AVoIP Explained: The Church Tech Shift You Can’t Afford to Miss

Keeping up with changes in technology can be a challenge for churches of all sizes even at the best of times. But for those churches that don’t have dedicated staff who have expertise in audio, video and lighting (AVL), it is especially hard.

Because there’s a big change that is already happening in the church tech world, I want to set you on the best path to adapt your equipment so that you don’t have to catch up later—and spend a lot of money to do it. 

A Big Change Is Coming.

In the AVL world, also called “tech,” everything we do is about sending signal. What is signal? It’s electricity, plain and simple. 

For instance, when a vocalist sings into a microphone, a microphone transforms those sound waves into an electrical signal that travels over cables into a sound board. That signal is then sent from the sound board via more cables to some amplifiers, which then send the signal via more cables to some speakers, which turn the signal back into sound waves that people can hear. 

You probably noticed there are a lot of cables involved in this process. 

What if you could eliminate much of that heavy, expensive audio cable with just one Ethernet cable, the same kind you plug into your laptop to connect it to the internet? And what if you could do that with livestream cameras, too?

You can. The term for this is Audio-Visual Over Internet Protocol (AVoIP). AVoIP is not just the future of church tech—it is the present, and if your church isn’t adopting that technology right now, your tech gear will become obsolete in a few years.

My Experience

At my church, we send it over a network technology called “Dante” (Digital Audio Network Through Ethernet). Dante is the industry-standard AVoIP technology, developed by Audinate (GetDante.com). It replaces traditional physical point-to-point connections with a standard computer network, allowing for the transmission of high-quality, low-latency audio and video over Ethernet cables. 

There are other AVoIP technologies that do the same thing in slightly different ways, such as NDI, SMPTE 2110 and IPMX. You will want to talk to your tech leader about the advantages of all of these different products. 

RELATED “HOW TO CREATE AN EXCEPTIONAL CHURCH VIDEO STREAMING EXPERIENCE”

Moving Forward

Because this technology is a big change, your tech team or the volunteer who helps with your church’s AVL needs will need to learn about AVoIP sooner rather than later. Let me offer a two-part plan to get your church on the right track. 

1. Start With Audio.

While AVoIP technologies send both audio and video, the easiest place for most churches to start is with audio, and Dante is the best bet. 

When it comes to AVoIP, Dante is the audio leader, not only because their technology is reliable, but also because it’s easy to use. Most audio companies are making their equipment Dante compatible, and Dante features free certified education for all expertise levels of their software, which means that your tech team can be easily trained to install it, use it and troubleshoot it. 

What’s more important is that Dante is compatible with SMPTE 2110, which is the broadcast industry standard for video transmission. If your church decides to use SMPTE 2110 for video, Dante will make that easy. 

2. Make a Plan for Video.

There are a few different technologies that offer video over IP, but if you already have a Dante network set up for audio, you can easily add video. Once you have your hardware ready to go, you can talk to your tech people about adding video to the network. 

Not all video cameras, video switchers or other video tech are compatible with all systems, however, so you will want to sit down with your tech team and ask them to put a plan together for purchasing the right gear as it becomes available in the coming months and years. 

That being said, many PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) cameras already come with Dante technology built in, so there’s a chance that the gear you already have is Dante compatible. If not, PTZ cameras are affordable, and multiple cameras can be controlled by one person, so they represent a great option for churches with smaller budgets and smaller teams that want to make the move to AVoIP.

The ability to send audio and video over an Ethernet network to all the TVs in your building, your livestream and even other campuses has arrived. If your church follows these simple steps, you can set up your church to leverage great tech for the next 10–15 years.