Choosing Video Displays: A Guide for Making Smart Decisions

When it's time to purchase video displays, where does a church tech begin? CPM's guide points you in the right direction.

Anyone who has been through the process of purchasing video displays for the worship environment knows it’s not as simple as buying a TV for the living room. The number of variables that influence (or should influence) what winds up being integrated into a sanctuary are abundant––and even seemingly small needs or wants can have a significant impact on things like the required infrastructure that will support the displays, as well as the necessary ancillary components. When embarking on this relatively complex shopping excursion, where does a church tech begin?

If you have a minimal ongoing budget for maintenance finding low-maintenance equipment is critical.

Follow the Money

Every tech purchase involves a balancing act: you want to get the most bang for your buck … and you want to outlay as few bucks as possible. This approach, however, can lead to some unwise decisions. “Churches oftentimes only consider the initial cost of equipment, and the ongoing care and feeding of that equipment is forgotten,” observes Scott Carman, president and COO of Velocity Productions, an audiovisual design and integration firm headquartered in Atlanta, Ga. “As a result, [that care and feeding] goes unbudgeted, or they have to pull from other ministries in order to take care of an immediate need when it arises.” If you have a minimal ongoing budget for maintenance, he says, finding low-maintenance equipment is critical.

A couple of years ago, First Baptist Church of Rockville, in Rockville, Md., replaced its video projection system with a pair of 10.5’ x 5.9’ Vanguard Rhodium P4 LED walls. Executive Pastor Joel Gilbert, who oversees the church’s audiovisual systems, relays that the initial discussions he had with other church leaders focused on total cost of investment: was it better to absorb the higher upfront price of an LED video system over a lower-priced projection system that would require expensive bulb replacements down the road? In this case, the answer was yes.

“We were trying to be good stewards of the resources that we had,” Gilbert explains. “At one meeting, I presented several different options so they would understand that if we went with projectors, we were looking at X amount in maintenance each year. What became a really big factor for us was the longevity potential of the LED walls, and they have very little to no maintenance.” And, they were also really bright.

Ask (Yourself) Pointed Questions

4K may look sexy, but do you really need it when all you’re displaying are the words to hymns? Especially when you take into account the considerable upgrade to your infrastructure that it will require? What are your ambient light conditions? Are your house lights black during services, or are they on? How bright? Are you running IMAG? If so, do you need to display other content while IMAG is up there? What kinds of issues must you address concerning sightlines? These are all questions that need answering when you’re discussing a video display purchase.

If you’re leaning toward LED displays, Carman notes that there are specific visibility-related variables to consider. 

 “You really need to understand the content that you will be showing, and whether or not it’s going to pixelate, and how close viewers are to that screen,” he says. “If you have people within 10 feet of that screen and you’re in a smaller space, you need to be looking at something that’s 3mm or tighter in resolution, and once you get below that, it’s still pretty pricey.” 

But LED displays aren’t the only solutions that promise low maintenance; the advent of laser projectors removes the need for churches to worry about replacing lamps if they decide that a projection-based video system better suits their needs and constraints. “They have a life of about 20,000 hours now, so maintenance is not so much of an issue as it was before,” Carman says. He also notes that video screens have improved: “The screen manufacturers are getting better and better at the light rejection technology that they’re putting into their screens; even if you do have ambient light, you can get a screen that is able to reject a lot of that side light and give you a much better, much brighter image.”

Weigh In

Chris Kozen, worship production director at Valley Creek Church in Flower Mound, Texas, notes that while they often make more financial sense when compared with traditional projection systems, LED walls are also really heavy. Which begs the question: can your structure support them? And do you have the ability to get enough power to them to run them at full brightness?

At the same time, Kozen notes that LED walls grant churches a lot of flexibility. “They’re not constrained to: I have to hang a projector at a certain distance from the screen, which means I have to have a screen hang point and a projector hang point that work well together,” he illustrates. 

The only thing that limits where an LED may be positioned is whether or not you can get a signal cable to the display. “It gives me design flexibility, and it gives me versatility. I don’t have to worry about ambient light now, and I don’t have to worry about whether my stage wash is bleeding up onto the screens.” 

Buy What You Can Operate

Every new tech purchase requires those who will be operating the systems to learn how they work. While contemporary churches often have qualified techs on staff, even they must rely on volunteers to run equipment during services, which often results in a crew whose members have varying degrees of technical know-how. Gilbert urges churches that when purchasing video displays, it’s important to assess whether or not you have the manpower to actually run them. “Don’t get in over your head, where you have to maintain a level of commitment or staffing that may not be there,” he says.

It’s All About the Worship

When caught up in purchasing, integrating, configuring, and troubleshooting video gear, it can be easy to forget why you have it (or want it) in the first place. Gilbert reminds us to take a step back and examine why a church would install video capabilities. “Make sure that the video––and whatever technology we use––becomes a way of enhancing people’s ability to worship God,” he says. “For me, I want to make sure that our technology––our video, our audio, everything––is serving the congregation instead of us serving the technology.”

A Church is Not a Living Room

Remember how we established that a video display purchase for church is more complex than buying a TV for the living room? The same concept applies to the actual technology. In other words, consumer displays are not designed for the demands most houses of worship––no matter how modest their application of video is––place on them.

The problem is, it’s tempting to go to your local big box store and purchase a TV or several––it’s so much cheaper, isn’t it? Well, not really. “We’ve had churches insist on buying [consumer TVs] and set them up,” relays Carman. “Usually, a year later we will get a call from someone who says, ‘these things are not working that well. We burned them out and we have to replace them.’ You put three or four of those together and the color differences––especially with these edge-lit TVs––are very noticeable. Once those panels start to darken, it becomes very obvious when you have them in a 2x2 or 3x3 configuration.”

This eGuide/Whitepaper sponsored by ADJ and Hall Research.