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Thanks in part to lower cost and higher availability, LED walls are no longer a tool just for larger, broadcast-minded churches. In fact, installing an LED surface has become one of the most common projects undertaken by churches of any size over the last few years.
While the purchase and installation are just part of the process, an ongoing effort is required to ensure that the content displayed on the LED wall is effective, proportional, and implemented correctly, in order to have maximum effect.
...what looks good on a computer screen, may not look good on an LED video wall.
“If you’re spending the money on installing an LED wall into your space, be sure to be willing to spend the money to fill your screens with quality content as well,” says Carl Barnhill, the owner of Twelve:Thirty Media, which provides an extensive library of ready-made media content for churches and ministries.
Stefan Svard, the founder of Thor AV, agrees with this assessment, especially after having traveled the country extensively and seeing LED walls in action at many churches. “The biggest issue I see is [churches that recently purchased an LED wall] don’t really plan out the work to have good content on the LED wall. Make sure you properly staff the tool so the job gets done effectively,” he said.
While most churches may not have the budget flexibility to hire a designer to focus solely on content creation for an LED wall, multiple companies and websites, like Twelve:Thirty Media, WorshipHouse Media, Shift Media, and others now provide subscription-based content churches can purchase for usage on their wall.
However, it’s notable to remember that not all LED walls (and content) are created equal.
Pixel pitch becomes even more critical when an LED wall is in the background of a camera shot
“If you are downloading your media from a media marketplace or provider, make sure the dimensions match up with your screens before downloading [and using] that content,” Barnhill recommends.
There’s a lot of available graphic content that is natively created with a 16x9 aspect ratio in mind. But unless a church has specifically purchased panels in that ratio (16x9 panels typically could be available in 600x337 pixel pitch ratio), then that native content would have to be modified to fit, since other LED panels would normally come in a square of 400 or 500 pixels or a rectangle that could be 1000x500.
When having to scale or modify graphic content to fit a wall that’s not 16x9, quality issues can arise making your image look pixelated, soft, grainy, or distorted.”
It may be wise to check the capabilities of a church’s media server and display software before embarking on the content creation process for the wall. What sort of onboard options are in place for outputting varying resolutions that might need to match the dimensions of the wall?
Additionally, if the software has limitations, did the wall come equipped with a video processor that has the capabilities to handle some nominal scaling so that the content’s size can be adjusted proportionately to fit the dimensions of the wall?
If these features aren’t available, or if a wall is installed in an atypical size, a church may need to consider adding inline options to help scale the content to fit the screen, instead of just stretching or shrinking it, which would result in image distortion.
Church of the Highlands, a Birmingham, Ala.-based megachurch, installed an LED wall in its broadcast auditorium several years ago. Adam Hobson, the church’s broadcast engineer, was tasked with helping manage the oversight of the wall, which the church frequently reconfigures for various events and services.
Not all fonts work well on LED walls
“We use Resolume Arena as a software media server,” he explains, due in part to its “value in the pricing structure, flexibility, and the ability to use timecode from Ableton to sync up videos with tracks.”
When first trying to find options to handle content playback and scaling, he notes, “We tried several hardware media server appliances but landed on software for ultimate flexibility. There are several software options to accomplish this goal, but we found Resolume Arena to work the best in our workflow.”
If a presentation software doesn’t have the onboard features itself, then having an effective “middleman” in the form of a server or scaler to handle the proper output and display for content is important since churches normally don’t just use plain graphics on the screen. Those graphics tend to be overlaid with text for sermon notes or worship lyrics, which makes it even more important that the content is created, output and presented appropriately and that text font size and style are chosen carefully.
In his experience, Barnhill has determined that an initial group of ten fonts fit his criteria for working well on a wall, namely in that they can be boldfaced and also present cleanly in both upper- and lower-case, making them easier to read at the front and back of the room.
His list (Gotham, Helvetica, Arial, Myriad Pro, Montserrat, Avenir, Open Sans, Proxima Nova, Raleway Bold, and Bebas Neue) may not necessarily be an all-inclusive list of the best fonts for LED walls, seeing as how each environment may have variables that lead to other options needing to be considered, and since some of these fonts may not be available for purchase or install with a particular presentation software.
Regardless, this list could be a good starting point for churches as they consider what should look good in their particular venue. But nothing beats actual trial-and-error of testing content on the wall ahead of time -- whether that’s graphics or fonts -- to determine what will or won’t work from the first row to the last row. It’s also important to know that what looks good on a computer screen, may not look good on an LED video wall.
Tighter pixel pitch can produce more natural colors on camera.
And the idea of reviewing a wall ahead of time is even more critical when an LED wall will also be a background that appears in camera shots.
When a wall will just be used for IMAG (image magnification, or as a display surface for in-the-room camera shots) or graphics, the most notable feature to consider may be pixel pitch: the distance (measured in millimeters) between the actual pixels that emit light and form the image. The tighter (smaller) the pitch, the more pixels will fit on one panel and thus create a higher-resolution image, which will look better and smoother for viewers sitting closer to the wall.
Pixel pitch becomes even more critical when an LED wall is in the background of a camera shot, since the camera is able to clearly see and amplify the characteristics of the wall. When a broadcast-quality wall is used, not only does a tighter pixel pitch translate to a better background, but the colors tend to be more natural and accurate regardless of the wall’s brightness or the stage’s light levels.
Svard agrees that these are critical features to consider when using a wall in this type of application.
“You really need good low brightness performance, a low scan multiplex ratio, and excellent calibration and color accuracy,” he explains. “Any LED panel can be ‘seen’ by a camera, but probably 80% of all the LED panels on the market will show negative artifacts on camera. A broadcast panel can be synchronized with the camera and show a picture-perfect image on camera.”
“Negative artifacts” are often tagged by the industry term “moire”, which is an effect or pattern that emerges when a camera and image are misaligned in how dots or pixels are translated from the image’s viewing surface to the camera’s sensor.
Craig Harper, the National Manager of the Faith division for Sony Electronics, points out that the distance between a wall and the camera, pixel pitch, camera lens, and camera sensor itself are all factors that can help alleviate a moire effect. Like Svard, he also notes that a faster refresh rate (scan multiplex ratio) will reduce the effect, and cameras with a global shutter will more easily allow for adjustments to the refresh rate of the wall and minimize this pattern.
On-site testing is critical before buying an LED wall to be sure there's synergy across all your video equipment.
This becomes the most critical reason why industry veterans like Harper, Svard, and Hobson encourage churches to test a wall on their own stage before making a purchase sight unseen. Making a significant capital purchase like an LED video wall requires plenty of due diligence ahead of time to ensure there’s synergy across the full gamut of broadcast equipment, presentation software, and the staff creating the content.
Hobson says, “Before we decided which product to purchase, we did 10-plus demos on our stage, with our front light, with our cameras. We took notes on each product, watched back recorded video, and decided as a team which we thought was the best solution.”
Svard is fond of urging churches to “buy their second LED wall first.” In that, he means that churches may make a purchase and realize they made a mistake, then make that purchase a second time to fix the initial error. Instead of going that route, it’s much more efficient to do all of the work, testing, and research on the front end to get the “right” product first, instead of making a mistake and spending twice as much money (or more) to undo it.
Barnhill concurs, noting there’s more at stake than just having a good product in a church auditorium.
“As the Church, we want to be respected in the industry and make an impact,” he reminds us. “Great design matters. Quality matters. Doing things well for the sake of the Kingdom matters. If you’re spending the money on installing an LED wall into your space, be sure to be willing to spend the money to fill your screens with quality content as well.”
