Church of the Highlands, Grants Mill Sanctuary, Birmingham, Alabama
Today's Houses of Worship are facing increased competition and are seeking ways to differentiate themselves in a crowded environment. Church leadership must address a growing list of demands, not only in the traditional areas of spiritual leadership, congregational counseling, serving the needy, and supporting worldwide missions, but also the need to capture members' loyalty through regular, positive opportunities for engagement with the church.
Engaging church members in the modern world
This growing need for engagement has turned into a key fundamental mission in the day-to-day life of a church. While many churches are strengthening relationships with their members via email blasts, newsletters, websites and more personal direct phoning, none of these tools are as effective as the powerful connection established on Sunday mornings and at mid-week evening fellowship gatherings. These regular occasions are supplemented by holiday celebrations, expanded choir musical performances as well as special youth and young adult events. This “constant connecting” is vital to a church's membership retentions as well as increasing its total membership numbers overall.
HOW turns to professional AV solutions to capture congregations
One way churches are engaging with members in an increasingly tech-savvy world is to enhance the visual sophistication of their religious programming. This necessitates the use of more complex audio visual solutions that can deliver a more powerful, differentiated experience. Most churches already have some form of an audio visual solution to facilitate communications with their members during fellowship events at the church. However, the medium is as important as the message here, meaning that no matter the content, the message is only as well received as it's delivered. This includes not only the quality of the presenter, but equally important, the quality produced by the presentation equipment.
Most members are accustomed to experiencing their worship message with the assistance of sound amplification alone. However, over the last decade churches have been adding an enhanced visual component to the worship experience with great success. In fact, it has become an absolute necessity for larger churches with much bigger sanctuaries to enlarge and enhance the visual experience to ensure that the entire congregation can see what is happening on the church stage. In addition, in cases where large churches maintain satellite locations, i.e. an additional remote location of the church; there is a need to deliver the visual experience and primary messaging conducted at the main campus. This is typically performed by broadcasting to the satellite church through a high-speed internet connection or dedicated audio-video telecom service provider connection.
Taking the message to the big screen
This growing popularity of visualizing the worship service is accomplished through a variety of applications. “IMAG” aka “Image Magnification” displays a larger representation of action taking place on the stage, such as the pastor speaking or a musician performing. In addition, instead of providing the traditional hymnal, churches are displaying the music lyrics on screen to assist members in joining in the musical experience. Church announcements can also be easily visualized, as well as a variety of pre-produced video content or even guest messages, which can be broadcasted from outside the church.
Professional projection provides a solution
The most cost-effective and efficient way to implement this visualization is by utilizing a projection solution. Choosing the correct projector is critical to providing the best representation possible. All too often, an incorrect projector is chosen and the end result is not what the church was hoping for, resulting in a negative effect instead of a positive reinforcement of the content shown.
Things to consider when purchasing a projector
When it comes to capturing the attention of older congregation members, legibility is very important, as with aging comes diminished eyesight and poor perceived contrast for many individuals.
There are five critical factors that churches should always consider to ensure the right solutions for their needs. 1) The room dimensions and characteristics where the projector image will be shown, including the viewing audience location. 2) Screen and projector installation points. 3) Other light sources illuminating the presentation area (ambient light). 4) The content type. 5) The overall application use, which could include both fixed and non-fixed installations.
Form follows function and location
Within existing churches, the overall room dimensions – including the wall surfaces where the projection screen will be placed – usually dictates the maximum screen size. In new construction, the wall surfaces and projection screen locations are usually included within the architect's room designs.
Many dream that “bigger is better,” but size is not as important as location of the screen. If the screen placement is not ergonomically located, i.e., easily viewed by the audience without physical fatigue or strain, the screen size or quality of image won't have a positive influence on the experience. The screen size should be based in part on the type of content that will be presented in combination with the min/max viewing distance, i.e., the closest and farthest location an audience member will be seated, to ensure that text and images are clear for the entire audience.
Minimizing ambient light
After the screen placement and size are determined, it's time to take a look at all ambient or artificial light sources present within the projection viewing space as well as their location and placement in the room. Care should be taken to avoid light on the screen and minimize other lighting within the room to prevent it from competing with the screen image.
The best technology engine
After the physical, environmental and ergonomic conditions are understood, the projector technology choice comes into play. The majority of projectors used within the House of Worship market today utilize DLP (Digital Light Processing) technology, a compact reflective electronic micro-electro-mechanical mirror device chip which is the same type of technology used in most modern cinema projectors. There are two main types of DLP projectors: single-chip and three-chip designs, each having unique warrants for use. The primary differences between the two designs (based on the number of chips) are cost, picture quality and maximum light output potential.
Three-chip projector models offer more light output (measured in lumens), higher contrast ratio and truer color performance than the single-chip design. This improved performance also comes at a higher price point than the single-chip versions. Three-chip models are used where the picture quality is of the utmost importance and/or when the light output must reach higher levels, e.g., above 12,000 lumens.
The latest single-chip projectors are now offering performance potential rivaling that of three-chip models from only a handful of years ago, with some exceeding more than 10,000 lumens. Both model types come in a variety of pixel resolutions ranging from SXGA+ (1400 x 1050 pixels) to 4K (4096 x 2160 pixels) and both can be used in multi-projector blending applications to produce an overall larger image and/or wider or taller one than typically presented. While single-chip is offered in 4:3, 16:9, 16:10 and even anamorphic scope (widescreen) aspect ratios, the majority of three-chip is primarily offered in 16:9 and 16:10 aspect ratios.
Lamps or lasers
The biggest change in projector technology over the last year is the light source utilized to project the image. Lamps consisting of Xenon and UHP types have been the primary light source for projectors, with LED used in smaller projectors and most recently laser being newly introduced as a light source. Each of these light source technologies has their advantages and challenges. UHP lamps are the most cost-conscious solution and have the easiest initial and affordable swap-out costs, while providing acceptable image quality. Their disadvantages come into play when highly precise, predictable and settable color performance applications requiring high lumen, large image and/or multiple blends is needed, as it is more challenging to color balance and blend these applications with a UHP light.
Xenon lamp-based systems are ideal when the requirement is for optimum color-matching performance and/or when even higher lumen outputs are required. One of the disadvantages is the lamp swap cost perception. The lamp costs per Xenon lamp are on average higher than UHP lamps. However, UHP lamp-based projectors can require up to four UHP lamps to achieve the luminance of a single Xenon lamp-based projector, so the cost differential is really almost negligible.
A laser-based light source offers the newest technology with quality that rivals Xenon lamp-based projectors. The key advantage over other light sources is longevity. Depending on the light output required from lamp-based light sources, the light source life expectancy is nominally between 500–2,000 hours of illumination based on the lamp wattage used. Laser-based light sources offer greater life expectancy, initially providing from 15,000–20,000 hours of illumination. This is a great improvement in the light source lifespan, but it comes at a much higher initial price and brightness range up to 6000lm in the of the current crop of laser-illuminated projector models. The other disadvantage is that most laser projectors are designed as an all-inclusive unit, requiring the entire projector to be serviced to replace the light source at the end of the 15-20,000hr life. This presents a less than ideal situation, as it removes the projector from service for typically more than a week's schedule of church services, not to mention the time required to de-install and re-install it after servicing versus just swapping out a lamp. This is compounded if a church is running multiple projectors, potentially decommissioning the entire AV system for weeks at a time.
Brightness holds the key
The most important attribute of a projector in terms of delivering the best viewer experience is the brightness of the image. Keeping in mind that a projector is essentially a precision light box producing a video image illuminated on a screen for viewing, in houses of worship, the projector should produce a high-quality image that is bright enough to fully engage all of the members within a congregation.
Today's younger, media-savvy generation is expecting to experience a high-quality, media-rich worship program that fully engages them. This requires developing innovative, multimedia content with more sophisticated and creative visual techniques, which typically entails the need for very high brightness to make images pop with true, brilliant colors. However, when it comes to capturing the attention of older congregation members, legibility is very important, as with aging comes diminished eyesight and poor perceived contrast for many individuals. Higher brightness is critical to delivering crisper text and graphics that can be easily seen by this audience. Recent examples have shown that when members can fully see the presentation, they become more engaged which leads to greater participation both socially and financially.
The more a congregation is engaged visually with the church's presentation, the stronger the impact of the messaging on the audience and the more connected they feel. This results in a higher value of return emotionally and spiritually for the church member, which can in turn prompt more participation by the member in the church family in every aspect – from leading activities to increasing donations.
Utilizing the brightest projector possible, relative to application and available budget, can play a crucial role in providing members the experience they need to fully benefit from their relationship as a church member, which ultimately benefits the church!
The best of all worlds for HOW projection needs
Barco provides best-in-class projectors to ideally fulfill the needs of any House of Worship project, offering a wide range of projectors to enable churches of all sizes with any requirement to put their best presentation forward. Every end user's environment and application are different, so care should be taken to assess every factor, as there is no one-fits-all approach or technology.
Whether for a large sanctuary, staff meeting rooms, Sunday school classrooms, youth worship or on movable carts for ad-hoc situations that come and go, Barco provides projectors with the best-quality image and the proper brightness within the church's conservative budget requirements. Barco offers solutions suited to any need and budget, from our more affordable single-chip Present-C and -P series projectors for small room and lower brightness (3,000 – 10,000 lumens) needs, to our higher brightness RLS W12 (12,000 lumens) projector to our three-chip RLM W14 (14,000 lumens) for mid-size congregations. Finally, our industry leading HDX, HDF and HDQ series provides high performance, three-chip solutions from (12,000 - 40,000 lumens) with resolutions all the way up to 4K for the most demanding environments.
