Church Sound & Video, House of Worship Sound & Video

Recently at our church, whose congregation is a made up of a largely conservative older crowd, I have installed 6 monitors to be used for: Displaying song verses, showing scripture as it is read and presenting short video clips pertaining to the sermon. Also, video cameras record throughout the sermon and display on the monitors to show what is going on in the front of the church to the Chancel. Although the church has about a 2 inch slope on the floor every 6 feet, people who sit toward the back half of the Sanctuary typically cannot see what is going on very well at the front. Special events like the Children’s Message or the Children’s musical performances are difficult to see and thus the TV monitors help create a better environment for all.
As you might guess, the addition of monitors and removal of pews in what is a very beautiful Sanctuary to allow for additional room both in the front of the Sanctuary and in the rear to accommodate a Media Control booth has been met with a fair amount of criticism and reluctance to change. We have treaded slowly here, first having monitors on movable carts to use only during the contemporary service and now to a permanent system with installed monitors for scripture and words to songs and even cameras. This has not been an easy journey but we are seeing even in the most conservative of voices that they are indeed enjoying being able to see the Preachers’ inflections on their faces, and they especially like the childrens’ performances on screen.
We have used all Sony cameras with PTZ (pan, tilt, zoom). It has been found that these cameras are very user friendly with remote controls and 6 presets for location of picture from camera on each unit. The remote also allows for the control of 3 separate cameras all from one device. This, in conjunction with a Kramer professional video switch, and HDMI splitters from Geffen, is allowing us to run high quality, high resolution pictures to our flat screen monitors, the largest 2 being 70 inch, over 150 feet using HDMI. The Kramer switch also outputs scaled VGA right along with HDMI. The Kramer switch pulls the sound off of the HDMI or any input you have which you can then run into the mixer board for use as needed. This system is now well accepted in our very beautiful Sanctuary and our hope is that by having this new system, we can better share our message with the ever changing group of those wishing to attend service.