Plasma TV Confidence Monitor

[DBWebDev]

I'm looking for some advice if guys could help me out? I'm planning to put a confidence monitor plasma screen suspended from our balcony (just beneath the suspended ceiling) for the people on the stage. I had originally wanted to get a projector and another screen but people in our building team expressed concerns about how the screen would affect the curve of the room, but they were ok with a plasma TV which is what we went for.

The furthest away on the stage from the TV will be no more than 15m. I projected an image onto the wall about the size of a 50" TV and I could see it right from the other side of the church so I think a 50" TV should be big enough.

I have looked at a possible model and would appreciate your opinions: the LG 50PW450T (sorry I can't post links). It has a VGA input, and has a resolution of 1024x768, which is the native resolution of both our projectors also.

My main concern is that a 50" widescreen TV shouldn't have a 1024x768 resolution if it was to fit the full screen, and looking at the pictures in the manual it looks like there will be black bars on either side of the image. I'm not sure how small this will make the image, and I was thinking of getting a smaller TV that wasn't widescreen that would better support 1024x768 but I'm not sure where to look.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Jay M]

Just curious, what do you mean by the curve of the room? Are they suggesting that it will look bad?


~Jay

[Josh Scott]

Wouldn't it be better if you had a motorized screen that you could retract when it isn't in use?

[DBWebDev]

Originally Posted by Jay M

Just curious, what do you mean by the curve of the room? Are they suggesting that it will look bad?

I've attached an image to give you an idea, it would be secured just underneath the clock. The picture is taken from a quite a few weeks ago in the middle of major renovations so it might not give you an exact view of how things look now.

I don't really think a screen would be an issue, perhaps I should have stood my ground more! I think getting an electric screen, projector and projector mount will cost more than the Plasma TV and mount though so there is that to consider.

Originally Posted by Josh Scott

Wouldn't it be better if you had a motorized screen that you could retract when it isn't in use?

Yes I think that retracting it when not in use would make it not be such an eyesore. I'm not sure what to do now.

[Josh Scott]

You can also do a Plasma in the font row on a cart

[buswheel]

The main issue we currently have is that our confidence monitor sits on a pew in the front row and all our muscians just stare down at it instead of looking out into the congregation. I wouldn't mind placing a similar sized plasma or LCD on the edge our balcony which is also ~15 m away from the stage.

The main issue I have with such an install is making sure the text being shown is large enough to be useful at that distance.

[Jay M]

I'm just curious, what exactly is a confidence monitor? What is it used for?

thanks,
~Jay

[sempei13]

@Jay Lyrics. It helps the singers sing the songs that they know, but occasionally forget.

Paul

[Jay M]

Thanks Paul, we're pretty old school. We use music stands.


~Jay

[tdangelo]

Plasma screens burn (get a memory of any graphical item that stays on the screen too long). LCD's don't burn.

[Gracetech]

Well old school plasma's would burn in but newer technology is handling that alot better. Still anything will burn in over time including LCD. The cool thing with LCD is that you can reset it by leaving it off and discharging the panel for several hours.

Also the 1024X768 on your plasma panel is actually the native resolution of the panel. You can still feed it wide screen formats...1080...720. Of course if your system is 1024X768 you will probably want to keep it the same. Your options depending on your display are black bars on the side or "fill" the screen which means it will stretch the image horizontally.

I understand you wanting to be a good steward and use what you have but mounting a monster like that might be more trouble than it's worth.

BTW at 45' it might be hard for the vision challenged to read. You might set it up and give it a test.

Most of the time i do confidence monitors with projectors just blasting the rear wall with no screen. Now there are plenty of times where that wouldn't work but there are lots of options.

crt