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BY
HEIDI TOLLIVER-NIGRO
A Matter of Faith
TO BEST SERVE ITS GLOBAL CONGREGATION, THE
MORMON CHURCH PLACES ITS TRUST IN HD TECHNOLOGY
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 "Last
year, the Mormon Church opened the largest
finished, theatrical-style building of its
type in the world. Known simply as The Conference
Center, the Mormon Church's brand-new one
million-square-foot facility in Salt Lake
City can accommodate 21,000 people. (The second-largest
similar facility is located in China, and
holds approximately 14,000 people.) The Conference
Center's main purpose is hosting the church's
semi-annual, two-day religious conferences,
which are broadcast to its millions of members
around the globe.
The Mormon Church, formally known as the
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
has been broadcasting its conferences since
the mid-1920s, first over the radio, then
on television, and now via satellite, from
which it downlinks to approximately 4,500
facilities worldwide. The church also has
a film and video production studio for producing
feature films and educational videos. Much
of the church's programming is live concerts
and events, whether it's a concert by the
Mormon Tabernacle Choir, a meeting of a
relief society or the young women's organization,
or the celebration of Mormon
President Gordon B. Hinckley's 91st birthday
last June. In addition to the church's frequent
live events, religious leaders' fireside
addresses, and educational programs, the
Mormons archive an enormous amount of information,
particularly records of family history and
speeches by church authorities. The Mormon
Church places great emphasis on preserving
the past, in particular the family histories
of its members, and talks by its religious
leaders, as one of the church's tenets is
that God reveals himself through people,
says Loren Ashcraft, director of the broadcast
and events division for the audio-visual
department.
Until recently, the church's audiovisual
department had been operating three cameras,
all Sony BVP-7As, and renting the facilities
of a local television station for video
editing. But with its growing video production
needs, combined with the capabilities of
its new facility, one fact had become increasingly
clear. "It was time to bring our production
services in-house," says Terry Lamb,
Manager of Broadcast Production operations.
And it was time to switch from analog to
digital.
PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE
After researching its options, the Mormon
Church's broadcast and video team settled
on digital high-definition (HD) technology
for its video-based materials. Ashcraft
says the decision was based on the team's
need for excellent production quality, long-term
archival capabilities, and a desire to "future-proof"
the broadcast and video department.
"Since we were beginning with a new
facility, we didn't want to face the challenge
of rebuilding in two to five years,"
says Ashcraft. "This, in combination
with our growing film production needs,
caused us to look at HD at the outset."
But, as the new facility was being built,
the upcoming conference, through which the
church communicated with its 11 million
members around the world, was the biggest
concern. And, while HD is not yet widely
adopted in the broadcast world, the audio-visual
team felt that it would be easier to "down
convert" to SDI than try to "up
convert" to HD at a future date.
 Ed
Brandt, the audiovisual department's technical
advisor, says the need to archive a lot
of footage also played a role in their choice
of HD. "Anything that has a future
cast or long-term archival aspect to it,
we shoot in HD," explains Brandt. "Our
current broadcast still goes out in NTSC,
but we archive everything in 16 x 9 HD for
future use."
Ultimately, the broadcast and video department
purchased two Sony HDWF-900 HD camcorders
and eight Sony cameras-four HDC-900s and
four HDC-950s-and plans to purchase an additional
HDC-900 and an additional HDC-950 this fall.
It also bought two BVE-9100 editing stations,
one for HD and one for SDI.
The decision to split the editing station
purchase-one HD and one SDI-arose from the
fact that some receiver stations can't accept
HD. The team also wanted to make it as easy
as possible for its producers and production
people to learn the new format while still
producing its full palate of film and video
materials.
Also, a learning curve exists. Now, Brandt
jokes, the camera's human subjects must
carefully check their appearance for everything
from lint on a coat collar to shaving cuts.
"The fineness of definition requires
particular attention to detail because high-definition
picks up everything," he says. "And
I mean everything."
The conference center opened in April 2000,
and includes several million dollars of
broadcast and video equipment, including
studio cameras, video switchers, high-definition
tape decks, and more than 200 monitors,
most of which are Sony products.
COMPATIBILITY AND PRICE
In addition to issues of quality and value,
one of the Mormon Church's main issues of
concern in selecting a supplier was system
compatibility. "In working with Sony
to integrate the different parts of the
system, we knew that we would be dealing
with a known quantity," says Ashcraft.
"For the most part, Sony had solved
any compatibility problems, so we felt good
about putting together a system largely
comprised of their products."
Another important issue was the ability
to purchase in quantity. By purchasing largely
from one supplier, the Mormon Church hoped
to realize significant cost savings-and
it did. The church also felt that Sony had
the most complete package in terms of integration,
from switching down to camera acquisition.
The deal clincher, though, was the price.
The Mormon Church elected to go HD when,
working with Sony Sales Engineer Frank Bortel,
it was able to negotiate the same price
that it had budgeted for SDI.
Brandt and the broadcast and video team
are very impressed with the quality of the
Sony equipment. "At one point, we did
try using a competitor's monitor in the
control rooms," recalls Ashcraft. "We
went through one broadcast that way, but
when the Sony BVMD-32E1UW and BVMD-24E1UW
monitors became available, we purchased
them for all the control/editing and camera
engineering rooms. The purity of the monitors
was immediately apparent."
After the first live broadcast, the audiovisual
team was very pleased with the quality of
the HD image capture. "Compared to
film, there are some differences, but they
may be more in the technique and lighting
than anything," says Brandt.
Indeed, Ashcraft hopes to see more of the
Mormon Church's film needs switched to HD
video. "With HD, you get immediate
playback because you don't have to develop
the film," he says. "Especially
with its excellent archival capabilities,
we are seeing areas where we can utilize
HD in place of film."
STAYING AHEAD OF THE CURVE
Overall, the Mormon Church is extremely
happy with its purchase, and the broadcast
and video department feels that the filming
and editing process is now much smoother
and efficient. "It's great," says
Lamb. "We don't have to worry about
juggling our scheduling with outside production
facilities. We can work at our own pace,
according to our own schedule. And when
the rest of the world goes HD, we'll be
ahead of the curve."
Furthermore, the entire Mormon Church campus
is connected via fiber optic cable. "We
can do acquisitions from anywhere on our
35-acre campus, including the old Mormon
Tabernacle," says Brandt. "We
can move our cameras just about anywhere
and run them through the control rooms in
the new conference center."
And why not? Exclaims Lamb, "I think
we might have the best facility in the state-probably
in the entire Western states!"
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