HD pro- Bellevue Baptist Church converts to duction and post-pro- tapeless workflow with Cinedeck RX duction, and harnessed Cinedeck RX recorders as part of this advance.

“With Cinedeck RX we can finish productions to a “We’ve much higher standard than we have in the past, in discovered a lot less time.” many advan- tages with the ~Noah Sidhom, video editor, Cinedeck RX, the chief of these being the speed and efficiency Bellevue Baptist Church of the workflow they enable for editorial,” says video editor Noah Sidhom. “Now we get so much more time to fine-tune The organization: the final edit on our programs. Ultimately, we can finish produc- tions to a much higher standard than we have in the past, in a lot less time.” Bellevue Baptist Church, Memphis, , USA The users: Bellevue Baptist Church, based in the community of Cordova near Memphis, has innovated in television broadcasts of its Noah Sidhom video editor, Larry Anderson director of media worship services for over 50 years. Now the church is spear- production heading its transition from SD to full HD file-based production and post with four, dual-channel Cinedeck RXs at the heart of a Larry Anderson oversees Bellevue’s media department, and new, streamlined workflow. directs Sunday broadcasts and a range of special productions. Before coming on staff at Bellevue, he served as the television Bellevue Baptist was originally founded in 1903 as a one-room, editor at Love Worth Finding Ministries. He also served for stone chapel mission on the outskirts of Memphis, follow- several years as a volunteer in Bellevue’s television ministry. He ing a $1,000 gift from member Fannie Jobe. Today, 110 years holds a BA in communication from the . later, Bellevue Baptist Church has grown to become one of the largest congregations in the Southern Baptist Convention, with The challenges: transitioning from SD to HD workflow, back-up around 30,000 members. The church’s main auditorium, situat- security, and rapid program delivery for Internet and broadcast ed on a 377-acre campus, seats 7,000 people as they participate channels in Sunday worship services, concerts and other special events. Larry Anderson, director of Bellevue’s Baptists media depart- ment, explains the key issues facing the organization after making the decision to transition from SD to full file-based HD production and post-production:

“We had been using Sony DVCAM and DigiBeta for several years, but they had started to fail on us. Repairs, and the overall costs of keeping that workflow going, were becoming expen- sive. We realized it was time to take at a fundamental look at our present and future requirements and the best way to gradually introduce a modern, tapeless, HD file-based workflow whilst still maximizing our legacy SD equipment.

On January 5, 1958, Bellevue became the first church in the world to broadcast worship services using its own television equipment. Under the auspices of pastor Ramsey Pollard the church continued broadcasting services, upgrading to color cameras and equipment in 1970. Bellevue’s broadcasts have since expanded into an international ministry, with distribution via the Internet and throughout the country and worldwide through Christian TV networks, such as TV and radio ministry Love Worth Finding. The various programs are also available on DVD. Larry Anderson (left) and Noah Sidhom (right) In the summer of 2012 the church’s media department made the decision to begin the transition from SD to full file-based “However, we were more than a little nervous of getting rid Bellevue Baptist Church duly ordered four dual-channel of tape, and depending solely on hard drives. So having back- Cinedeck RXs and pressed them into action. Each of the three up copies with reliable redundant record of the material was an 90-minute Sunday services is covered by six Sony EX10 ISO imperative. Added to this, we were keen to see how we could cameras shooting 480i. The output of each ISO is recorded leverage the speed and power of a file-based workflow to get to individual SSD sleds across three RX recorders, while two programs ready for broadcast on the Internet and Christian separate line cuts are recorded on the SSD sleds in fourth RX. television networks.” All channels are captured as MPEG-IMX, with an MXF OP- Atom wrapper, for Avid Symphony editorial. Each Cinedeck is The solution: four dual-channel also connected to record directly to their Avid shared storage, Cinedeck RXs a 24TB Facilis Terrablock SAN, via Gigabit Ethernet. Multiple audio channels are embedded into the SDI-stream and are also Accordingly, Anderson and recorded by the Cinedeck RX. Sidhom, began researching file- based workflows and camera This workflow results in dual copies of the media – on Cinedeck recording systems. SSDs and the SAN – for safety, and enables editorial to com- mence clean-up of the line cut as soon as services end. Typi- Sidhom recalls, “We initially cally, the two 90-minute Sunday morning services are turned looked at a recorder (KiPro) from around and ready for online Internet distribution within three an alternative manufacturer. But hours. For TV broadcast, Sidhom and Anderson further finesse when we took a close look at the the edits of during the early part of the week, and deliver workflow we realized there were the completed significant wrinkles. For example, programming we still have SD sources and the complete by the device we were investigating middle of the only recorded in an HD format. week. This would have meant us having Bellvue Baptist’s Cinedeck to up-convert all of our footage RXs in rackmount “The impact of – which was a non-starter. the RXs on our productivity has “Even if we had an HD workflow, that other recorder uses fixed, been huge,” ex- internal SSDs – so after each recording we would have had claims Anderson. to unplug the hard drive, reconnect it to the Avid, and then “As soon as we hit transfer the footage. At that stage the material would not have stop on the RX, Bellvue Baptist’s multi-camera production been in a true native Avid format that we could edit with. So we the footage is immediately available on the SAN. All we have would still have had transcoding time. All-in-all, that workflow to do is drag-and-drop the material into Avid Symphony and would have been no more efficient than the tape and disk- we can start editing. What would have taken a full day to ingest based workflows we were already using. footage in the past, now just takes 45 minutes. Also, we can start editing the line-cut of the first Sunday service whilst the Anderson and Sidhom then discovered Cinedeck RX, got a second service is still being recorded.” demo, and say they were immediately impressed by the work- flow and capabilities it offered. While this workflow gives additional time for cutting, Sidhom explains an additional advantage for the editorial process. “Unlike other recording systems, the RX supports both SD and “Traditionally, if we needed to replace or extend a shot, we had HD in the same device – perfect for us,” says Sidhom. “Further- to shuttle through tapes and could easily spend ten minutes or more, it could deliver footage in the Avid native editorial format more searching for the right material. As all the footage from all we needed, and its SAN connectivity provided potential for a of the cameras is delivered directly to the Avid, it’s already there highly positive impact on our ability to quickly turnaroun and we can get any shots we need within a coupe of mouse finished programs.” clicks,” he says.

As for the protection of the material during production and post, Anderson says, “One of the big attractions with Cinedeck 480i RX is the redundant record. As the RXs connect directly to our

MPEG IMX, MXF OP-Atom: 4 ISO + 2 Linecuts SAN, we have the security of having two copies of the media – one on the SSD sled, one on the SAN. We sleep better at night these days knowing the material is in two places. Furthermore, although we finally archive to LTO-tape, we have been able to Edit Avid dispense completely with physical-based media – like videotape Symphony and DVDs – making the workflow much more cost-effective over the long term.”

Redundant to Master Record Internal SSDs Facilis Terrablok via 1 Gb Ethernet