount) were assembled.

Song Words - Words of Worship

This was definitely the easiest part of the system to design - a single dual head computer running Nobletech's Word's of Worship. An analog Way scan converter allows us to give outputs in both full RGBHV but also in SDI and composite for maximum previewing and integration flexibility.

Integrating all 3 Systems

Each of the above stand alone systems worked excellently but integrating all three over a 40' screen using 3x 10,000 lumen Christie projectors was more of a challenge. We had to be able to put anything anywhere whilst not introducing unacceptable amounts of delay and maintaining quality throughout at the level of the highest resolution (RGBHV).

Our solution to this was to setup a 3-way Analog Way Eventix solution controlled using their Show Manager software. This allows Hillsong to pre-program scenes and transitions or 'go anywhere' on the fly. The Eventix boxes scale any input (CV / YC / Component / SDI or RGBHV) and output RGBHV at the native, XGA resolution of the Christie projectors. We then used CAT-5 transceivers to send this high-quality signal over 100m to the projectors.

The benefit of this whole system is that it is very expandable (either as an upgrade or using hire equipment for one-off events), it maintains maximum quality and it all lives in 7x 34U flightcases that can be packed away in 5 min and on the truck. This was another key requirement and to achieve this we had to design a number of custom patch panels to enable all interconnects (audio / video / data / CAT-5) to take place using a small number of VDM multipin connectors.

The Results