Leading Megachurch Relies on StorNext to Move Worship Services Outside the Walls

Willow Creek Community Church, one of the largest churches in the United States, has an institutional mission to build life-changing communities of faith to reach the largest number of congregants.Church leaders recognized that video could extend the church’s message.

“We capture all our services on video, so that we can provide a service to those unable to attend, or who want to see the message again, or to provide resources to small groups to support different activities around the church,” explains Brian McAuliffe, Willow Creek Community Church CFO.

Existing Workflow No Longer up to the Task

But as the storage and workflow system aged, it became difficult to use and manage. “In the old SAN, content from a service was captured on hard drives in the cameras,” explains John Connolly, director of sales and marketing at Key Code Media, the integrator that helped Willow Creek. Drives had to be downloaded before editing could begin, and it could be hours after a service was over before it could be aired. Reusing content meant manually bringing back large files and extracting the portions needed.

Finding the Right Upgrade

Willow Creek decided to replace its workflow system with a new StorNext Pro Studio solution, Reach Engine digital asset management from Levels Beyond, and Telestream Pipeline and Vantage. The Willow Creek StorNext Pro Studio configuration includes StorNext data management software, 100TB of high-performance disk and StorNext AEL500 LTO Archive.

Time to Air Slashed to Minutes

In the new workflow, content from cameras is ingested directly and editors share files during the filming. “The piece that the team appreciates the most is the ability to edit on the fly,” says McAuliffe. “We can be editing during the service, so we can post it to the web or Facebook within minutes after it’s over. It used to take hours.”

Protection and Archive Also Included

As data is ingested or created on disk, StorNext automatically creates multiple copies on tape. One copy acts as an archive while a second can be moved off-site. After data is deleted from disk it remains in the archive.

Reach Engine presents all content—whether on disk or tape—directly to the editing teams. “One of the nicest features of StorNext for speeding up work is its partial-file retrieval feature,” explains Connolly. “Instead of bringing back all of a large video file when all the team needs is a small section, StorNext allows an editor to choose which part of the file to move back to disk. It is faster and saves money on disk space as well.”

System Saves Time and $120,000 a Year

“With the old system, between finding and downloading files, editing them, and moving them around to different sites for the review and approval loop, a typical project could see long delays,” says McAuliffe. “With StorNext, editors download only the content they need. Editors and reviewers have direct, shared access to the files, and the typical production cycle is now much faster.”

Cost savings are also substantial. The boost in efficiency meant that the team recently could forgo hiring of two additional editors. The StorNext system can scale performance and capacity separately, making future growth economical. And the archive’s capacity-on-demand growth means slots are licensed only when needed.

“Overall, we estimate that the StorNext Pro Studio and Levels Beyond solution is saving us $120,000 each year,” McAuliffe says. “We realize that as we go into the future, we are not going to be able to accomplish our goals and reach everyone we want to reach inside this building,”

McAuliffe concludes. “We purposely made the decision to reach out beyond the walls, and the solution that we chose was Quantum and Levels Beyond. It gives us the ability to take our ministry anywhere we want to in the future.”