Living Faith Ministries in Manassas, Virginia, knew they needed to upgrade their A/V equipment, so they started to look for a mixer that would offer the versatility and power needed to support a broader range of applications — for both today and tomorrow. As a mid-sized church with approximately 700 members, Living Faith Ministries may not have an IT budget close to that of a mega-church, but that didn't stop them from wanting to produce high-quality multimedia worship services that rival their larger counterparts.

At the church, multimedia functions encompass both live and recorded applications. Two DV cameras record their services on Tuesday evening and Sunday morning. During live services, they project the signal up to two large screen projectors on either side of the sanctuary — giving members a close-up view of the platform. In addition, they record the Sunday morning service, ultimately streaming the media on their Web site.

Solution
Rob Taylor, IT manager at Living Faith Ministries, selected the MX-4 DV Digital Video Mixer from Focus Enhancements. The MX-4 DV lets users switch between 12 video sources (four composite, four S-video, four DV) and includes four digital inputs and one digital output. Its real-time 10-bit (4:2:2) video processing and high-quality input comb-filter circuitry yield superior digital and analog images without any degradation in quality.

With more than 700 transitions — and the ability to import 50 background and foreground graphics to create beautiful four-layer effects — the MX-4 helps unleash users' creativity.

The church had already been using a previous generation mixer from Focus Enhancements for the past five years, but that didn't mean they'd automatically select Focus' latest mixer without a little research.

"We'd had a very positive experience with Focus Enhancements' products. However, when it's time to upgrade, I'm not the type to simply purchase their latest product without seeing what else is available," explained Taylor. "I did a lot of research and didn't see any other solution that could match the versatility, capability, and price of the MX-4 DV."

Taylor also surveyed the online community forums to review real-world feedback from current MX-4 DV users.
"Overall, feedback from MX-4 DV users was very positive. And those reviews hold a lot of weight for me," he explained. "After all, if something has a power switch, I'll probably be called about it. That's why ease of use and reliability are critical. I need equipment to work, and work well, day after day."

Benefits
In addition to product reliability, the MX-4 DV's FireWire connection was a prime factor in Taylor's decision.

"The MX-4 DV gives us a lot more versatility and enables us to do more high-end, high-speed applications in terms of incorporating and overlaying video from other sources in our production," said Taylor.

For example, the Living Faith Ministries team now can integrate video backgrounds and lyrics into a song by pushing the video signal from the MX-4 DV to a computer, using a video background file, and then pushing it back out to the projectors.

And Taylor has been impressed with the MX-4 DV's included set of backgrounds and transitions — 700 manual or automatic video transitions in total.

"We could use a new transition every day of the year," he said. "Most importantly, the MX-4 DV contains all the industry standard stuff that we need. That's important because we don't have to add another software package or another tool." 

Taylor enjoys the flexibility of the MX-4 DV — including the ability to expand inputs by piggybacking units together. For example, their team can push four cameras into one MX-4 DV and take the output to another MX-4 DV, essentially giving them four different views from four different cameras.

And, at Living Faith Ministries, Web streaming is an integral part of their offerings. Each Sunday, they record services by bringing the signal from the MX-4 DV to a Sony DV recording machine — ultimately streaming the final result on their Web site.

"The Web site is important to us. We have a very multicultural church with more than 21 countries represented, and many of our congregants have family overseas. By streaming weekly services on our Web site, we can let these members share their experience with loved ones," explained Taylor. "In addition, the population of the Washington D.C. area is very transient. Our Web presence lets members stay connected, even after they've moved away. We track the hits on our Web site, and see multiple countries accessing material on a regular basis."

In conclusion, Taylor is impressed with the overall capabilities of the equipment.

"All in all, the MX-4 DV gives us a heck of a lot of versatility in terms of what you can push through it, and it gives us much more varied output, whether it's for the Web or for live services. And that gives us the scalability to use these mixers for many years to come," he said.

Innovation, efficiency, and superior quality are the foundation upon which Focus Enhancements builds its products. A world leader in advanced video production, digital asset management, and digital signage solutions, Focus delivers products that perform superbly day in and day out and backs them with unparalleled service and support, www.focusinfo.com.