Would a video projector or LED wall be the best addition to your worship service? As with many other things, there is no universal, easy answer, since each church has unique needs and resources. However, there are ways to identify which solution would work best for you.
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Because many church lighting systems are brighter than they used to be, sanctuary stages are brighter, making it hard for projection screens to be effective. The problem is, a projector shines light onto a projection surface, be it a screen, a curtain, or a bare wall, and you then observe the light as it's reflected off of that surface. Consequently, light intensity is lost along the way.
In contrast, LED walls are made up of LED pixels. These pixels emit light on their own, rather than reflecting light emitted from another source. And because each LED screen has many, many pixels, each emitting light, the LED wall can offset the intensity of the lighting onstage much more easily than a projector.
Control and size
An added benefit of LED walls is the ability to control the intensity, color, and range of the images displayed. While the sharpness of the image varies by the number of LEDs in the screen and the type of image projected, it's easy for the user to control the brightness of the screen, and the colors displayed.
LED walls also typically have more flexibility in terms of size and design. You can use one screen, or link many screens, limited only by space and budget. There are even flexible LED walls available that can curve and bend around a space, adding more of a feeling of dimension, or the ability for people to see an image as they move throughout a room.
Viewing angle
Another challenge of projectors is viewing angle. This challenge once again is due to light being reflected from a surface. If you're not in front of the screen, you're not going to be able to see the image clearly because it's not being reflected sufficiently toward you. With an LED screen, as long as you can see the screen you can see the image, because the image is being emitted directly from the screen.
Advantages of projectors
Considering these challenges, it would seem that projectors as a option would be obsolete. Not so. Just as LED lights haven't completely replaced standard lights, LED walls haven't replaced projectors, and in fact newer projectors have made strides to overcome some of the challenges. Plus, projectors may be the best option for your budget, or for the use you have in mind.
Space, and also space
First, while an LED wall can be as big as you want it to be, if your stage space is limited, or it's multi-purpose space, it may make more sense to have a retractable or removable screen. Perhaps the pastor is doing a reading. Before the reading, the screen would be brought down and the words of the passage would be projected on the screen during the reading, so congregants can read along, or so they can be pointed to for discussion. After the reading, the screen retracts and space is made for the worship band to play.
Similarly, if there are seats close to the stage or screen, projectors tend to offer a better, more natural image. As noted in our downloadable Learning Series piece, 'The Truth of LED Walls,' the proximity of viewers needs to be carefully considered for video walls to avoid the pixelization of the image. The closer the individual LEDs are to each other, the better the image looks to audiences who are close to the panel. The further LEDs are spread out, the better it looks to audiences farther away.
Example: A 3mm LED screen would look fine to an audience 15 feet to 20 feet from the panel, but a 9mm screen would not. At the same time, a 9mm panel would look fine to an audience 40 feet to 50 feet away from the panel.
Thus, as the size of a worship space increases, LED walls would offer more benefit. To cover the same space, one would have to use multiple projectors whose images would blend at the edge to project the desired image. However, in a small space, perhaps for a smaller house of worship, using one projector, or a few of them, perhaps with a retractable screen, would be a better solution.
Weight and rigging
If you've read another Learning Series feature, 'How Heavy is Your Roof?', you know that rigging things properly in your sanctuary is a major safety concern. Lights and speakers are hanging overheard, supported by your ceiling. If your worship space is historic, fragile, or ornate, you don't want to damage it, and you may not want to damage the beauty of it by making sure it can support the weight of an LED wall. This would again point toward a much lighter, perhaps removable option, namely a screen, as a better choice.
However, keep this in mind: You still have to mount the projector. While a projector won't weigh as much as a video wall, you still have to have a clear line between the projector and the screen. Make sure to keep all cabling, plugs, other lights, and other obstacles out of the way at all times or the effectiveness is ruined not just for a few people, but for everybody.
Final consideration
There are cost considerations to be taken into account, which involve maintenance and expected product life, and because there are a variety of levels of quality of both LED screens and projectors on the market, you can still find examples of both types of product to fit your budget, that should last for some time. For example, newer laser projectors can work around many of the limitations of bulb projectors, projecting an image across a greater space with little to no loss of clarity or intensity, but those would cost more. And LED walls may cost more initially, but would need little maintenance over time.
However, one key difference may help you make a decision: Catastrophic failure. Imagine that during your Sunday service your standard projector bulb burned out, and you didn't have a spare on hand. While your service could continue, your ability to project anything would be either totally negated or severely hampered because projectors are a one-point failure device. If one key thing in a projector fails (such as the bulb, the lens, or the power source), the entire thing stops working. If you had an LED wall and one LED burned out, it would hardly be noticeable. If one screen burned out but others worked, you could adapt. In fact, many churches using LED walls have spare screens on-hand in case one does burn out. Regardless of which option you choose, it would seem the best bet is to plan ahead and be ready to adapt.
Direct view LED displays vs. projection
If price point is at the top of your criteria, opting for projection is often the right solution ' but a closer look at the key attributes of direct view LED displays shows that they can deliver and excel compared to the traditional alternatives.
Picture quality
Projectors may have previously been the best way to put images and video onto a large screen, but it has always faced the same challenge; environmental light can drastically affect picture quality. Many projector installations rely upon good lighting control measures to avoid artificial or natural light sources washing out the image, reducing its contrast and ultimately its impact.
Projectors rely on delivering their light paths to a screen surface that often requires finishes such as optical coatings, to ensure that the images are reflected to the viewer whilst retaining the best quality possible and producing minimal artefacts.
Direct view LED panels don't have that problem. Instead of reflecting light, they emit it directly to the viewer from the LEDs. This allows the technology to operate in lighting conditions that would be unfavourable for projection, and ultimately means a higher image quality over time.
Direct view LED displays also allow for 'true blacks' as opposed to the slate colour shown by many displays when attempting to display black. Projectors struggle to compete with this capability, as they must compromise between high levels of brightness and contrast which are affected by the materials of the projection screen.
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Additionally, as you increase the size of a display, projectors must use extra effects such as digital edge blending and overlapping to provide a continuous image effect. This sacrifices pixels on the display and is detrimental to the display as a whole. Direct view LED displays can be arranged edge-to-edge without the need for image overlap, preserving the overall quality of the display.
For some displays, the introduction of edge-blending also causes further artefacts such as the double intensity of light produced where the projected light paths are delivering duplicated pixels over the blend zone. Consequentially, dark content such as a night sky ends up unnaturally lightened.
Direct view displays have a high refresh rate, meaning they can update the content on screen incredibly quickly to create moving images with a flicker that is imperceptible to the human eye.
Like projected displays all of the High Dynamic Range (HDR) effects can be appreciated upon a direct view LED display.
Refresh rate is measured in hertz (Hz), and many direct view LED displays are able to refresh at a rate of thousands of times per second.
This makes direct view LED displays combined with simulation environments ' joint ventures that are possible with partnerships like Barco and ST Engineering Antycip ' even more immersive and scalable.
The refresh rates for both projection and direct view LED displays have increased over time. Direct view arrays are now capable of supporting simulator content that can require as much as 240 frames per second. Some projectors that utilise colour wheels can produce artefacts with fast moving content due to smearing effects. Direct view displays have no such problem thanks to a lack of moving components.
When used with virtual reality, some direct view LED displays can support Multiview 3D stereoscopic images which supports two simultaneously tracked dynamic views or multiple 2D content sources delivered to an audience on the same display, separated by their choice of active eyewear.
Useability
Projectors struggle in environments with high ambient light ' think of the low lights needed to fully enjoy a cinema experience. Some screen surfaces can reject the unwanted light, but it is nevertheless common for environmental light sources to ultimately impact the feasibility of projected light paths. By contrast, since LEDs are their own sources of light, direct view displays don't struggle in sunlit areas and remain perfectly visible.
Additionally, the gap between projector and screen presents a problem when choosing a suitable place to install them. Any object in the projector's beam obliterates out a section of the image, and the projector itself can be moved or knocked out of focus.
Direct view LED displays don't require as much space and this also makes them highly applicable to virtual reality use cases. A user can gesture and interact without fear of intersecting an overhead light path and there is no shadowing to the visual content.
Versatility
A direct view display is made up of a series of tiles, granting a certain level of freedom in how the display itself can be constructed. Panels can be arranged in patterns or used to make constructions like cubes and pyramids. There are even walkable surfaces and curved modules that can help to address cylindrical screens.
This means that LED video walls can wrap around tricky architecture such as 90-degree corners, arches, and circling columns, and aren't as constrained as projector screens, which must hang flat and be undisturbed by air currents.
Direct view LED tiles are also bezel-less to enable their ability to align their pixels together, meaning edge-to-edge display capability for a continuous uninterrupted image. Projector images are often overlapped and digitally corrected to afford such a continuation over a particular image size, which introduces a host of challenges previously mentioned.
Scaling a projector to cover more surface area means that the pixel size and density changes dramatically combined with the intensity of the brightness. Direct view approaches offer a consistent result across the dimensions with the only main compromise being that of cost and the fact of having a fixed, unalterable resolution.
Setup
Projectors have the aforementioned problem with needing a traffic-free gap between the projector itself and the screen. The larger the display, the wider this gap typically needs to be, opening the area in which interruptions can occur. The projector also needs to be connected to a video source, introducing another required point of connection, and calibrated once in place.
The projector chassis needs to be mounted precisely, then focused and configured to deliver its light path at the best possible angle to the screen surface, which can often lead to a time-consuming design process. It may also demand custom bracketry with compromises needed in some cases such as pitching the projector, which then needs digital correction approaches to be applied.
Direct view displays require their own time to set up, with multiple tiles needing precise alignment and support structures required to allow cabling and to support the tiles themselves. However, once installed, a direct view LED display does not need to be quite as guarded, and is less likely to suffer from physical intervention of its setup.
Cost
Direct view LED displays can offer fantastic cost savings over a long term use case. Their initial acquisition cost may be more expensive than a projection setup, but over the time there is typically less intervention necessary and if an engineer has to disturb the display to replace a damaged tile it is often less time consuming, as many systems have front accessibility and designs that aid the installer to automate the alignment process.
With projectors, an intervention that requires a projector swap can necessitate the need for more expensive access equipment and handling gear to lower a heavy projector from its mounting and to replace it, aligning the new unit back into the array. Despite the advantage of camera based auto-calibration technologies, projectors may also require colour matching and time spent to return a uniform image with the replacement.
The LEDs utilised in both projected and direct view displays can offer a life span of up to 100,000 operational hours, whereas laser projectors may only operate on full power for periods of up to 20,000 hours before they are half as bright as they originally began their life. As such, a calculation needs to be made to whether they are able to deliver the desired result for the life span of the desired usage.
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