Catholic Media Ministry is the premier provider of technical support and production services for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona.
With the Diocese recently looking to begin broadcasting masses on TV, it became clear that the churches and production team would need an equipment upgrade.
The production company selected JVC Professional Video’s KY-PZ100 PTZ Cameras to provide the video quality and versatility necessary for live television.
While livestreaming church masses is commonplace today, the Diocese found it difficult for members to navigate through the web and software apps to find the videos, which resulted in the decision to broadcast the services.
“When I first joined Catholic Media Ministry, I was given the crucial task in helping to set up our daily masses to broadcast on TV,” says Arturo Santoyo, Video Producer at Catholic Media Ministry.
“Since we didn’t initially have a big budget for the livestream productions, we were originally using very cheap cameras.
“I knew we needed better cameras to produce the broadcast quality video necessary for television, and that’s when we came across JVC Professional Video.”
Prior to upgrading to JVC PTZs, Catholic Media Ministry was using handheld production cameras, which were typically operated by volunteers.
After testing the KY-PZ100 in a dimly lit church, the team knew the cameras were the perfect fit not only for broadcasting mass, but for other applications as well.
Catholic Media Ministry initially purchased nine KY-PZ100s.
Six of the cameras went to the St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Parish of Chandler, Arizona – and were divvied evenly between St. Mary’s Church and St. Juan Diego Church, while the other three were incorporated into Catholic Media Ministry’s fly-packs for productions between churches and other events.
Since then, the production company has added six additional JVC PTZ cameras, resulting in a total of 15 KY-PZ100s spread throughout various church campuses and in their mobile production system.
The company also purchased three RM-LP100U remote production controllers to manage its cameras.
Most recently, Catholic Media Ministry added four GY-HC500 handheld production cameras to its collection, which the team often relies on for productions that require a quicker shooting response, such as sporting events.