The Household of Faith is a church based in Gonzalez, Louisiana, that accommodates about 1,200 attendees during services and events for the community. Recently, Pastor Bledsoe wanted to find a way to enhance the worship experience and captivate the congregation's attention using video. With this in mind, he decided to upgrade the church's AV installation and invest in products that would provide a lot of flexibility to the church.
Assurance AV Solutions, a company that provides audiovisual services for houses of worship, was hired to design the new video system. Charles Breaux, Assurance AV Solutions Director explains the church requirements, “Pastor Bledsoe wanted a high-definition video system offering a lot of new features in the worship center where the congregation is used to gathering together on Wednesday and forSunday services.”
The church was already equipped with all standard definition devices. The challenge was to move forward while still utilizing the older equipment: standard definition cameras, computers, flat screen TVs, and more. According to Breaux, “The church was really concerned about having HD content and showing it. The pastor wanted to go to digital while still using some of the analog gear.”
"The pastor wanted to go to digital while still using some of the analog gear."
Charles Breaux
Director, Assurance AV Solutions.
Indeed, the church did not replace all the old material at once. They needed a switcher that could support both their analog gear and HD material, and then all the new HD devices that the church would buy in a second step. In addition, the pastor wanted Breaux to figure out how they could create a three-screen experience.
Assurance AV Solutions installed three 168 x 94.5 inch screens directly over the stage area and three Panasonic projectors running full HD. For the video processing, Breaux chose the SmartMatriX Ultra, a powerful multi-screen seamless switcher based on Analog Way's LiveCore platform that allows them to support both their legacy analog sources, as well as new HD equipment. It offers four outputs to plug the three video projectors and keep another output available. All the screens are fed by the SmartMatriX Ultra and can be used to create a landscape of an image that runs over all three screens, or each screen can be used individually to create different atmospheres.
In addition, the church has several additional monitors spread out through the facility, and the Analog Way switcher gives them a lot of flexibility since they are now able to send different types of contents, including HD formats. Some basic presets were built during the commissioning stage, and the church continues to build new ones via the Web RCS, the Analog Way intuitive user interface for the LiveCore platform. They also use a Shot Box, a solution to easily control the presets on the LiveCore series. According to Breaux, “Simplicity for the end user was paramount and the Shot Box is the user-friendly device they needed.” Breaux adds, “From the sales team to the tech support team at Analog Way, I find great support. As an integrator, that means a lot to me knowing that when I need support, I usually get a response in minutes. Analog Way stands behind their products; but more importantly, Analog Way stands behind supporting the people that use and install their products. I like that!”
