Over the last two decades, congregations have engaged in worship through added visual elements during services. Eyes that once were focused down on a hymnal are now more often looking up at wall-projected content. Lately, many churches have decided to take this a step further by installing LED video walls in their sanctuaries. These video walls enable church leaders to share customized videos, images, and text (such as worship lyrics or scripture), live feeds, and other content.
Here are four reasons to consider adding an LED Video Wall:
REASON #1 – THEY ARE SURPRISINGLY AFFORDABLE
Costs for LED walls have decreased substantially with up-front costs only 15-20% higher than projection. In addition, when a projector bulb or the entire projector fails, the replacement costs can be thousands of dollars each time. LED video walls are modular, so a panel or even a bulb can be swapped out at a much lower expense. As a result, the breakeven point of LED over Projection takes only one to two years.
What about LEDs vs LCD? For a video wall, the cost division line is 110 inches. For 110 inches video walls, LED video wall pricing is comparable to that of LCD displays. And for any video wall bigger than 180 inches, LED video wall pricing is absolutely better than any other static display technology.
REASON #2 – THEY CONSUME LESS POWER
From a TCO (total cost of ownership) perspective over the life of the system, LED walls are superior to projectors and LCD displays and a wise investment of your congregation’s capital contributions.
Finally, LEDs consume 40%-50% less energy than projectors. And while doing so they can also emit significant heat.
When choosing a projection system, often you’ll focus on the upfront cost. But many churches spend thousands on electricity every month. The substantial savings realized by LED walls every month go right back into the budget of your congregation.
REASON #3 – THEY ARE BRIGHTER AND EASIER TO SEE FOR CONGREGANTS
Traditional projection may lack the brightness in your space for easy reading and engagement. LED Wall images have a noticeable higher quality image.
While projection brightness is typically measured by Lux (the reflected or projected light), LED brightness, measured by nits, is the light strength directly from self-emitting diodes. One nits equal roughly 3.426 lux. While fine-pitch LED wall brightness starts from 300 nits, it can also go all the way up to 800 nits, therefore it does not require a dark room and works well in applications even with ambient lighting conditions. If your worship space has ambient light at certain times of day, an LED wall can be a superior solution.
You can improve contrast ratio by either increasing black levels of the background or raising the brightness of white color. LED walls can do both. LED walls have a higher brightness than projection so the white color is brighter, and the screen itself of an LED wall is black as it uses black LEDs while projection is actually a white background in nature. Typically fine-pitch LED wall contrast ratio can reach up to 6000:1 whereas projector contrast ratio is 2000:1.
Another key figure is grayscale in low brightness condition. LED walls can now handle 16-bit color depth processing and maintain a high gray level without compromising image quality even in low brightness conditions. Projected images, when in low brightness conditions, may be blurry or look washed out when the light bulbs are over-burned. For your congregation, they can read lyrics, scripture, and appreciate imagery better with LED walls.
REASON #4 – THEY LAST LONGER THAN PROJECTORS
LED walls have 2-3 times the lifespan of a projection set up. A projector lifespan is typically 3-5 years, and during its service life replacing light bulbs and lighting engines on a regular basis is typically required. LED walls have a service life of 100,000 hours or 11.5 years. This is because projectors have a single passive source of lighting, meaning it’s one lighting bulb for the entire projection brightness. While LED walls have millions of active self-emitting light sources, which burn evenly in a uniformed pace.
Here are three additional advantages to LED Walls:
Let’s take a look at when an LED video wall can be an ideal solution for your congregation and what the advantages are of installing one:
ADVANTAGE #1 – LED WALLS CREATE A LIVE CONCERT ENVIRONMENT
Many houses of worship include contemporary elements to their services, particularly with live music. Along with sharing words for attendees to sing along, the brighter and vibrant LED video production experience brings the music to life, much like a live concert.
ADVANTAGE #2 – LED WALLS HELP FRESHEN UP THE SANCTUARY
Renovations can be expensive and many elements of houses of worship like pews, altars, and high ceilings are traditional. Installing a video wall instantly modernizes your presentation.
ADVANTAGE #3 – LED WALLS CUSTOMIZE A NEWLY EXPANDED SPACE
While you can customize LED walls to any space, larger spaces work very well with these brighter, scalable solutions. As your church grows, you can easily expand LED walls or dismantle them for relocation to your new space.
When might an LED video wall might NOT make sense:
- Your services are much more traditional. Conventional projection screens may raise or lower out of sight, while LED walls are stationary and take longer to remove.
- You’ve recently invested in a projection set up. LED walls and projectors can work in tandem (LED video in the middle with projection to the side of the stage), but some congregations may want to get some use out of a new projector before a new solution is installed.
- You don’t currently have the resources to design dynamic content. If you’re currently just showing black text on a white PowerPoint screen, an LED wall may not be the best investment. There are third-party companies that make beautiful content for your service, like Church Motion Graphics, and you may be able to leverage design expertise from within your congregation.
Source: Church Tech Today
Shelby Systems has decades of experience working with ministries of all sizes, for more creative ideas and suggestions contact your Shelby Sales Consultant today!