MONTREAL and CHICAGO -- Sept. 4, 2012 -- Haivision announced today that the Church of Champions, an international house of worship located in Houston, has deployed Haivision's KulaByte(TM) Internet video encoder to enable reliable, high-quality 1080p live streaming of its services and other events to Internet audiences and congregations at its numerous affiliate churches in North America and Argentina.
"Live Internet streaming with KulaByte is a critical component in our ability to share our message with the widest-possible audience, on the platform of their choice whether a desktop or mobile device, and with HD quality that rivals that of any professional broadcaster," said Wendell Hutchins, pastor and founder of the Church of Champions. "And, as a big plus for our volunteer technical team, KulaByte is extremely user-friendly and easy to use. The high-speed, high-quality streaming capabilities of KulaByte will become even more important as we continue executing our vision to deliver a consistent, simultaneous live worship experience to multiple campuses."
Haivision's AV solutions provider partner on this project, Whitlock has delivered implementation and support services for the KulaByte encoder, which is currently used along with Haivision's HyperStream(TM) Live cloud-based live transcoding service to stream the second Sunday morning service and other events from Church of Champions' 1,000-seat main sanctuary in Houston. Internet audiences can watch the services live or on demand from the church's Web video channel, http://www.champ.tv/. The initial webcast of the Sunday morning service last November drew more than 600 unique viewers; since then, the Internet audience has grown to thousands every Sunday.
"From a system design standpoint, our goal was to enable people with any type of Internet capability to access church content at the highest-possible resolution," said Jon Litt, account executive at Whitlock. "KulaByte has enabled us to do this with the least amount of hardware and bussing, enabling the stream to be tamed according to the device pulling down the content -- whether it's a DSL line, a wireless coffee shop connection, or even a dial-up connection. Also, Haivision's HyperStream Live service has enabled the church to avoid costly third-party transcoding services for all of the various delivery platforms."
The KulaByte system delivers very high-quality HD streams to smaller affiliate churches that lack all of the resources to conduct their own services. Churches without a pastor can take the live feed of Pastor Hutchins' sermon at a designated time following their own music program; likewise, churches without music can stream the musical segment of the main church's service.
"With KulaByte, we can produce quality video content that we can pipe to any platform, anywhere in the world," said Hutchins. "There is literally no limit to the people we can reach, especially as word gets out that the content can be accessed from anywhere and with the same quality, regardless of platform or device."
More information about KulaByte and the Haivision product family is available at www.haivision.com.
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About Whitlock
Whitlock is a Global AV Solutions Provider, specializing in collaborative technology design, integration and managed services. Whitlock helps clients create engaging, interactive environments, including telepresence/videoconferencing rooms, digital signage networks, auditoriums, collaborative classrooms and training facilities, visualization rooms, courtrooms and control rooms/network operations centers. Whitlock also offers expansive AV managed services, including AVNOC and remote support, field services, on-site managed services, videoconferencing warranty/maintenance and virtual and hosted video services. The company currently has 25 U.S. locations, plus a worldwide delivery partner network through the Global Presence Alliance. For more information, go to http://www.whitlock.com.
About Haivision
Haivision delivers advanced technology for streaming, recording, managing, and distributing secure IP video and interactive media within the enterprise, education, medical/healthcare, and federal/military markets. Haivision is a private company based in Montreal and Chicago, with technical excellence centers in Beaverton, Ore.; Austin, Texas; and Hamburg, Germany. With a global sales and support organization, Haivision distributes its products through value-added resellers, system integrators, distributors, and OEMs worldwide. More information is available at www.haivision.com.
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PR Link: www.ingearpr.com/Haivision/120904.zip Photo Link: www.ingearpr.com/Haivision/KulaByte.zip
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