If you want to read the entire series from the start, please follow these links:
In The Beginning
Taking the first step
What do you have to work with?
SD or HD TV?
In The Beginning
Taking the first step
What do you have to work with?
SD or HD TV?
Making sure you have good clean AC power is extremely important! Your AC power into your studio or broadcast booth should be checked all the way to it's panel source. Your studio should have at a minimum, two 20 amp circuits fed from separate legs from your power panel. The power panel itself should not have any type of electrical motor devices connected to it that could cause power issues. I can't stress enough how important this is!! The last thing you need is being connected to a panel that also has the air conditioners, kitchen equipment and some ungrounded outlets on it.
Have an electrician check everything connected to the panel to make sure that what each breaker says it is connected to, is really what it's connected to. Have him or her make sure the panel is not overloaded with to much current draw (I've seen this a lot). Make sure the panel is labeled correctly so that each breaker has a good description of what it's connected to.
Have an electrician check everything connected to the panel to make sure that what each breaker says it is connected to, is really what it's connected to. Have him or her make sure the panel is not overloaded with to much current draw (I've seen this a lot). Make sure the panel is labeled correctly so that each breaker has a good description of what it's connected to.
Another thing to have checked throughout your electrical system is proper grounding. The power panel should be correctly grounded as with all your electrical outlets. If you have multiple power panels feeding the same area, room or studio, make sure that you're only powering your equipment from one power panel and not two different panels. I've seen racks of equipment drawing power from two different power sources, that of course, have two different ground potentials. Not a good idea. I've also come across ac outlets that were at one time ungrounded (fed by an old power panel) with a new feed going through the outlet box from another power panel but using the new feeds ground tied to the older outlets that they changed to make them grounded. This is really not a good idea. There was a 28 vac differential between the old panels common and the new panels ground. It should be zero (in a normal situation), and should have never been connected this way in the first place.
Once everything is checked out and you've got decent power, the next thing is surge protection. I'm not talking about those useless power strips either. I'm talking about an In-Panel Surge Protection device. The surge protection device should be connected to BOTH legs of the panel and be electrically located at the very top of all the other breakers in the panel. I personally use Square D's HEPD80 device. It's easy to install, very affordable (right around $100.00), protects both legs on the panel and shows you when something has gone wrong.
Trust me, the last thing you want to have happen after installing $20,000.00 worth of equipment into a studio, is to get a power surge down the line and wipe out some or most of your shiny new gear. So spending an extra $100.00 to protect things is a must!
And by the way, checking your power sources doesn't just go for the studio, it's anywhere you have electronic equipment. Whether it's your hymn board monitors, cry room monitor, a tablet tucked into the top of the Pulpit, projectors/drop screens, and all the way out to your digital sign in front of the church. Everything needs to have proper grounding and electrical protection. If it doesn't, you'll pay for it in the long run and let me tell you, your church council or congregation won't be very happy.
Trust me, the last thing you want to have happen after installing $20,000.00 worth of equipment into a studio, is to get a power surge down the line and wipe out some or most of your shiny new gear. So spending an extra $100.00 to protect things is a must!
And by the way, checking your power sources doesn't just go for the studio, it's anywhere you have electronic equipment. Whether it's your hymn board monitors, cry room monitor, a tablet tucked into the top of the Pulpit, projectors/drop screens, and all the way out to your digital sign in front of the church. Everything needs to have proper grounding and electrical protection. If it doesn't, you'll pay for it in the long run and let me tell you, your church council or congregation won't be very happy.
And while we're on the subject of power... It is essential that any audio or video equipment that is connected to your studio must get its power from the same power panel that feeds your studio. I'll pause for a moment and let you go back and reread that last sentence. Did you read it again? Hopefully you did. Why does that matter you ask? Read on...
So if you have digital hymn boards, a choir booth mixer, projectors, etc., they all need to get their power from the same panel that feeds your studio. The why is simple, ground potential. Earth ground is used as a reference from which all voltages are measured in systems which are earth grounded. Because the earth absorbs or dissipates nearly unlimited electric charge, it should always be at an ideal zero or ground potential. So if your choir booth is connected to a different power panel than your digital hymn boards and all that equipment is feeding into your studio (that is feed by yet another power panel), you're going to have a lot of issues with hum on your audio and video.
The reason is because all those different power panels in your church are not always tied back to the same ground. Even if they were, the ground potential between each panel will be different based on it's distance from the main powers ground. So to make sure you don't have this problem, you must use power to all your connected electronics from the same power panel.
Now there are ways around this annoying problem by the use of ground lift switches, audio isolation transformers, and bla, bla, bla. But I'd rather not have the issue in the first place then to have to throw on a band-aid to get things to work correctly. And I do realize that not all power situations are the same. There are times that you're just stuck with what ac outlets you have and there is no way to change what power feeds those outlets. In those cases you may need to use a power conditioner, isolate the audio, use ground lifts, a combination of these or all of them to straighten things out.
So if you have digital hymn boards, a choir booth mixer, projectors, etc., they all need to get their power from the same panel that feeds your studio. The why is simple, ground potential. Earth ground is used as a reference from which all voltages are measured in systems which are earth grounded. Because the earth absorbs or dissipates nearly unlimited electric charge, it should always be at an ideal zero or ground potential. So if your choir booth is connected to a different power panel than your digital hymn boards and all that equipment is feeding into your studio (that is feed by yet another power panel), you're going to have a lot of issues with hum on your audio and video.
The reason is because all those different power panels in your church are not always tied back to the same ground. Even if they were, the ground potential between each panel will be different based on it's distance from the main powers ground. So to make sure you don't have this problem, you must use power to all your connected electronics from the same power panel.
Now there are ways around this annoying problem by the use of ground lift switches, audio isolation transformers, and bla, bla, bla. But I'd rather not have the issue in the first place then to have to throw on a band-aid to get things to work correctly. And I do realize that not all power situations are the same. There are times that you're just stuck with what ac outlets you have and there is no way to change what power feeds those outlets. In those cases you may need to use a power conditioner, isolate the audio, use ground lifts, a combination of these or all of them to straighten things out.