Grace Community Church has provided reformed Baptist worship services to the Glen Rose, Texas, community for more than 20 years, recently starting livestreaming of its Sunday service for infirm and elderly members under threat of Covid-19 infection using JVC Professional KY-PZ100 PTZ cameras and an RM-LP100 controller.

Church member and A/V consultant Chris Blake oversaw the acquisition and installation of the equipment, which was purchased in 2019 and was fully running by January 2020. In order to capture the entire worship service, Blake opted to install one JVC KY-PZ100 at the rear, centre of the room – approximately 75ft from the platform. The other camera is to the side, roughly 40ft from the platform. Both are mounted above congregants’ heads, to ensure they do not affect line of sight.

‘When we started to review our options, one of our biggest considerations was the desired position of the cameras,’ Blake explains. ‘Since our plan was to install one at the back of the space, we needed a long zoom — and the JVC cameras offer that. We also found that JVC has good optics in terms of both the lens and the sensor.’

According to Blake, the positioning of the cameras tie into Grace Community Church with regard to its size and capabilities. ‘We value keeping our space an atmosphere of worship,’ he says. ‘The idea of setting up tripods and having extra volunteers that need to run cameras reminded us more of a TV studio than a worship space. Since we are a smaller church, we chose the JVC PTZ cameras because they are discreet and high-quality; and they have excellent performance.’

Working with Stream Dudes in Chicago, Grace Community Church also purchased JVC’s RM-LP100 Controller. ‘We felt that a hardware-based controller solution would be easier for volunteers to run, compared to a computer with software,’ Blake says. ‘The JVC controller is straightforward and easy for our volunteers to use, and they really love it. Price, quality and ease-of-use were really the main factors for us. The JVC system, and its ability to easily integrate with other products, fit the bill.’

When it comes to streaming throughout the pandemic, Blake says that the JVC system has been especially useful: ‘There was a point where we were not meeting in person at all. We were extremely thankful to already have these in place during that time because we saw other churches scramble to stream online. We continue to rely on our streaming solution since many of our members are either older adults or in high-risk groups. They choose to stay home, even though we are back to meeting in person, so that option has served a lot of people well over the past several months.’

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