FOR-A Switcher Meets Growing Technical Demands For First Baptist Church Oviedo

Established in the 1800s, First Baptist Oviedo is a longstanding Florida-based house of worship that has drastically altered its use of technology in recent years. In 2009, First Baptist Oviedo built a 2,700-seat worship center. Since that time, the church has delivered its message to a wider audience through live streaming, sermon archiving, and the production of podcasts on its website, as well as through its weekly shows on local television.

Recently, the church was in the market for a new video switcher to help run its productions more efficiently. Orlando-based video equipment specialist Encore Broadcast recommended the house of worship look at FOR-A's HVS-390HS video switcher. Pleased with what they saw, the church purchased the HVS-390HS and began using the unit earlier this year in February. First Baptist Oviedo has been impressed with how the switcher has improved operations in its HD facility.

We came from having a small switcher with only eight inputs. Our technological demands have rapidly grown with the production of our live broadcasts, and we needed a new switcher that could handle that, said Josh Felix, the church's director of technical arts. We narrowed it down to two choices: FOR-A's HVS-390HS and Ross Video's Carbonite. Both switchers met our minimum requirements - each were 2 M/E units with full HD-SDI capabilities. However, a few features of FOR-A's switcher stood out to us, one being its built-in color corrector on four channels, which has been huge for us. Another perk of the HVS-390HS is its built-in scalers, which allows us to easily scale SD images to HD.

First Baptist Oviedo has two Sunday services, both of which have the same pastor and message, but each take on their own style. The earlier service is more traditional, led by the choir and orchestra, while the later service takes on a more contemporary approach with a live band providing music. The services are shown on local programming, one of which is broadcast live, while the church's other television show broadcasts a sermon that took place the previous week.

Felix reports that the HVS-390HS switcher offers several useful features right out of the box, without requiring additional hardware. The church's video production team enjoys the switcher's Web browser interface, which allows them to control and manipulate the board remotely. They also appreciate the HVS-390HS switcher's remote panel options. Video operators can have a mix for its broadcast television productions, and another setup for the church's image magnification, allowing them to easily show the audience at home something different than what the audience at the church sees on its video screens.

We design our video systems around FOR-A switchers because they're reliable and offer excellent cost efficiency and functionality, explained Jeff Cameron, Sales Engineer at Encore Broadcast. FOR-A also consistently offers great support and training to its customers. The HVS-390HS has proven itself to be user friendly for the church's volunteer staff, and has enhanced the house of worship's video production capabilities.

Our goal every Sunday morning is to create a distraction-free worship environment through our equipment set up, explained Felix. With better quality video production gear like our HVS-390HS, we're able to eliminate any technical distractions for our members, and this is critical to us. Even more so, technology allows our gospel to expand beyond our doors, reaching the world. I look at our FOR-A switcher as an infrastructure upgrade, and one of the main functions that help our video production run smoothly. I'm confident that the HVS-390HS will carry our church's productions for many years down the line.

About FOR-A

FOR-A is a major manufacturer and distributor of video and audio systems to the broadcast, postproduction and professional video markets. For more information about FOR-A's product line, visit our web site at http://www.for-a.com.

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