
--
42 years after being named for its neighborhood within the city of Edmonton, Alberta, the church originally known as Mill Woods Assembly changed its identity to Hope City Church last year to reflect its expansion into new communities. Wanting to maximize the quality of the live video being fed to its new satellite campus, Hope City purchased three Z-HD5500 cameras from Hitachi Kokusai Electric America, Ltd. (Hitachi Kokusai) to capture its Sunday worship services for remote distribution and in-venue image magnification.
Volunteer Rebecca Mossop captures a Hope City Church worship service with a Z-HD5500 camera from Hitachi Kokusai
A total of roughly 3400 congregants attend three Sunday morning services at the Mill Woods campus each week, while up to 300 more come to services at the newer Terwilligar location that opened in October 2018. While the Terwilligar site has its own pastor and live music, the centerpieces of its services are time-delayed, live feeds of Lead Pastor Phil Kniesel's sermons from Mill Woods. Already displeased with the quality limitations of their existing cameras, the launch of the new campus provided the impetus for the church to upgrade.
Our old cameras didn't allow us to achieve the quality we wanted, with insufficient low-light capabilities and consumer-grade controls, said Dan Mandryk, technical director at Hope City Church. We needed to replace them, and our expansion gave us the big push to get new cameras on board. Video enables us to multiply our presence, allowing us to deliver the same message across campuses while still creating unique experiences at each location. We wanted to go to a broadcast-grade camera because the video feed would essentially stand in for a live pastor, so must be high-quality.
Taking note of the accolades that the Z-HD5500 was receiving in trade press, Hope City Church knew they needed to investigate it. We narrowed our choice to two major brands, and Hitachi Kokusai worked closely with our dealer, Applied Electronics, to put together a package that met our needs at a price that worked for us, explained Mandryk. The Hitachi cameras' ability to integrate with the Ross Dashboard control system was also important, as we are considering adding a Ross switcher in the future.
Hope City's three Z-HD5500s are now stationed on pedestals in the Mill Woods campus' 1235-seat main sanctuary. In addition to serving the live video link between campuses, the cameras also power IMAG for the auditorium's two 20-foot-wide, rear-projection side screens and 19-foot-wide center screen. An additional 26-foot screen in an overflow room is used for special events, while services are also streamed live via the Church Online platform and available on-demand on YouTube.
Mandryk highlights the Z-HD5500s' ease of use as one of his favorite attributes of the cameras. The best part has been how volunteer-friendly they are, even though they're high-end cameras, he elaborated. We have operators who have never touched a camera before, and focus is always one of the hardest things for new camera users to master. The Focus Assist feature on the Z-HD5500 has made it so much easier for them, giving them something to check their focus against.
The exceptional video quality of the Hitachi cameras has also earned praise from the church and its attendees. The Z-HD5500s deliver an obvious quality boost from our previous cameras, said Mandryk. The color reproduction is also fabulous, as we finally see on video exactly what we see in the room. The first day we put them in, our congregants could see the difference, and were excited to see more vibrant colors.
Mandryk also commends the Hitachi cameras' handling of lighting conditions at both ends of the spectrum - their sensitivity in low-light situations, as well as their ability to acquire flicker-free images against a mix of LED lighting. We push the boundaries on lighting, so sometimes we have to get a shot where there's not a whole lot of light, and the Z-HD5500's low-light handling is far superior to our old cameras, he explained. Conversely, we use a lot of LED lighting of varying quality in our sets - from high-end professional lights all the way down to do-it-yourself LED tape lights in our set pieces - and we've never had a problem with these cameras capturing great video.
Summing up Hope City Church's satisfaction, Mandryk shares that the Z-HD5500s have fulfilled all of their objectives. The Hitachi cameras have elevated the quality of our visual experiences for our in-person and online congregants, while enabling an exceptional video link to our remote campus.
About Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc.
Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is a company that manufactures broadcasting systems, security and surveillance systems, wireless communications and information systems. Fiscal 2018 sales totaled 85,932 million Yen. For more information on Hitachi Kokusai Electric Inc., please visit the companys website at http://www.hitachi-kokusai.co.jp/global/en/index.html.
###
North America Stories
02/07/2025
Hege Wik and Odin appear in FOLKTALES by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institut...
02/07/2025
(Stephen Lovekin/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Patty Consolazio
This one's for any person who's ever felt put down, left out, marginaliz...
02/07/2025
NEW YORK Paramount Global has agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit by President Donald Trump, ending a long-running legal saga that could clear the way...
02/07/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved the transfer of licenses for five TV stations from Sinclair to Rincon Broadcasting, which announce...
02/07/2025
As the media industry faces an uncertain business climate and rapidly changing consumer habits, TV Tech's most popular stories from the first six months of ...
02/07/2025
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. New data shows that U.S. homes now own an average of two smart TVs, with Samsung and LG dominating the market but Roku and FireTV continue to g...
02/07/2025
LOS ANGELES Funds managed by Oaktree Capital Management have acquired FilmRise, an independent digital streaming content distributor, and merged it with Shout! ...
02/07/2025
WASHINGTON The Advanced Television Systems Committee named Luiz Fausto vice president of standards development, succeeding ATSC vice president Jerry Whitaker, w...
02/07/2025
Boston Conservatory and the Sphinx Organization Join Forces to Make Classical Ed...
02/07/2025
Progressive realism: Aurora on taking up the broadcast reins for World RX alongs...
02/07/2025
Great speed: New host broadcaster Aurora on getting the World RX 2025 season pro...
02/07/2025
Seat of its pants: Aurora boxes clever and looks ahead for the FIA as new host b...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: EBU, BBC Sport and Sunset Vine talk coverage plans, ...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Women's Super League launches new content series...
02/07/2025
UEFA Women's Euro 2025: Ignite puts fans and players front and centre with t...
02/07/2025
Storytelling in the Live Game Broadcast: ESPN Director Jimmy Platt Breaks Down t...
02/07/2025
CONCACAF's Miguel Angel Garcia on the Gold Cup's Enhanced 2025 Productio...
02/07/2025
Black Forest Labs, one of the world's leading AI research labs, just changed the game for image generation.
The lab's FLUX.1 image models have earned g...
01/07/2025
L3Harris Technologies has delivered its second Bombardier Global 6500 missionize...
01/07/2025
MELBOURNE, Fla., July 1, 2025 - L3Harris Technologies (NYSE: LHX) will release its second quarter 2025 financial results before the market opens on Thursday, Ju...
01/07/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has rejected license challenges to three full-power Baltimore TV stations, renewing the licenses for Chesapeake...
01/07/2025
Dalet has released a new update to its Dalet Flex media workflow platform, introducing powerful new capabilities to its flagship platform....
01/07/2025
NEWARK, N.J. With the FIFA Club World Cup final rapidly approaching and the start of the 2026 FIFA World Cup now less than a year away, interest in soccer in th...
01/07/2025
COW Job Listing: Laser Engraved Logo
Brie Clayton July 1, 2025
0 Comments
Laser engraved logo
July 1, 2025Steffie Beltt's Mi Amor Music Video Cr...
01/07/2025
LeGrow.Studio Builds Broadcast Hub for ePro League
Brie Clayton July 1, 2025
0 Comments
TEM Constellation HD and BlackmagicURSA Broadcast G2 drive liv...
01/07/2025
Beeble launches SwitchLight 2.0, bringing AI-powered relighting to any footage
Brie Clayton July 1, 2025
0 Comments
New AI model delivers full-scene p...
01/07/2025
Steffie Beltt's Mi Amor Music Video Created with Blackmagic Design
Brie Clayton July 1, 2025
0 Comments
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K digital film camera...
01/07/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement and Media Bureaus have entered into a consent decree with Sinclair to resolve a variety of in...
01/07/2025
DENVER Low-power television (LPTV) station owners looking to navigate the complexities of selling their assets in todays dynamic media environment are invited t...
01/07/2025
NASA announced today that live programming from its NASA+ channel will be available on Netflix starting sometime this summer....
01/07/2025
WASHINGTON Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr has appointed Katie McAuliffe to serve as policy advisor in his office....
01/07/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Alphabet's GFiber, the broadband provider formerly known as Google Fiber, has announced that it recently worked with Nokia to demonstr...
01/07/2025
NEW YORK, N.Y. DoubleVerify (DV) has announced the launch of DV Authentic Attention for Social. The product will first launch with Snap, the owner of Snapchat....
01/07/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has rejected license challenges to three full-power Baltimore TV stations and agreed to renew the license for C...
01/07/2025
Compact new converter lets users capture live NDI and streaming sources into software over a USB interface
Video interface and IP workflow innovator Magewell ...
01/07/2025
Disguise, the award-winning tech company driving visuals for Broadway and West End hits including Redwood, Stranger Things: The First Shadow and Disney's Fr...
01/07/2025
Historic appointment ushers in unified leadership for WRAL-TV, New Media, and Digital Solutions
RALEIGH, N.C. - 6-27-25 - Capitol Broadcasting Company is prou...
01/07/2025
Back to All News
Feel the Beat: Glass Heart' Main Trailer and Title Song RevealedPlay Video
Play Video
Entertainment
01 July 2025
GlobalJapan
Link co...
01/07/2025
SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Spyrosoft's Jonathan Witty on Futher Business Exp...
01/07/2025
The NIL Effect: How the Shifting Business of College Athletics Impacts On-Campus...
01/07/2025
Cherry on the cake: Inside the technical production of the Tour de France 2025 w...
01/07/2025
NESN's Josh Jun on Keeping Alternative Broadcasts Fresh for Boston Red Sox, ...
01/07/2025
TNT Sports Races Back Into NASCAR With Fresh Look, Familiar Edge Production approach emphasizes creative freedom, bold storytelling, casual-fan-friendly tone B...
01/07/2025
Back to All News
Watch: A Line Crossed: Netflix Drops Explosive Trailer for New...
01/07/2025
Tyngsboro, Mass. - June 30, 2025 - The 2025 ACM Annual Conference at Boston University was an energizing and inspiring gathering of community media professional...
01/07/2025
In many parts of the world, including major technology hubs in the U.S., there's a yearslong wait for AI factories to come online, pending the buildout of n...
30/06/2025
The Artemis II Space Launch System core stage is integrated with the solid rocket boosters inside High Bay 3 of the Vehicle Assembly Building at NASAs Kennedy S...
30/06/2025
RALEIGH, N.C. Capitol Broadcasting Co. has named Heather Gray vice president and general manager of WRAL-TV and WRAZ-TV here....
30/06/2025
The Virginia Association of Broadcasters has recognized Bill Sewell, Director of Engineering at WTKR & WGNT in Norfolk, Va. as the recipient of the 2025 J.J. Fr...
30/06/2025
The Society of Broadcast Engineers said its annual member drive resulted in the recruitment of 49 individual members....