Bethesda Hall Church (Ang Mo Kio) "Switches" to NDI with Loud Technologies Asia

About Bethesda Hall (Ang Mo Kio)

In July 1866, the Christians at the Mission Room agreed to use their funds for the building of a permanent chapel at Bras Basah Road, in the heart of the city. The Bethesda chapel, at 77 Bras Basah Road was opened on 30th September after a short dawn service and thereafter stood at the same site until it was demolished in the 1990s. The famous plaque bearing the words “JESUS ONLY” was soon added to the hall and a replacement is in use to this day in Bethesda Hall (Ang Mo Kio).

In 1986, a larger place of worship was built in the centrally located Ang Mo Kio district where the assembly continues to endeavour a witness for the Lord. Today, some 500 believers meet weekly to take the Lord’s Supper. Other meetings include the weekly ministry and prayer meetings. Regular activities are the Sunday School, Christian Education Programme, Basic Training Class, Young Peoples’ and Childrens’ meetings. An evangelistic outreach is conducted through the Boys Brigade and Girls Brigade work, the Kindergarten work and also towards the Filipino and Indian communities.

_{Extracted from Bethesda Hall Website}

Invited to submit a proposal for the upgrading of the Audio Visual infrastructure at Bethesda Hall Ang Mo Kio (BAMK), Loud Technologies Asia (LTAPL) designed a system that would allow for easy future expansion by employing the use of high-speed IP networking.

Although the initial requirements were based on traditional SDI and HDBT technologies for signal transport and switching, LTAPL advised the need to take the church upgrade into the future through AVOIP, and employ the use of an established and open protocol suited for low latency streaming locally and remotely.

The church's committee was hosted a fact-finding mission and demo at LTAPL's experience centre for them to better understand the technologies proposed, experience hands-on sessions and see real-world demonstrations.

The system was to be built around a high-speed fibre optic-based IP network capable of 10G speeds and employ NDI (Network Device Interface) and Dante technologies for vision mixing and audio routing.

With the Lord's blessings, LTAPL's proposal was accepted and the project was formally awarded for integration with integration partners.

System Brief

At the core of the system is Netgear's line of Pro AV L3 managed switches that are designed and optimised specifically for AVOIP traffic. These switches are equipped with an easy-to-use web-GUI preloaded with optimised settings for common AVOIP protocols. Network traffic is managed through separation of different VLANs for video and audio.

Magewell Pro Convert NDI encoders transport HDMI video from the Bolin Technology PTZ cameras to full-NDI over the network and also interface PTZ control and tally. Future updates to NDI and cameras are easily done through simple firmware upgrades as opposed to buying NDI|HX cameras. Any computer on the network can easily send or receive an NDI stream through NDI tools, a free software suite by NewTek. While most "Sony-equipped" cameras consist of only a Sony sensor, Bolin Technology cameras offer a full-Sony block of optics, sensor and processing chips. Interesting to note is that Bolin are the manufacturer or Birddog.

NDI video switchers allow for easy ingest of IP and traditional SDI & HDMI sources and Panasonic's solution was installed since reliable local support was easily available. An important factor since the other option of NDI video switcher offers no credible Singapore-based office for support.

Dante AVIO adapters were introduced for audio transport and easy expansion of the Dante network with the Yamaha QL5 console.

The main and confidence projectors have been upgraded to 16K and 7K WUXGA respectively and new 70" displays were added to the concourse. 

An incidental upgrade of the sound system at the concourse improved the intelligibility of the sound system through the use of high performance column speakers. All existing bulky point source speakers were then removed and repurposed

Project Second Phase

LTAPL was subsequently awarded the contract for upgrading the projection and displays across 10 classrooms and spaces. Work was completed 2 weeks ahead of time and we thank the Lord for his abundant blessings, all suppliers and contractors for making the timeline and Church members involved for all their guidance and support.