Screen Content

[Richtiger]

I'm wondering how you all use your screens to communicate and what content you put on your screens at different times in the service.

I'm particularly interested in people who use 3 screens ie: 1 in the centre and 2 on the sides as that is our setup.

1. Which screens do you put announcements on?
2. Do you use video to do church announcements or news?
3. Do you put bible verses or slides on screen? If so which screens?
4. Where do you put song words?
5. I'm interested in what percentage of churches put live images on screen? And is this related to church size or do we do it because we can?
6. What is your reasoning for communication with screens?

7. Do you try to motivate people with media ... prepare them for worship etc before you begin or do you use the screens simply to show announcements?

Sorry for all the questions but I think it's really necessary to look at why we do things occasionally.

Richard

[magician]

Due to our low roof, we have a 4:1 screen (TripleHead) in the centre, as well as a 4:3 screen either side.

To answer your questions:
1. Centre screen
2. Yes (on the side screens as it is in 4:3)
3. Yes, on centre screen
4. Usually on the side screens (keyed over live images) for a Sunday service. Sometimes on the centre in other meetings, depending on size of the group.
5. Yes, we do live images, usually only for a Sunday service. Whether or not you do it should depend on the size of your congregation. If the worship leader or preacher looks like an ant from the back of the room, you definitely need it. However, if the image appears to be the same size as the live person, then it's really pointless. But, then there's overflow areas which is another topic.
6. We do this in order to be relevant to our audience. You see projectors and LCD screens everywhere you go these days: restaurants, shops, airports, banks. Visual media is used so widely these days, so why not use it to spread the Gospel?
7. Yes, we play music videos and then a 60 second countdown, to create the atmosphere, and the centre screen compliments our lighting.

[Richtiger]

Thanks for the reply Magician.

By the way, do you have any alignment problems with your centre screen using the triple head to go?

We are using a Dual head to go and it needs realigning every time I turn it on .... quite annoying. If it wasn't for that I'd be really happy with it.

Richard

[Sysmom]

We use three screens controlled by two computers, and projected by 4 projectors. The center screen is two 4:3 screens side by side, with a blended lap over area that's controlled by the hardware. (We have Analog Way equipt.)

1. Announcements go on the side screens. The Center screen is HUGE, it stretches over the center HALF of the sanctuary, and we found that changes to it can be overwhelming. So we've settled on using the center one for atmosphere, to set a mood, to convey the main theme of the event. Portions within the main screen may change, but it remains mostly the same colors and same design 'family' of screens. There might be 5 screens total shown in the center during the course of the service in the center. I wouldn't even begin to hazard a guess on the number shown on the sides. It's ... a lot more.

2. We use images (on the side screens) to do announcements with a live pastor on stage; sometime soon we hope to at least get it to video with voice over.

3 & 4. The side screens are also used for worship lyrics, sermon notes, video clips, pretty much everything. But we don't use many Bible verses because Pastor doesn't want people to get out of the habit of bringing their Bibles. But when he does want one up there, it's done on the side screen.

5. Our sanctuary holds around 500 people. The only time we need video up on the screen is for Baptisms. Everyone can see the Pastor just fine in there.

6. We communicate using multimedia because every year the people we minister to, whether they have attended church all their life, for the last 10 years, or are new believers - are increasingly part of a media-driven society in the US. To people who learn by listening, they can hear it. To those who learn by reading, there are sermon notes and Bibles, and to those who learn visually, graphically - we present with media. It is our opinion at our church that it is not only the youngest generation we reach out to when we embrace new technologies, it seems to be holding true across the board for anyone under 55 or 60 years of age.

7. We are moving slowly towards the goal of a completely immersive service. The pastor chooses the topic, and the theme for a series of sermons, and many things are built around that for the 4-6 weeks it lasts. All the graphics project and in print will match; some of the music (generally there are 3 core songs which underscore a facet of his message), and oftentimes these days a special event. Before the band starts to play we remove the announcements loop and play a pre-worship video. Which can be anything from a song to something contemplative, to a theatrical trailer.

Hope that helps. Please feel free to ask questions. I'm not sure there are too many hard and fast rules that apply to every venue, audience, and speaker. We pretty much developed ours by trial and error.

A: The screens are never black
B: There's never anything moving on the center screen when someone is talking.
C: When the lights dim for a video on the side screen, the center screen dims, too.
D: We never want a prompt from a DVD or other piece of hardware to blip on the screen, jarring people out of the moment. We have switcher/scalers which keep our input changes utterly smooth.
E: The lyrics are on the screen before they come out of the singers' mouths.
F: We never display the same image on the center screen as on the side screens because of the difference in size and aspect ratio.

There are many other smaller guidelines which get more specific, but those are the big ones that cover it in a general sense.

deb

[kbob]

Originally Posted by Richtiger

I'm wondering how you all use your screens to communicate and what content you put on your screens at different times in the service.

I'm particularly interested in people who use 3 screens ie: 1 in the centre and 2 on the sides as that is our setup.

1. Which screens do you put announcements on?
2. Do you use video to do church announcements or news?
3. Do you put bible verses or slides on screen? If so which screens?
4. Where do you put song words?
5. I'm interested in what percentage of churches put live images on screen? And is this related to church size or do we do it because we can?
6. What is your reasoning for communication with screens?

7. Do you try to motivate people with media ... prepare them for worship etc before you begin or do you use the screens simply to show announcements?

Sorry for all the questions but I think it's really necessary to look at why we do things occasionally.

Richard

1-currently 1 screen-but switching to three as budget allows. announcements will go on the side screens, one in english, one in spanish. center screen (hd, the sides are to be sd) will be in hd.

2-yes-pre-recorded clips, moives from trips, etc...but not the entire announcements yet-though we IMAG the announcements.

3. Yes-it will be in two languages, on each of the outer screens.

4. Same as above-english right, spanish left

5. same as above, english right, spanish left

6. seeing and hearing re-enforce one another-we also have fill in the blank handouts for sermon notes. It helps to engage the senses in different ways.

7. Not yet-but we use background images, video, and lower thirds IMAG for lyrics. Some of them have become so entwined with the lyrics that the youth begin the "a-woot" for an original song we have before the first words are sung (you have to be hear to understand, I think...)

Essentially, IMAG center screen, announcements/lyrics/sermons/scriptures left and right, in both spanish and english. Most of the speakers are native in English, but we have a headset translation available live, and this is our next step.

[gman283]

We use three screens controlled by two computers, and projected by 4 projectors. The center screen is two 4:3 screens side by side, with a blended lap over area that's controlled by the hardware. (We have Analog Way equipt.)

what are yo using to blend the 2 projetors? Analog Way what?


thanks

[Lukky]

We have one screen and we run everything on that screen. It makes life so much simplier. You should try it sometime.

Thanks Dustin

[tedanderson]

1. Which screens do you put announcements on?

All of them even though we have the capability to direct different feeds to different screens.

2. Do you use video to do church announcements or news?

Yes. We even use them to play promo videos to get people involved

3. Do you put bible verses or slides on screen? If so which screens?

Yes. And all of them. We key the book and scripture reference over live video when we have a CG operator who is a quick typist.

4. Where do you put song words?

Like the bible verses, keyed over video on all screens.

5. I'm interested in what percentage of churches put live images on screen?

90% of the churches that have screens do it, however, there is one church in my area where the congregation gets distracted when they see themselves on the screen so they had to stop it.

And is this related to church size or do we do it because we can?

Niether. The screens are primarily in place so that anyone sitting in a "bad" spot can still see the pastor and when we play special videos, everyone can see them.

6. What is your reasoning for communication with screens?

To alert people if they left their car lights on or if a parent is needed to tend to their child in the nursery.

7. Do you try to motivate people with media ... prepare them for worship etc before you begin or do you use the screens simply to show announcements?

Part of the reason why we show announcements on the screen is to help motivate people.

Sorry for all the questions but I think it's really necessary to look at why we do things occasionally.

Anything that you do should be done with a purpose in mind and it should be done according to God's purpose for the ministry.

[Sysmom]

GMan: We use Analog Way Eventix. That's as much as I can remember without being there. The equipt is 4 years old; I'm sure they've come out with newer models. But do give them a call. I can't say enough GREAT things about Analogy Way. Tell them we sent ya!

Our Eventix(es?) takes 8 different input sources, and have more options than I STILL know about. The Analog Way techs set up the alignment and blend over between the two of them for the double-wide screen. It takes one Eventix for each projector.

I don't know that I'd recommend going to this size if you didn't have to. But we didn't have the vertical room to fill the horizontal space we had with a 16:9 screen. So, we've got double wide. If you are seriously thinking about a double wide format, call me at work, and I will talk you down from there!!!

The cost of the installation is minor compared to the year-in/year-out cost of custom graphics to keep it up. If you already have a dedicated graphic artist, who has extra time on their hands each week, great, it won't make an impact. But if you don't, you're going to end up spending more money for that over the long run than the actual technology.

I do believe that was the part that surprised our church.

We use our screens a bit differently than Ted, but I think his church is larger. If you are near Fresno, CA, give me a call and we'll be happy to ramp up the system and show it off for you.

deb

[magician]

Originally Posted by Richtiger

Thanks for the reply Magician.

By the way, do you have any alignment problems with your centre screen using the triple head to go?

We are using a Dual head to go and it needs realigning every time I turn it on .... quite annoying. If it wasn't for that I'd be really happy with it.

Richard

Oops, sorry for the late reply. I must've missed your question earlier. I've only caught up with this thread as it got bumped today. Chances are you've overcome the problem by now, either by grace or new technology but I'll still answer for the benefit of others.

At that time, the projectors we were using wouldn't store the image position, so we also would have to align them digitally every time we turned them on. As annoying as it was, it's still nowhere near as tedious as making the adjustment physically. We've since changed to projectors which do store the image position. Now we only have to make the adjustment when something shifts in the rigging. Usually this is minor enough to be done digitally.

Luke