Houses of worship: Holy tech Features 18/05/2020 Hurrairah bin Sohail takes a deep dive into the houses of worship sector where integrators and AV professionals seek to bring together the disparate threads of religious tradition and a changing technology landscape.The houses of worship sector is one that is difficult to assess. AV technology is definitely required and demanded by house of worship end users to engage with audiences and to help get their message across. At the same time, the tradition and importance of these spaces needs to be taken into account when designing and deploying AV systems. Joe Fong, deputy managing director at Electronics & Engineering [E&E], says: “In mankind’s journey a belief system has always been present. Thousands of years ago and even today houses of worship are spaces where worshippers come to congregate, to worship and to hear about religion. The architecture and development of churches, mosques and other houses of worship are geared to bring the message across, and this can be seen in the acoustic design and architecture of these spaces. It is all about reaching the masses and today there is a greater need for technology.” Fong continues: “Ultimately, for any belief system and house of worship, the aim is to bring the message to the masses. The greater the capacity, the greater the need for technology. You can imagine a church with 100 people that grows to a mass of 1,000 people and then to 5,000 people and then to a million people. The requirements for AV will be different every step of the way.” Rudi Hidayat, CEO of V2 Indonesia, gives his perspective: “Technology has already penetrated the house of worship sector and they function very much like a broadcasting studio in some respects. Cameras are being changed from HDMI to SDI. They are investing in recording and streaming systems. They have online and offline operations and many of them have switched from projectors to LED. The biggest change that we are seeing is the move to LED. In Indonesia and Jakarta, we have already started to deploy and install LED displays in churches over the last few years.” LEDs worship As Fong from E&E briefly mentioned, houses of worship have always focused on audio as the primary method for getting their message across. However, as younger generations have become more used to consuming content in visual formats, houses of worship have had to adapt. Hidayat’s comments carry weight with LEDs fast becoming the display technology choice. Hidayat from V2 weighs in on why LEDs are gaining traction: “In conversation with our church clients who have moved from projectors to LED displays the main reason they have given for the change is to better suit the church environment. Many churches have a stage and that means finding a spot for the projector becomes a challenge, it must not block the audience and the sight lines must be kept clear. Other feedback is that projectors are hard to maintain, you need to keep an eye on the lamp life as well as the performance of the projector which degrades over time. So, when you look at total cost of ownership between projectors and LEDs, projectors might be less expensive but there are a lot of other factors to consider.” He continues: “They feel a little bit disappointed that the brightness of projectors can only be sustained for so long, which is why they are choosing LED. The younger generation and millennials, they have different expectations from the houses of worship they choose to attend. The way to engage with them is different with more emphasis being put on visual elements like lighting for example. If you have projection as your main display type, it will clash with the lighting elements that you may choose to deploy.” The only reason LEDs have not cornered the houses of worship market is price. Hidayat says: “If picture quality is bad, then the house of worship is not engaging its members and LED displays really deliver on picture quality. For large houses of worship, the investment in an LED display is not an issue. But for medium or small houses of worship an LED display can represent a significant investment. I think it is the responsibility of the integrator to meet the needs and the requirements of the end user. At V2 Indonesia we have leasing programs for houses of worship for LED displays with flexible deposits and time frames for payment that can help make LED displays affordable.” There is also the fact that the performance of any video system is determined by all the components in the signal chain and not just the display technology that the users view. Fong from E&E says: “You believe what you see. Displays can be anything from a small screen to a big LED videowall. And the focus on display technology has really evolved in the past years to the point where houses of worship need to not just look at the display but also the cameras, the switcher, the router, the streaming system and all the other components.” Delivering improved visual systems for houses of worship is not easy. Hidayat from V2 details: “The upgrade to LED is not just simply installing a new videowall, they might have to change the source as well. In the past, a PC with a VGA signal to the projectors would have been enough. But with LED we need to use HDMI or DisplayPort or DVI. This means that the source might need to be changed, the infrastructure might need to be changed and the cameras for content capture might need to be changed as well. This is a conversation that we need to have with our houses of worship customers. While they may be willing to invest in a LED videowall they might not have considered the other system changes that are required and might not have the budget for that. If the source and the system are not on the same level as the LED display, then the visual performance might not be what they were expecting.” He continues: “I think the challenges in the houses of worship sector today arise from the fact that they are upgrading and not just from projectors to LED but across all the technology systems they use. For example, we are now moving from traditional switching to a more digital or hybrid environment. And with this the main concern of the houses of worship end users is human resources required to operate and manage these modern systems. Of course, we talk to them and provide support in various ways, such as with our manager on duty [MOD] program, but it is still a concern in their minds.” Hearing the word Fong from E&E says: “Visual engagement is important but ultimately hearing the word is critical. So, whether you are in the mosque for prayer, in the temple for chanting or in the church for the sermon, it is the spoken word that is at the forefront and it is the clarity of the sound that matters.” With the emphasis on audio, houses of worship tend to favour line array speakers. Hidayat from V2 Indonesia details: “The majority of the houses of worship, especially churches, tend to go with line arrays for audio. The fact that you can angle the sound to cover the front, the back and the middle, that is something that convinces them.” He continues: “For the pastor, the clarity of audio is the most important aspect which is understandable. They want to make sure that their words can be heard by everyone in the congregation. At the same time, many churches and houses of worship have live bands and any audio system that is deployed needs to be able to deliver audio for live music performances.” Content online Houses of worship have also realised that physical space is not the only medium to reach out and engage with their congregations. Hidayat from V2 Indonesia says: “Houses of worship are really broadcast or semi-broadcast environments. They have SDI cameras, a minimum of two to three cameras at the houses of worship we are working on. They have proper streaming systems and platforms and even proper studios in some cases to be able to create their own content.” More and more, the content created by houses of worship is being delivered directly to their congregations through the medium of streaming. Hidayat says: “When it comes to streaming, the trend is for houses of worship to go for software. But it is a step by step process. The first thoughts are to upgrade the cameras to capture the content and then they want to increase their streaming capabilities and that can take many shapes from mixers, recorders and software to publish to CDNs.” With a host of streaming options available, Fong from E&E believes it is the integrator’s job to ensure that the client has what they need. He says: “Any streaming solution needs to be based on the streaming requirements. Is content going to be streamed to mobile devices? Are you streaming to different locations? Using pre-recorded streams is easier than live streams and there are even more operational considerations. And then if you are in a country where the network is 2G or 3G then it doesn’t make sense to invest a million dollars in a streaming setup because the infrastructure can’t support it. Plus, if your operational need is not great streaming systems can be rented when the need arises. We need to find a solution that works for the client.” Expertise needed With the investment in technology continuing to rise, houses of worship are facing a new challenge. Complex systems and solutions require expert operators in order for the user to extract the desired performance. Hidayat from V2 Indonesia details: “For visuals, most churches have dedicated personnel to manage the multimedia systems. But the level of skills and expertise these people have varies. The larger houses of worship have permanent staff and of course volunteers. But the medium to smaller houses of worship might only rely on volunteers. In this case, it is up to the integrator to ensure that the end user has the support they need.” Fong from E&E says: “At the end of the day, the priority of houses of worship is not to put on a show but it is to focus on the people that are coming to worship. This means that investing in manpower or human resources to manage the technology and facilities is not their first priority. Most of the times it is volunteers who are performing these tasks for operational capability.” Integrators and distributors can play their part in alleviating the issue. Hidayat talks about concrete steps that have been taken: “V2 Indonesia has a manager on duty or MOD programme, which houses of worship can make use of. This means that every Sunday we can arrange for our technicians to be available to help the house of worship with their operations. And of course, we provide training to our houses of worship customers for three months after deployment. We will train the volunteers to be familiar with the system and learn the basics of how to operate and manage the technology.” Looking ahead though, Hidayat believes that houses of worship end users will require even more support. He says: “For the larger churches and houses of worship they have switched to LED and I can see the medium and small houses of worship will also continue to migrate to LED. The only problem at present is the budgets that are available to them, but I foresee as the price of LEDs continues to reduce this will no longer be an issue. This will have a knock-on effect and we will see investment in technology such as cameras and signal distribution and streaming. At V2 Indonesia these are the trends we are preparing for.” Fong from E&E says: “I think as a system integrator it is our duty to align expectations with reality. Sometimes a client might want to invest in a broadcast level video mixing board, but they do not have the people to operate it. It is our duty as the system integrator to bring this up. Secondly, we must look at the functional needs of the house of worship. What is their capacity? We shouldn’t be talking about brand names or features and instead we should focus on the needs of the client. We need to look at what is driving the investment in technology and what they expect the technology to deliver first.” Fong concludes: “Houses of worship as a sector is traditional when it comes to its approach to technology. But how can this traditional approach keep pace with how the world is evolving. Content is being delivered now in AR and VR. How does that match to how the message from houses of worship is being delivered? Houses of worship will need to explore new ways of getting their message across.”