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Left to Right: Jestin Quiett, Technical Director, Christopher Davis, Creative Arts Director and Michael Gavion, Media Director of City Church of New Orleans with their Roland M-400 V-Mixer.
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"Ours is a very multimedia church and we’re very proactive technologically," says Jestin Quiett. "We do two to three upgrades per year. The video wall was the next logical step. It gives us the kind of video and graphics capability that you get at a great concert."
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"The technology is great and everything, but we have to remember that it all has but one purpose: to win for the Lord." Jestin Quiett, Executive Technology Director, City Church of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA
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"The staff were able to adapt to the video wall very quickly and easily," says Jestin Quiett. "The Chauvet PVP S7 LED wall is pretty much plug-and-play. It draws very little power compared to the projectors, and just uses two-phase power and a single 20-amp breaker."
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City Church of New Orleans Sunday Service, Rear Stage.
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It takes 50 to 60 people, a mix of staff and volunteers, to run a typical Sunday or Wednesday service at the church, including directors, camera operators, and live-sound and recording engineers for audio. All are trained in-house during several training sessions the church runs each year.
It seems like only yesterday that HD projection systems were considered the ne plus ultra of video display. Wait, it was yesterday. But yesterday in AV technology can be a long time. HD projection is still an excellent medium for large-scale indoor image projection and will continue to the primary large-screen display technology for most churches for years to come. Projection will also remain the sole format for specialty applications, such as exterior-surface mapping and environmental projection that many churches are incorporating into their services and productions. But the leading edge of large-format video display is shifting quickly to the LED video wall—an array of square LED modules that can be configured in different layouts and that can portray as many different images as there are panels, or flash a single static or moving image across all of them with extreme brightness, and anything in between, all in high resolution. That kind of technical and creative flexibility at first came with a substantial price tag, but like everything digital, its costs are declining while its capabilities, power and features continue to increase.
That combination made a video wall the perfect next choice for the City Church of New Orleans, a congregation that prides itself on technological adventurism. “Our congregation expects to see us be at the cutting edge,” says Jestin Quiett, executive technology director at the City Church of New Orleans (New Orleans, La.), where a large McCauley line array sound system and a Christie 14K-M DLP HD projector fill the five-year-old, 98,000-square-foot sanctuary with dazzling sound and picture. The video in the 3,500-seat auditorium was already exceptional, with the 50-foot Draper main screen supported by two flanking screens lit by a pair of Sanyo projectors and a rear confidence-monitor screen lit from an Eiki projector, all fed from five JVC Pro 1080p cameras. And all of that was seen and heard by thousands more through the church's broadcast and live-streaming services. But, says Quiett, who also acts as the church's AVL systems integrator, a video wall was the way to keep the church's media technology edge sharp.
“Our worship experience is closer to that of a rock concert, and when you go to a rock concert, you hear great sound that's very loud, see great lighting that really creates excitement, and that's what we're doing—making this church a very attractive place that people want to come to,” Quiett explains. “Ours is a very multimedia church and we're very proactive technologically—we do two to three upgrades per year. The video wall was the next logical step. It gives us the kind of video and graphics capability that you get at a great concert.”
Great Graphics
Earlier this year, the church installed 68 Chauvet PVP S7 panels, configured into a six-foot-tall, 30-foot-wide screen. The 7.8-mm-pixel-pitch blackface SMD LED panels, which are mounted on a stand below the main projection screen and braced to the auditorium's rear wall, use tri-color SMD 3528 LEDs and produce 1,500 nits of illuminance—intense and bright enough to stand up to the 50 LED moving-head fixtures that are also used in the City Church stage area. Quiett says it's taken the worship experience to the next level.
“Our graphics, which are done in house, have a lot more creative potential now,” he says. “The video wall can run a single image or multiple images; it can work with or separately from the projection video. It does things that projection video can't, like take the same images and pictures and break them up, do split screens, or turn color images into black and white and then back again,” using filters and effects in the same Analog Way video matrix switcher that is used for the projectors. One mode of combined operation has been to use the video wall to portray graphical images while the projection screens are used to show scriptural quotes and song lyrics. Before the video wall was installed, those words were superimposed over projected images.
The LED video wall is used to portray graphical images, while the projection screens are used to show scriptural quotes and song lyrics.
One of the things that pleased Quiett about the video wall was how simple it was to install. Local lighting supplier RZI Lighting, through which the church has purchased its extensive array of Chauvet, Martin Professional, High End, and Elation lighting fixtures, guided him through the Chauvet PVP S7 wall's operation in less than a day. Quiett also reports how easy it is for the church's mostly volunteer technical staff to run it.
“Ray Ziegler (the ‘RZ' in ‘RZI') gave us excellent instructions on programming the video panels, so we're able to keep things looking fresh for our members,” Quiett says. “We have a graphics designer on staff and he runs the graphics with several volunteers,” who are among the 50-60 people it takes to run a typical Sunday or Wednesday service at the church, including directors, camera operators, and live-sound and recording engineers for audio, all trained in house during several training sessions the church runs each year.
“They were able to adapt to the video wall very quickly and easily,” Quiett adds. “And the installation was very straightforward; it's pretty much plug-and-play. It draws very little power compared to the projectors; those are on three-phase power while the video wall just uses two-phase power and a 20-amp breaker.”
The staff has plenty of content for the wall to start with—many of the .mov files used for the projection system can be loaded into the video wall server, as well, adjusting scale and resolution in programs like Photoshop. And graphics staffers have been creating a steady stream of new colors and images.
Replacing Scenery
"The technology is great and everything, but we have to remember that it all has but one purpose: to win for the Lord."
Jestin Quiett
Executive Technology Director, City Church of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA.
The result, he says, has been breathtaking. “It's literally twice as bright as our main projection has been,” he says. In fact, the video wall has been so successful and has so captured the imagination of the congregation that the church's planning committee is strongly considering replacing its main projection screen with an expanded video wall, underscoring another benefit of the LED format: the ability to expand incrementally. “That's something we couldn't do with projection,” Quiett acknowledges. An expanded wall could reach between 16 and 20 feet high and 50 feet wide, fully covering the same amount of area that projection does now, and in the process reducing operating costs by eliminating lamp replacements and lowering power consumption.
At the same time, the video wall has enhanced the creative possibilities of church productions. It has already been used to replace some of the scenery in Broadway-style shows done there.
In “Will You Be Ready 4D,” a staged version of a motion picture produced by City Church Studios, the video wall becomes a realistic basketball court used as an interactive backdrop for action on the stage. For “He Holds The Keys,” an Easter event, the video provided literally all of the scenery needed for the entire production, with the exception of a single gate prop.
“For a scene of hell, we had flames on the wall while the lights were strobing to simulate fire,” Quiett recalls. “It was pretty scary! But that's what makes it feel real, and that's how we're getting 30-40 new people to come to our services every Sunday. The technology is great and everything, but we have to remember that it all has but one purpose: to win for the Lord.”
