Case Studies

Faith Network - Signal Distribution Is Built In At Brookwood

By: David Weiss

System Contractor News

Originally published with the permission of System Contractor News Magazine. Copyright September 2004.

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Looking for a contracting niche? Have faith, and you’ll find one. That was the philosophy that Leonard Brown had when he founded Advanced Media Systems, a thriving firm with its biggest installation yet at Brookwood Community Church in Greenville, SC.

“I built the first video projection system in my own church in late 1996,” Brown recalled of the time when he was looking for a new business model after many years in the burglar and fire alarm sector. “After that, folks were coming to all of our conferences, seeing it in action, and saying, ‘This is cool. Who did this?’ Over time, it became apparent that this would be a very big thing for churches.”

Brown continued, “I started Advanced Media Systems with the direct purpose of servicing churches. My competitors laughed at me because they’re so well entrenched in corporate AV. But now with the explosion of media in churches, everyone wants to do houses of worship. Now I’m really entrenched there, and my competitors are not. Up to this point I’ve done 100 churches in my area, and sold countless portable screens and systems.”

At Brookwood, Brown’s video systems would be integral to the congregation’s expansion to a brand new facility, with a main sanctuary capable of holding up to 3,100 people, as well as complete educational facilities and inter-active kiosks. “The primary challenge lies in the sheer size and scope of the project,” Brown stated. “The size of the auditorium indicated a large projection system, and the educational facility did as well. So throughout the entire facility we have a total of 13 projectors and screens, 11 plasma screens and about 65 televisions—in the sanctuary itself there are four main displays. The screens are 11 x 20 feet, so the sheer size was a big challenge. The rest of the projection screens are in children’s rooms where they have youth church, and there are TVs and VCR/DVD combos mounted in every classroom.

“This church is very much media-driven in their worship and style. Every-thing they do has a video component attached to it. For services, they rely heavily on live camera feeds, and the church had invested heavily in a cam-era and editing rig for their previous location that they didn’t want to give up, so they wanted to implement all of that in the projection system. In the auditorium, there are four displays, and the church can choose to show four different displays on each one of them, so that involves a matrix switch-er. As well, from time to time, the church will do services in the round, so we had to do it so the screens could be easily viewed in that format.

” Brown decided to keep the switching and signal distribution of the far-ranging network under control with the ALTINEX MultiTasker. “It’s a very flexible system,” he confirmed. “It’s a card case solution. You basically get a cabinet that will hold 20 video cards, and you can configure it the way you want. It gives Brookwood the easy ability to switch different images on different screens at will, and the flexibility of the MultiTasker allows us to come back later if we so choose and add more components to that system. We can expand, and if we find we need more distribution in more destinations, we simply add more cards.

“Additionally this main system in the auditorium is connected to the rest of the church. Because many of these plasma screens will actually be showing the services in progress in other parts of the building with a live camera feed, they have switching requirements. In the children’s room, they all have their own switcher/scalers, and they will have their own possibility, with the touch of one button, to tune in to main services so they can also use these as overflow rooms if they want. There is a main hub in the education system, so we’re sending the signal about 400 feet to a rack in the educational wing, and there’s another MultiTasker that sends it out to all the other destinations in the building.

” Brown added, “The MultiTasker is also compatible with any of the popular control systems out there. We will be using Vity control systems, which we picked because of their cost/performance ratio, and the fact that they are very willing to talk, help, come out and program and assist in anything.”

Brown and his team got an education in connections, thanks to Brookwood’s large-scale floor plan. “We’re accustomed to much smaller wire runs,” he pointed out. “This is the first time we’ve ever had to send signals this distance. The right cable is a must, and we’re using bigger cable than ever before to accomplish what we call ‘pushing and pulling’ the system, which is amplifying the signal on the front end and tail end of the run. For redundancy, we’re also sending via Cat-5, using ALTINEX’s Cat-5 transmitter/receiver system to accomplish that.

” Churchgoers actually get their first expo-sure to Brookwood’s multimedia approach as soon as they step in the door. “There is an area in the main concourse called the ‘Five Purposes Area,’” Brown said. “This is a series of kiosks, each of which has a 42-inch Hitachi plasma screen which is fed with an individual laptop computer with a PowerPoint presentation. Each area focuses on what the church has determined are their five purposes for being.” One person who is definitely in touch with their purpose for being is Leonard Brown. “I got into this business from my experiences in my own church,” he explained. “The first thing I noticed was the ‘Wow’ factor. As a result of installing a video projection system in a church, our people were no longer limited to just the auditory experience; I saw people retaining the information and taking notes. As a result of the visual aspect, people were getting involved like never before. That really inspired me.”

Advanced Media Systems www.advancedmediasystems.net | ALTINEX www.altinex.com