DTV - Bringing It Online

This past month our Production team at Vista (like many others) was challenged to take a new member class online. This was something that we had never done as our new member class has traditionally been an in-person experience. During the Covid season our online attendance skyrocketed and we had many locals asking about membership, what it looks like and how they can join. This rise in questions caused our Community Pastor  along with our communications team and other church leadership to attempt a 3 week “Discover the Vista” class that was entirely done through zoom. 

To execute this we decided to go with the newly released Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro as out primary switcher. The main reason for this switcher was the ability to output the program feed as a webcam that can be used inside Zoom. This switcher also utilizes the Blackmagic Cinema Cameras HDMI line for camera control and Tally as well as being able to take any HDMI source and auto-scale it for maximum ease of use. 

In the room we had 3 TVS. One behind the speaker displaying the teaching content, one that mirrored the Zoom computer so the speaker could interact with the participants, and one that mirrored the Switcher output so they could see the teaching content that was behind them as well as know when their shot was live. 

We had 3 total Camera shots. One was our Slides computer that was displaying slides via Google Slides (We do this because the content is ever changing and this lets us share the presentation easily with the whole team) One Shot was using ProPresenter (this shot displayed pre-recorded videos, countdown timers, and allowed use to drop in anything quickly if needed) The Last shot was the actual camera. 

We ran a single shotgun mic for our audio (RODE NTG2) and fed that line into the main camera for Phantom Power, this was so the speakers could quickly take their place without switching belt packs and made it where we did not need an additional audio tech on site. It also gave a little bit more natural feel for the Zoom call. We had audio follow video so the presenters knew that if they saw the camera shot the mic was hot and if it was a full screen graphic the mic was muted.

We found that even with a 55in TV behind the speaker that the shot felt really uncomfortable when they were close to it so we moved them off the wall almost 6 ft to provide just enough depth of field that the tv was slightly blurred and felt more realistic. 

For lighting we used the house lights and supplemented with a 3 point Ikan Lyra Kit which worked perfectly to help us blend the natural daylight from the window with the Soft white lights in the room. 

Finally to allow the speakers to interact with the guests we had the audio from Zoom ported to the TV in front of them, this allowed them to hear and talk and keep a tv remote to go up and down with the audio. The communicators who were not speaking at the time were all on the Zoom call and helping to interact with the chat by posting links and answering questions. 

The Whole experience ended up being a very good one all things considered and it was a great exercise in using the tech in non-traditional ways.