Vitec IP solution bridges twin Tuscon campuses
Published: WORSHIP
USA: The Bridge Christian Church is a non-denominational church with two campuses in the greater Tucson area. Each campus has a live band, classrooms for kids of all ages, a food court, and many different ways for congregants to be involved. The goal is to offer a live experience for the congregation at both campuses simultaneously. To that end, The Bridge streams services between the main and satellite campuses so that worshippers can experience the service in synchronisation with its sister campus. The aim was to provide both flawless video and low latency for a smooth streaming experience.
Traditionally, such quality of service was only possible using a very expensive broadcast satellite service or a equally cost prohibitive one-way fibre link. The alternative was to record the service onto a portable storage device and then physically take it to the other campus for later playback – a cumbersome process that meant the congregants at the satellite campus would not be able to experience the service in real time. The technical team at The Bridge had been looking for a more affordable way to connect the two campuses’ congregations by seamlessly live-streaming services and events from the main church to the satellite, or vice versa.
To accomplish its bidirectional streaming goals, The Bridge installed a Vitec MGW Nano HD encoder and MGW Premium HD decoder at each location. The solution reportedly offers a balanced combination of high quality and low latency said ideal for both point-to-point streaming and two-way, interactive streaming, both of which The Bridge does regularly. EAR Professional Audio and Video, a value added reseller and integrator, was the Vitec partner involved with this project.
The Bridge uses the Vitec solution most often for point-to-point streaming, whereby the output of a TriCaster system at the main campus is fed into the MGW Nano HD encoder for streaming to the MGW Premium decoder at the satellite campus. In this way, The Bridge congregants at both campuses experience the Sunday service in parallel.
About twice per month, The Bridge uses both sets of encoders and decoders for two-way communication between the two campuses, with a goal of bringing worshippers closer together during services, Bible studies, and other events, despite being separated by distance. In this scenario, a signal-switch allows the main sanctuary to accept the feed from the satellite campus and vice versa so that congregants can communicate with each other.
The simplicity of the solution is said to have been an important selling point for The Bridge, drawing appreciation from the technical team after install. Once a signal is present and the settings are adjusted, the encoder and decoder reportedly handle their jobs automatically, making it easy to ‘set it and forget it.’
Key components in seamless bidirectional streaming between the campuses are cited as ‘ultra-low latency’ and ‘pristine’ live HD video for presentation on The Bridge’s IMAG screens. Howver, what was reportedly most impressive to The Bridge’s technical team was that high-quality, low-latency streams could be achieved over the ‘notoriously unstable’ public Internet. Vitec cites cutting-edge hardware (using advanced video compression technology to encode and stream up to 1080p60 video) coupled with Zixi stream protection for zero-error delivery over unmanaged networks.
The ability to share high-quality HD video between the campuses – and especially to do so in both directions – is said to foster a sense of community among the church members who might not otherwise have the chance to interact with each other. The ability to do so over the public Internet, with minimal delays and error-free, is claimed by The Bridge as a technical and financial win. ‘The Bridge is committed to offering a live-streaming solution so that our campuses can experience the weekend services and other church events together,’ says Jay Patton, technology operations minister for The Bridge Christian Church. ‘The Vitec solution allows us to use high-end technology over the public Internet, which is a huge cost savings versus satellite. And with it we can bring both locations closer together. At no time is this benefit more evident than when the two campuses are engaged with each other using bidirectional streaming.'
usa, the bridge, streaming, vitec, mgw