BILLERICA, Mass. — July 7, 2009 — Echolab, Inc. today announced that Calvary Community Church in Phoenix has deployed an Echolab Overture2™ production system to support live, interactive worship services between two facilities eight miles apart. The Overture switcher has been installed in the production control room of the recently completed Northwest Campus located in a renovated movie theatre in Glendale, Ariz. The 25-year-old church's main facility is located in north Phoenix.
"Echolab is doing an outstanding job of meeting the needs of churches and other houses of worship that rely on sophisticated broadcast and audiovisual technology to spread their message," said Bob Ginger of Intent Digital, who served as technology architect for the Calvary Community project. "The Overture production system is easy to operate and elegant to look at. Its control panel layout is clean, organized, and easy to understand, besides being compact enough to fit into console desktops. Finally, in its standard configuration, the Overture is loaded with an incredible number of useful features that make it a very cost-effective option."
Along with Intent Digital, Calvary Community Church's team designed a technology infrastructure by which the church's pastors can preach from either or both buildings, enabling participants to join fully in the worship experience, regardless of where they happen to be sitting. The system relies on four 270 Mega-bit HDTV fiber circuits to create full-bandwidth, zero-latency, two-way connectivity between the two facilities, with full broadcast control rooms located at each. Three large projection screens are used in the sanctuaries at the Phoenix and Northwest campuses to display video images from the other worship site.
Installed at the Northwest Campus, the Echolab Overture2 includes two M/E banks and 28 inputs to handle multiple switched video feeds for video projectors, broadcast to the main campus, Internet, and other venues throughout the building. A 64x64 SDI and 16x16 NTSC video router supports video distribution and drives an Avitech 32-channel multiviewer used for control room monitoring. Multiple video sources including Hitachi Z4000W and HV-D5W cameras, a Harris TitleOne™ character generator, Fast Forward Video and 360 Systems DDRs, multiple computers, DVD players, and iPods®, as well as two feeds from the main campus, also appear on the switchers.
"Like Calvary Community Church, many houses of worship see the value of our Overture production systems because they are compact, affordable, and offer powerful yet sophisticated features," said Chris McLendon, senior application engineer for Echolab. "With ease of use in mind, we designed Overture to be intuitive and flexible. Through user-definable keys, user-selectable displays, and the ability to trigger complex effects with the push of a button, houses of worship can simplify their operations, train staff quickly and efficiently, and drastically reduce downtime."
Supported by Intent Digital, Calvary Community Church is currently working on a design plan that includes a second Overture switcher to be located at the Church's Phoenix campus.
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About Calvary Community Church
Calvary Community Church was founded in 1982 by Pastor J. Mark Martin. A non-denominational church, associated with Calvary Chapel, Calvary Community's membership began with 11 people in a northwest Phoenix elementary school band room. Today the church is home to more than 12,000 members. Rapid growth led to the purchase of Calvary's current facility, a former shopping center adjacent to the Black Canyon Freeway in Phoenix, Ariz. Calvary also houses a new state-of-the-art Children's Ministries facility and recently opened an extension campus at 59th Avenue and Bell Road. For additional information, visit www.calvaryphx.com.
About Intent Digital
Intent Digital provides technology development and engineering services to government, medical, institutional, and house of worship clients. Intent Digital's consulting, engineering design, and technology development services enable clients to effectively integrate sophisticated media technologies into their operations. The company's engineering expertise spans electronic communication system design, building construction, acoustics, and product development for A/V and broadcast equipment manufacturers. Intent Digital's value is being extremely thorough and anticipating the unforeseen across all disciplines in a project. The company's principals have amassed more than 75 combined years of business and technical expertise across a broad range of broadcast video, institutional, and aeronautical disciplines. For more information, visit www.intentdigital.com.
About Echolab, Inc.
Echolab, Inc. is a leading provider of video production switchers and related tools that offer flexibility and on-air reliability for the production and distribution of digital media in a variety of formats. With products including its flagship Overture1™ and Overture2™ video production systems, Echolab delivers the robust functionality, reliability, and ease-of-use critical to professional-quality productions. Since its founding in 1974, the company has delivered more than 6,000 production solutions to a global client base including major broadcast networks and stations, corporations, educational institutions, houses of worship, sports arenas, entertainment venues, and military facilities. www.echolab.com
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