Case Study: Yonsei Central Baptist church, Korea

Hurrairah bin Sohail discovers how Yonsei Central Baptist church took the performance of its main hall up a notch when it decided to upgrade AV systems.

It is no secret that the houses of worship market in South Korea is lucrative. Churches in the country more often than not have extensive AV requirements and discerning congregations. In addition, they also have the means to invest in the best AV manufacturers have to offer. It is not strange to fi nd churches in South Korea with audio systems to rival concert halls and broadcast capabilities that match modern TV studios.

Yonsei Central Baptist church is one of the more established houses of worship in the city of Seoul. When it decided to upgrade its AV capabilities, Dream Sound came in to serve as the integrator for the project while Klausys helped in the capacity of distributor.

Park Pyong Jun, sound director and system engineer at Yonsei Central Baptist church, discusses the thought process behind the upgrade: “There comes a time in the technology lifecycle when old products become obsolete. The requirements and needs of the space evolve and your understanding of them also becomes better. So we decided to upgrade the audio and video systems at our church.”

The video component of the upgrade was straightforward. Yonsei Central Baptist church was previously using rear projection for its main hall. However, these projectors were near the end of their life cycle. The church also found that the projected image was small. Taking this into consideration, it chose to deploy an ESD Lumens 312-in LED 3mm tile display.

Premium sound


Upgrading the audio system was not as simple. Yonsei Central Baptist church was previously using an L-Acoustics Kudo line array speaker system for sound in its main hall. While the church was happy with the performance of the L-Acoustics solution, it nevertheless went through an extensive deliberation process. After performing its due diligence, the church decided to upgrade to the L-Acoustics K2 line array speakers.

A total of 16 units of the K2 speakers have been deployed on the left and right side of the LED display wall in the main hall. These are powered by LA8 amplifi ers which have been fl own up with the line array speakers. L-Acoustics SB28 subwoofers are employed to handle the low end of audio frequencies. L-Acoustics dV-Dosc speakers act as the centre fi ll while 5XT speakers serve as side fills.

Park talks about the audio in the main hall: “Sound for music has never been a problem in the main hall, whether a big band or a small ensemble is performing. The issue has always been with speech. In addition, our pastor has a small voice which makes matters worse. We wanted to rectify this with the upgrade.”

Six L-Acoustics 8XT speakers were specifi cally deployed around the main hall to serve as delay speakers. Park says: “The delay speakers are used only for speech and not for music. The hall was previously not good for speech. The space is actually very non-reverberant. So the delay speakers were chosen to rectify this. We also have a reflector to provide a natural bounce for the audio.”

Korean churches believe in the adage ‘waste not, want not’. The old Kudo speakers have been repurposed to serve as stage monitors.

Yonsei Central Baptist church has a total of 128 Shure wired microphones and 48 Shure wireless microphone systems. The large number of microphones are necessary due to the large band that performs at congregations along with a choir. A Harrison Trion console along with a Yamaha DM1000 mixer handles microphone inputs. Audio transmission is via MADI.

On the back-end Lab.gruppen FP2600, FP3400 and FP6400 amplifi ers are used. Processing is handled by a BSS London Blu-80 and Blu-120 which were retained from the old audio system. Two Blu- 800 DSPs were also added as part of the upgrade.

Broadcasting excellence


In the past houses of worship only concerned themselves with delivering quality audio. The increased consumption of video content by users today has made churches change their tune. Yonsei Central Baptist church is an excellent example of the quality of broadcast systems deployed at modern houses of worship to engage with its congregation via visual platforms.

Ikegami cameras are used to record sermons in the main hall. These can be controlled remotely with the help of Ikegami camera control units in the control room. The Ikegami cameras are connected to a Canare patch system. From here the video signal is fed into a Sony MVS6000 broadcast grade switcher and processor.

The video signal is then sent forward to a Nevion VikinX 128 x 128 switcher which then feeds the signal to Dongyang TV modulators and video recorders. The TV modulators are used to broadcast content to internal TVs found around the church. The VikinX switcher is also connected to Nova Star Nova Pro LED controllers which deliver content to be displayed on the LED tile display in the main hall.

Park says: “Our broadcast system is very extensive, which it needs to be to meet the demands of our congregation. The content that we record and process is sent out over digital platforms and can be seen on screens in the church. We even make it available for people on the internet.”

Regarding the outcome of the upgrade, Park says: “We are very happy with the upgrade. The whole process was undertaken bit by bit and we intend to continue to improve the AV systems. The audio portion of the upgrade is completed and it has helped up solve the main hall’s problem with speech reproduction. We’ll be looking at updating our broadcasting capabilities in the future. In particular we will be looking at getting some more user friendly camera control and production tools which will be easier for our volunteers to operate.”

Tech Spec

Audio


BSS London Blu-80, Blu-120, Blu-800 DSPs
Harrison Trion console
Lab.gruppen FP2600, FP3400, FP6400 amplifiers
L-Acoustics K2 speakers, Kudo speakers, dV- Dosc speakers, 8XT, 5XT speakers, LA8 amplifiers, SB28 subwoofers
Shure wireless, wired microphones
Yamaha DM1000 console

Video

Canare patch system
Dongyang TV modulators
ESD Lumens 3mm LED tiles
Ikegami cameras, camera control units
Nevion VikinX 128 x 128 switcher
Nova Star Nova Pro LED controllers
Sony MVS6000 switcher and processor

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