Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

Moving Above LTO - How Cloud Storage Helps One Texas Church Deliver a Modern Digital Ministry

30/09/2023

Moving Above LTO - How Cloud Storage Helps One Texas Church Deliver a Modern Digital Ministry

Brie Clayton September 29, 2023

0 Comments

First Baptist Dallas is a large, multi-generational church community dating back to 1890. Their mission is to transform the world with God's word, one life at a time. Across their local, national, and international ministries, First Baptist Dallas uses four key strategies to empower their congregation: worship, equip, serve, and influence. From worship services and Sunday school programs to discipleship, fellowship, and mission opportunities, the church conducts programs both in-person and through streaming and broadcast media to keep their community connected and engaged, no matter where they reside.

Migrating Years of Church Footage to the Cloud First Baptist Dallas has been ahead of the media curve since they issued their first radio broadcast in 1921. Over the past 100+ years, the church has expanded from a consistent radio presence into satellite, broadcast, and streaming audio and video ministries that reach a global audience. First Baptist Dallas' broadcast ministry, Pathway to Victory, recently became the most watched program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, the world's largest religious television network.



The church has always felt that media is an important part of the things we do, says Steve Reed, First Baptist Dallas' Minister of Worship Production. When he joined the team in 2018, Reed found that he had inherited a huge on-premises content archive crammed into a single server room on the church's physical campus. Much of it was stored on physical media, from 1940s era reel-to-reel tapes to Betacam cassettes.



One of the things that used to keep us up at night was that if anything happened in that room, we would have lost everything, Reed says. When he explained that dire situation to the First Baptist Dallas executive and administrative teams, everyone was on board with finding a better solution. It was time to move to the cloud.

Two Sunday Worship Services Means More Than 1.4TB of Footage Each Week First Baptist Dallas runs a complex camera setup. Until about 2013, worship events held in the church's historic sanctuary were recorded using five SD cameras shooting 480p. On Easter of 2013, the church moved into a brand new worship center and upgraded to seven HD cameras shooting at 720p. That more than quadrupled the size of each Sunday's capture files, says Dean Hemmeline, First Baptist Dallas' Video Asset Manager. The video team went from capturing about 300GB of footage to as much as 1.4TB in a single Sunday.



James Johnson, First Baptist Dallas' Chief Video Engineer, manages that vast content archive. In addition to overseeing backups and retrievals, Johnson has to ensure that the church's team of video editors have read and write access to the files they need with minimal downtime. To balance accessibility concerns with cost efficiency and the nightmare of disaster striking their physical storage, the church considered two options: either expand their on-premises storage space with redundancy rooms and a whole slate of new hardware, or migrate to cloud storage.



CineSys, the church's technology vendor, recommended Backblaze right off the bat. The fact that Backblaze had worked for other houses of worship helped First Baptist Dallas finalize their decision: We wanted something that other organizations had already had success with, says Johnson. CineSys recommended Backblaze with confidence, saying Once you do this, you're going to be happy.'



After some internal evaluation, the church determined that there was no advantage to sinking even more investment into an expanded on-premises storage system. Not only was cloud storage a more affordable option, but it would also save the church from the long term expense of having to install, maintain, and replace a whole new set of servers with a limited lifespan. We saw great value in having Backblaze as our cloud storage, Reed says. We knew all our footage was safe, even if something happened here on campus. It was a natural call for us at that point. Then you get the bonus of security, adds Johnson.

A Ten-Channel Workflow Takes Sermons From the Sanctuary to the Cloud Since implementing Backblaze, First Baptist Dallas has backed up recordings from all new sermons directly into their Backblaze B2 bucket. The production team captures a dirty feed from the live stream of each service, which includes lower thirds, captions, call-outs, and a mix of all cameras. In addition they also capture clean isolated feeds from each of eight cameras (ISOs). Ingesting all those channels allows the church's video editors to condense each sermon while respecting its intentions, using smooth transitions instead of jarring jump cuts.



The First Baptist Dallas production team uses Softron, a multi-channel video ingest solution, to feed two channels to each of the five Mac computers connected via fiber to the church's main server. The team chooses which of the two Sunday services they want to broadcast, and then they upload the raw capture from a local QNAP NAS server into Backblaze using Axle.ai as their media asset management system. They use Rclone to interface Backblaze B2 and Axle.ai, so they just have to click add to archive in the Axle.ai interface to complete the upload to Backblaze.



The process of digitizing that packed server room was already underway before they started moving to the cloud, so First Baptist Dallas' migration of their older footage has also been seamless. Hemmeline handpicks clean footage and ISO files to back up based on their relevance to the Pathway to Victory program, which regularly re-airs older sermons. He has been working backward chronologically to upload th
LINK: https://creativecow.net/moving-above-lto-how-cloud-storage-helps-one-t...
See more stories from creativecow

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

01/06/2026

Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026

January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026 Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...

02/05/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Search, Faster Editing, and an AI-Ready Foundation for Modern Media

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

01/05/2026

NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to Integrate Dolby's Full Suite of Premium Picture and Sound Innovations

January 5 2026, 18:30 (PST) NBCUniversal's Peacock to Be First Streamer to ...

06/04/2026

Fab Five' Reunion Drives TNT and CBS's Experimental Final Four Altcast Built on REMI Workflow

Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...

06/04/2026

SVG New Sponsor Spotlight: Optikka CEO Daniel Evans on Scaling Sports Content with Programmatic Graphics

From high school sports all the way up to the major leagues, building high-quali...

06/04/2026

Quickplay and TwelveLabs Join AWS Business Outcomes Xcelerator Program

Quickplay, an AI company for the media and entertainment industry, has been accepted into the Advanced tier of the TwelveLabs Ecosystem Partner Program. Quickpl...

06/04/2026

Grass Valley Launches Future Playmakers Program for Students in Sports Production and Media Technology

Grass Valley has announced the Future Playmakers Program, a global initiative to...

06/04/2026

SVG All-Stars: Raasean Robinson, Gerente de Posproduccin y Operaciones de Estudio, FOX Deportes

El l der de operaciones impulsa la producci n en estudio mientras encuentra insp...

06/04/2026

SVG All-Stars: Raasean Robinson, Manager, Post Production and Studio Operations, FOX Deportes

The ops leader helps lead the charge in studio for the Spanish-language broadcas...

06/04/2026

Behind The Mic: SiriusXM Shares 2026 Masters Broadcast Team; ESPN to Produce Over 140+ Hours of Masters Live Coverage

Behind The Mic provides a roundup of recent news regarding on-air talent, includ...

06/04/2026

NHL Opens Innovation Lab in Partnership with Verizon, New Jersey Devils

The National Hockey League (NHL), in partnership with Verizon and the New Jersey Devils, today announced the opening of the NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizo...

06/04/2026

ESPN+ To Stream Inaugural Rock League Curling Season

Rock League, a new professional curling league, has announced that ESPN+ will stream its inaugural 2026 season for fans in the United States. The first Rock Lea...

06/04/2026

ASG Appoints Andrea Cummis as VP of Systems Design and Engineering

Advanced Systems Group has announced the appointment of Andrea (Andy) Cummis as Vice President of Systems Design and Engineering. In this role, she will lead de...

06/04/2026

Source Media Group Launches Source Golf, a Creator-Driven YouTube Network Targeting Next-Gen Fans

Backed by Bolt Ventures, the venture brings Bryson DeChambeau, Grant Horvat, and...

06/04/2026

How the NHL's Innovation Lab Will Take Broadcast, Fan, and Team Tech to New Heights

With this environment we can start that collaboration even earlier because we ca...

06/04/2026

K-Pop Artist ENHYPEN Host The Blood Diary,' a New Video Podcast Series From HYBE

Like the immortal lives of vampires, some stories never really end. That's t...

06/04/2026

From Audio to IRL: How Let's Get Haunted' Is Building Community With Spotify RADAR

As podcasting continues to evolve, growth increasingly means building beyond aud...

06/04/2026

FSK Audio update Bark24 Dyn

Multiband dynamics plug-in enhanced California-based developer FSK Audio have released a significant update for their innovative multiband dynamics processo...

06/04/2026

IK Multimedia introduce ToneNET Preset Sharing

Share official & user-created full-rig presets IK Multimedia's latest TONEX update makes it possible for users of the popular amp and effects modelling ...

06/04/2026

Baseball 2026: More AI, Better Viewing Choices

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

06/04/2026

JB&A Announces Details for its Pre-NAB 2026 Event

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

06/04/2026

Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026

Dalet Showcases Dalia Agentic AI and End-to-End Media Workflows at NAB Show 2026 Brie Clayton April 6, 2026 0 Comments Dalet, a leading technology and...

06/04/2026

OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show's West Hall

OpenDrives Shows Off Sports Expertise in Sports Business Hub located in NAB Show...

06/04/2026

Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026

Proton to Demonstrate 3D Application at NAB 2026 Brie Clayton April 6, 2026 0 Comments Yet further creative potential unleashed through innovation in ...

06/04/2026

Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026

Autoscript Highlights Voice-Driven Prompting and PTZ Solutions at NAB 2026 Brie Clayton April 6, 2026 0 Comments Experience Autoscript Voice, PTZ prom...

06/04/2026

Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Show 2026

Mediaproxy Highlights Significant Enhancements to its LogServer suite at NAB Sho...

06/04/2026

Re-Architectured PCC Software Streamlines and Enhances the Full High-Speed Imaging Workflow

Wayne, N.J., April 6th, 2026 Phantom High-Speed announces the release of PCC 4...

06/04/2026

Tribeca Studios And Lilly Announce Winners Of Inaugural Vital Stories Filmmaker Program

April 6th, 2026 TRIBECA STUDIOS AND LILLY ANNOUNCE WINNERS OF INAUGURAL VITAL...

06/04/2026

Netflix Expands Kids Entertainment Lineup With Playground App for Games, New Shows & Returning Favorites

Back to All News Netflix Expands Kids Entertainment Lineup With Playground App ...

05/04/2026

Latest SoundBridge update now live

Tackles all reported bugs! SoundBridge have just announced the launch of a new update that introduces a couple of minor changes to their remote collaboratio...

04/04/2026

Don't Be Lame: Arizona Men's Basketball Social Team Aims To Catch the Attention of Wildcats Fans

The University of Arizona's Men's Basketball team has only loss twice th...

04/04/2026

HDR Makes Its Men's Final Four Debut as CBS Sports and TNT Sports Collaborate on New Camera Tools and an IP-Powered Compound

1080p HDR arrives, a new generation of storytelling tools takes center stage, an...

04/04/2026

Fab Five Reunion Drives TNT and CBS's Experimental Final Four Altcast Built on REMI Workflow

Michigan legends bring a new voice to the broadcast as TNT Sports and CBS Sports...

04/04/2026

Flock Audio's latest Patch App DX update

Faster, cleaner and more intuitive than ever The control software for Flock Audio's digitally controlled patchbay systems has just been treated to an up...

04/04/2026

Sinclair to FCC: Broadcast Sports Drives Investment in Local News

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/04/2026

Study: Worldwide Telecom Capex to Decline in 2026,

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/04/2026

Ateme Delivers Full End-to-End Streaming Platform to Moldtelecom

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/04/2026

FCC Plans Spending, Regulatory Fee Revenue Reductions in FY 2027

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

04/04/2026

DHD Introduces AI-Based Audio Noise Reduction to XD3 IP Core

DHD Introduces AI-Based Audio Noise Reduction to XD3 IP Core Brie Clayton April 3, 2026 0 Comments The accompanying image shows the rear panel of the ...

04/04/2026

Macnica Redefines ST 2110 Flexibility with Two Speeds on One Card

Macnica Redefines ST 2110 Flexibility with Two Speeds on One Card Brie Clayton April 3, 2026 0 Comments New for NAB Show 2026, MEP100 SmartNIC now sup...

04/04/2026

Unified Media Workflows for Story-Centric Production

Unified Media Workflows for Story-Centric Production Brie Clayton April 3, 2026 0 Comments Framelight X unifies field capture, editing and publishing ...

03/04/2026

TNT Sports and CBS Sports To Reunite Michigan's Iconic Fab Five' for Special NCAA Men's Final Four Altcast on truTV and HBO Max

Michigan's Fab Five will reunite for an alternate presentation of the Mich...

03/04/2026

NAB 2026: Avid To Showcase Content Core and AI Workflow Innovations

Avid will exhibit at NAB Show 2026 (April 18-22, Booth N2226, Las Vegas Convention Center), demonstrating its Content Core platform and new AI-driven workflow c...

03/04/2026

MRMC Appoints Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer

Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has announced the appointment of Nick Barthee as Chief Operating Officer. The announcement follows MRMC's transition fro...

03/04/2026

Elite Media Technologies Selects Interra Systems' BATON for File-Based QC

Interra Systems has announced that Elite Media Technologies has selected its BATON file-based QC solution for media workflows. Elite Media Technologies speciali...

03/04/2026

Moldtelecom Deploys Ateme Technologies Across Full Streaming Workflow

Ateme has announced that Moldtelecom has deployed Ateme technologies across its streaming workflow, covering encoding, delivery, operations, and analytics. Mol...

03/04/2026

NAB 2026: Grass Valley To Demonstrate Framelight X Content Management

Grass Valley will demonstrate Framelight X, its content management platform, at NAB Show 2026. The platform connects capture, ingest, editing, and publishing in...

03/04/2026

NAB 2026: Encompass Digital Media and Techex Launch Cloud-Based Master Control Service for Live Events

Encompass Digital Media and Techex have announced a cloud-native Master Control ...