LED Church Video Wall

What Drives the Cost of an LED Video Wall?

by BusinessChurchesVideo

There are two main points that determine the cost of an LED video wall—resolution and size.  Both are highly dependent on the purpose and need, and are also separate from each other.  This is also where major mistakes can be made without considering these points.

First Step: Resolution

When you are driving around, look at digital signs in front of businesses.  Some look good and others look horrible.  Try to assess them from the same distance away to keep things in context.  The better looking screens have a higher pixel count, resulting in higher resolution. It doesn’t matter if it is text or images or live video, the resolution chosen must be driven by one factor—the distance to the first row of viewing seats.  

This pixel count is measured in millimetres as the distance between each pixel or single light emitting diode (LED).  Street billboards will often have a pitch of 8mm or looser (called “P8”), and look worse the closer you get inside the minimum viewing distance.

In a church or sports bar, if the first seating positions are around 30 feet from the display, a pitch of P2.5 to P3 would look incredibly good.  If the seating starts around 20 feet away, a P1.5 to P2 display would be needed.  As the pitch number gets smaller, the price gets larger due to the concentration of circuitry and LED pixels.

The First Common Mistake

Often you will hear that it is important to set a budget, but that is the second step because resolution is the most important starting parameter.  You measure the distance to the first row of seats away from the display at 20 feet and obtain a quote on a P2 display to properly suit the viewing distance.  If the price is not workable, hold off.  The idea of a lower price sounds better, but will not do the job.  Either move the seats back to increase the viewing distance, or arrange for a larger budget, but don’t compromise on resolution.

Next Step: Overall Size

If resolution is based on the closest seat, overall size is based on the furthest seat.  Since LED video walls can be built in a variety of shapes, most applications use a TV shaped rectangular display format with a width to height ratio of 16:9 (the standard for videos and home theater) or 16:10 (commercial presentation systems).  For sports bars, 16:9 makes sense if showing mostly televised sporting events.  However, for churches and conference presentations, you can form an LED video wall into any size and shape and create content to fit. 

 The price increases as the display gets larger, but here is where LED video displays are flexible—you can make the display larger later if the budget now does not permit for the perfect screen choice initially.  Just add a few cabinets to the side and a few to the bottom and the whole display is now larger.

LED Wall Build

A Third Step: Display Geometry

Depending on the purpose, a shape other than 16:9 rectangular is totally fine.  For example a sports bar might show a television broadcast, but having some extra display space allows the bar to create ads for specials that fit beside the televised image during the event. In a church application we installed a 60 foot wide screen that is shaped like a fat “T” that allows slides or camera feeds on the arms of the T and a backdrop image and text in the body of the T.  LED displays can also be curved.

Contact us if you want to explore the factors in your environment and your LED video wall options.

LED Church Video Wall

Why are LED Video Walls Replacing Projectors?  

by BusinessChurchesProjector

For many reasons, video projectors are now considered obsolete for church sanctuaries, large meetings rooms and entertainment venues.  We have suffered with the limitations of projectors for decades.  The only significant improvement was made a few years ago with the introduction of “laser projectors”.  However, lasers only solved one or two of the many problems.

The new alternative is the super bright, high contrast LED Pixel Display.  Made up of cabinets that are usually 500 x 500mm  (20” x 20”), cabinets are latched together to make a video screen of any shape or size. Don’t confuse this with mounting a grid of a dozen 65” TVs with a processor—the bezel lines ruin the whole objective. A true video wall is pure picture from corner to corner.

Let’s look at a the first two of many examples we will cover:

Reflective versus Emissive

LED is the only solution for a facility that has windows with natural daylight that would wash out a normal projection screen.  It is also far better in large meeting rooms where the room lights must stay on, or a stage application where there are bright stage lights. This is because a projector is a “reflective” device.  It pushes a picture onto a reflective surface, normally a true video screen.  A wall painted flat white is often the cheap replacement for a real screen, further dulling the picture.  A true screen has a “gain factor” that can help to refocus the reflection to the audience so it appears brighter by sacrificing viewing at the sides of the room.   But even with the best screen, a projector cannot produce black parts of an image because the wall colour is as black as the image can get, meaning that a flat white wall reflects any light in the room so black appears as some level of mid grey.

In contrast, LED walls are “emissive” since they actually emit light from their mounting position on the wall.  There is no reflection, instead the light flows directly from the screen to the viewer’s eyes.  When there is no image, the screen is nearly pitch black reflecting none of the light in the room, resulting in images that have the highest contrast. With 160 degrees of viewing angle, even people way off to the side of the display can see.

Contrast is the difference between black and bright white.  In order to get a projector to produce higher contrast, we need to first turn off the lights to make the room totally dark (not suitable for any room other than a theatre).  Then we need to buy a very high output projector and pump up the already overtaxed lamp to beyond maximum, shortening its already brief lifespan.

Another key issue is obstructions.  Any object between the projector and screen results in a shadow caused by the object or presenter, and the missing part of the image shows on the presenter.  Standing in front of an LED wall causes no impairment to the image.

LED Screen Church Setup

Lifespan

A projector is like a race car running at full power all the time.  Its brightness declines every minute it operates since the lamp wears quickly due to sheer punishment.  Claims of “1000 or 2000 hours” are wildly optimistic since a projector’s brightness fades every day it is used.  For true usability, the lamp should be replaced after 500 hours since it will already be noticeably dimmer.  After 2 lamp changes, the optics of the projector are getting burnt by heat and UV, and the projector should be replaced, or moved to a darker room for its remaining life.

An LED video wall emits light so it can run with considerably less stress, making the LED pixels degrade very slowly over the years. LED’s emit many times the amount of light of a projector, so we find in environments like sports bars and churches, reducing the brightness results in the lifespan extending to a rewarding level.  In a church, the lifespan of a video wall can exceed 12 years, more than triple the lifespan of a projector.  Compare the cost of 3 projectors and 9 lamp replacements along other service/maintenance issues to come close to a video wall, and projectors fall far behind.

More to come! Reach out to us if you want to discover if LED Video Wall technology is right for you.