AV configuration for dual language broadcasts?

I'm a new tech specialist, and I'm wanting to know how others have configured their hardware for broadcasting Zoom when there are translation needs. The setup in my stake center seems very complex.
We have two Roland VR-3EX AV mixers that are chained together with 2 PCs that send out 2 Zoom links (one for English and one for Spanish). We have two cameras (not sure of the models yet), one of which will frequently go black. The other also went black during a broadcast today.

For what it's worth, on the rack, there are also two Ivie iFlex 1280 devices, an Extron IN1608 xi, an Extron DTP HD DA8, a QSC CX204V, and some other equipment.

How are others operating dual-language broadcasts?

My understanding is that you can use a single Zoom webcast and having a translator as a participant. Users can select either live or translated.

That's not going to work too well for stake conference when the number of participants is likely to be higher than what our Zoom license will allow (I think 300). I think what others have done is send the English to a YouTube "overflow" channel and send those needing the translation to Zoom.

Russell,
It's a bit more complex than that. For each additional language you need to support you will need to send audio to both a Zoom interpreter feed as well as to a local FM transmitter for the local audience. The Zoom participant can select the language they would like to listen to and then they will get the Interpreted language with the main/source audio ducked (reduced in volume). I find this very distracting so there is an option for the end user to suppress this main audio. This becomes a problem for musical numbers since with that setting the participant will hear nothing. One solution is to switch out the interpreter's mic and to feed the main audio instead.

Our stake has both English (primary language), Korean, and Spanish. This compounds the problem. Ideally there would be a way to push a single button to cut over both interpreter mics simultaneously. This gets even more complex if the interpreter is off site. We have tried the multiple mixing board approach and are currently working on coming up with a better solution.

The newer building AV systems using digital mixers are capable of doing what you need for multiple language interpreters in the building, but it takes FM getting a contractor to implement the programming. I'm not sure how easy that will be to get that done in your area. What you need is called "ducking". When the interpreter speaks into a microphone the normal audio (English in this case) gets its level dropped way down. When the interpreter stops speaking the English volume in the feed returns to normal level.

In our case, when the Spanish interpreter mic feeds a signal above a certain level, the ducker in the digital mixer fades the English level in the Spanish feed by 40 dB over 50 ms and keeps it down until the Spanish interpreters mic is silent (below the set level) for 3 seconds, at which point the English signal fades back up gradually over 300 ms to normal levels in the Spanish feed. This works very smoothly and sounds natural.

We put our interpreters in a classroom with a TV to view the meeting, and they prefer to use an assisted listening (AKA hearing impaired) receiver to feed headphones for audio instead of the TV audio. They use a standard meetinghouse microphone which feeds into the AV system digital mixer. An output from the AV system digital mixer feeds a separate zoom PC.

In our case, this setup required no additional hardware as there were unused inputs, outputs, and plenty of DSP capacity. It did require a microphone cable run to the classroom, and we already had an HDMI video output in the room.

I have some experience with the mixers in our system and was able to implement the programming myself. But this should only be done with FM in the loop, by someone who familiar with the software who knows what they are doing. The sound system is quite sophisticated and uses a template from headquarters to provide some standardization for support / maintenance purposes.

Good feedback and ideas. I will try and prototype using an external audio processor before investigating engaging FM and consultants. Your suggestion of building it into the existing processor is a good one. What I don't have a feel for is the church's appetite for change. When they deliver a system is it a ship it and forget it until replacement 20 years from now or are they treating this processor more like a pc in that patches and service updates are applied as needed?

The new system is on the Facility Network. What kind of management does MHT perform on these systems remotely?

Zoom supports ducking of the interpreter but it is very black box with no control of any of the parameters. I am not particularly happy with how they have implemented it.

We just wrapped up our spring stake conference. We had local translation and Zoom interpretation simultaneously. Besides English we supported Korean and Spanish. I have documented how we did it and have made this document available at our website. http://www.federalwaystake.net/Hosting

Enjoy.
Dave Swartz

A year later and this week will have our spring stake conference. We will have local translation and Zoom interpretation simultaneously. Besides English we will support Korean, Spanish and Samoan. I have documented how we will do it and have made this document available at our website. http://www.federalwaystake.net/Hosting

Enjoy.
Dave Swartz

Using wireless mics to feed the interpreted audio to the Williams Sound PPA27 transmitter is interesting. In our stake we use the Williams "Remote Coaxial Antenna" ( https://williamsav.com/product/ant-005/ ) part number "ANT 005" (~$130 cost). The FM group was willing to purchase the antenna. The transmitter is located in a classroom with the interpreters. RG59 coax extends the antenna to a wall plate in the classroom and a short coax cable connects to the connector on the back of the transmitter. The interpreters view the meeting on a TV through an HDMI connection the in the classroom. The ANT 005 antenna is installed (tacked with staples) horizontally up high in the back of the chapel on woodwork near the overflow where it is completely hidden. Our entire building is pretty much concrete block walls, but using this antenna the signal is strong and reception is excellent throughout the chapel and cultural hall as well as most of the rest of the building.

Here is the antenna comparison guide from Williams AV.

Some key notes. The impedance of their antenna systems is 75 ohms. This is the same impedance as cable tv systems. This is why the previous poster was able to use existing in building cabling.

For comparison Listen Technologies the ALS vendor used by the church uses a 50 ohm antenna system.

Williams also states in their guide that the preferred antenna orientation is vertical. I think this is because the headset wire is the antenna and it is more vertical than horizontal.

Thank for the tip on the Ant005. I will need to give it a try.

Although they recommend vertical mounting, we tried it horizontally and found it worked well, so it was left that way. With FM approval, we installed the antenna and cabling. We added about 50 ft of new 75 Ohm coax to extend the antenna to the wall connection, and use a 6 ft 75 Ohm coax cable to connect from the wall plate to the transmitter in the classroom. Photos below show the connection panel, the area we mounted it (marked in red), and a top view (which is very dusty).

Thank you for sharing. This looks like a nice clean installation. It’s nice to see how others have solved these common problems. I am not sure how much 75 ohm coax is left in our building since during the av uplift much was removed. Nice concept.

I will need to look at what we can do. The primary and RS rooms both have mics inputs that run all the way back to the av rack and processor. They also have HDMI display outputs.

Thanks for the photos, nice.

I hope you get a chance to re-label that "TV" connection. I hate leaving surprises for helpers and successors.

rknelson wrote: Wed Apr 24, 2024 4:36 pm Although they recommend vertical mounting, we tried it horizontally and found it worked well, so it was left that way. With FM approval, we installed the antenna and cabling. We added about 50 ft of new 75 Ohm coax to extend the antenna to the wall connection, and use a 6 ft 75 Ohm coax cable to connect from the wall plate to the transmitter in the classroom.

We have an ANT 005 antenna installed in the same way. The horizontal mounting on the chapel ledge has worked great for us, for more than 10 years.

6 months later and I have posted an update to http://federalwaystake.net/Hosting
See the link for Stake Conference Setup Guide - Nov 2024

A couple of more details. The translator mics feed the audio processor. The audio processor is configured with a noise gate on all three inputs. That way audio passes when the interpreter speaks into the microphone. When they are not speaking then nothing passes. This helps eliminate background noise.

Additionally Zoom Interpretation natively does audio ducking of the program audio. When the interpreter is silent, such as during hymns, then the program audio passes to the interpretation stream. When the interpreter speaks then the main audio is suppressed.

One thing we learned was to not rely on a PC to do any of the work. Our previous design used a PC to route audio. This time we are using an audio processor to do the patching and routing. The PC unfortunately will patch itself at the most inconvenient time and could be unavailable during part of conference. The dedicated processor eliminates this potential point of failure.

Some of the design decisions were based on what hardware was available used. I wanted a system that would operate in parallel and complimentary to the church provided AV system and require no modification to the existing system.

Thanks for the update Dave! Two interesting things I noted in your diagram link: 1) "Turn CC panel on to prevent system shutdown from rostrum" (This is a clever simple approach everyone can use for a real problem!) And 2) Using an HDMI splitter to feed the Extron system and prevent HDCP problems - (I've had problems with HDCP on Extron also - for slides from an Apple laptop. We use a splitter also as Extron seems to be very troublesome with some sources.)

dave.swartz wrote: Wed Nov 13, 2024 9:50 pm One thing we learned was to not rely on a PC to do any of the work. Our previous design used a PC to route audio. This time we are using an audio processor to do the patching and routing. The PC unfortunately will patch itself at the most inconvenient time and could be unavailable during part of conference. The dedicated processor eliminates this potential point of failure.

Which patches? Windows or an application? That's a real problem for machines not in daily use, but the Windows updates are on 2nd and 4th Tuesdays. Running a manually update check prior to the event should prevent that along with triggering the option to delay updates for a week.

Most applications have options to turn off automatic update checks.

Just trying to avoid having units spend more money if the fix is a simple procedure. Given that stake conference is only twice a year, and most equipment becomes functionally obsolete in 5 years or so, any added equipment gets expensive on a per-use basis, unless it can be used for other events.

rknelson wrote: Thu Nov 14, 2024 1:04 am "Turn CC panel on to prevent system shutdown from rostrum" (This is a clever simple approach everyone can use for a real problem!)

What exactly does this mean. Is there something I can do at the AV rack that will keep the pedestal from turning off the microphone during the conference? I am having a terrible time training my stake presidency.

lajackson wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:20 pm Is there something I can do at the AV rack that will keep the pedestal from turning off the microphone during the conference? I am having a terrible time training my stake presidency.

I'm interested too. What I do is put a piece of gaffers/duck tape over the controls.

lajackson wrote: Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:20 pm I am having a terrible time training my stake presidency.

Just finished our stake conference two weeks ago. I asked the stake presidency to NOT turn off the sound system at the pulpit following the meeting. I assured them I would mute the audio for the webcast so any after-meeting chatter on the stand wouldn't get broadcasted. They actually remembered this time!

In a QSC based system there are switched and unswitched power outlets. On our system the ALS (Listen LT-800-72), VS (Extron IN1808), Decimator SDI-HDMI converter, and all Extron HDMI hardware are on these switched circuits. Other items such as the monitor, audio DSP (QSC Core 110f), and amplifier are on the unswitched circuits.

If leaders on the stand turn off the system from the rostrum, then all the switched devices are powered off. Should this be done is error then restarting this hardware takes a few minutes to accomplish. There are two ways to turn on these switched devices. They can be turned on from the rostrum or they can be turned on from the cultural center. It is a OR operation. If either of these control panels is turned on, then the system will stay powered up. The work around for the chapel control being turned off and powering down the system is to have the Cultural Center panel on as well.

Presiding leaders can still turn the system off from the chapel rostrum if they wish to disable the podium microphone. With the CC panel on this act will not power down the entire video distribution system.

Some additional considerations. MHT has told me that should the system be turned off at the rostrum, if they immediately turn it back on, then the system will not power down the video distribution system. They have built in a delay to reduce this impact for an inadvertent shutdown. I have also requested for new installations that they suppress the ability to turn the system off while the system is booting to reduce the likelihood of bricking video components which are in the process of booting and the power is removed.

Hopefully this information is helpful. Please post if you have any other questions.

Windows Patching:

We are having challenges with Windows patching. Often the patches attempt to install at system bootup. Sometimes it asks for permission, other times the patches are just applied. Patching can fail in which case the patch is rolled back, and then the following day the system attempts to apply the patch over again. We try to have the patches install automatically to help keep the system secure.

If you want to use a computer instead of a dedicated audio DSP, then please refer to my previous guides published at http://federalwaystake.net/Hosting and look for the document labeled Stake Conference Setup Guide - April 2024. This design does use commodity Windows computers.

dave.swartz wrote: Sun Nov 17, 2024 10:48 am They can be turned on from the rostrum or they can be turned on from the cultural center. It is a OR operation. If either of these control panels is turned on, then the system will stay powered up. The work around for the chapel control being turned off and powering down the system is to have the Cultural Center panel on as well.

I understand what you're saying, but I'd have to test it to make sure it works that way when in overflow mode.