Projector for my Church

[dude_56013]

Okay guys. I am part of my church's session committee (we make all the decisions behind the scenes). We have a small congregation ~35-40 on a given Sunday. We are looking to get a projector to hopefully use during worship to put words on and to show the occasional video. I've never purchased a projector before, so this is all quite new.

Here's the situation. Our main plan was to get a rear projection projector. We have an empty organ speaker hole directly above the pulpits. We were going to place the screen and projector there (to avoid suspending it from the ceiling). However, I just read up and I guess you have to have a good distance in order to do that. I'm not sure if that will still work or not. I'll have to have a closer look at the area in the church to see.

I guess I just need some advice on what to look for. I know that if it's front projection, I'll need something with a lot of brightness (we are an old-fashioned stain-glassed church which does let in a fair amount of light). At any rate, we need a setup that is aesthetically pleasing in the long run. Budget of $3000 roughly. Can go up if needed, probably, but would like to stick with that.

This is crap and not proportional, but oh well.

I do not know the depth of the empty organ speaker hole (marked with the X), but it's probably not deeper than 3 feet. I could be wrong though. At any rate, I don't think you can project much from a 3x5' hole (roughly..could be bigger than that...I'm not sure). Ugh. This could be a nightmare. We wanted to get on this ASAP.

EDIT: Food for though. I wonder if a big LCD panel would be more economical and cost effective. Hmmmmm.....

 

[Mutant Corn]

A wall-mounted LCD panel would definitely get rid of a lot of problems. They're expensive though....a 40" will be $1600-$2000.

 

[dude_56013]

I wouldn't say more expensive. A decent projector to show up well in the lighted room would be upwards of $1,500-2,000 + screen cost and installation. + Remote control for the projector which is probably another $100-200. I'ma have a look through some LCD screens and see. Viewing angle would be the one concern. So I did some calculations. A 60" LCD only comes out to about 3x4.8'. There's no way that'll be large enough to see from the back pews in the church. Poo. Back to Plan A then. Hmm....

 

[berry120]

However, I just read up and I guess you have to have a good distance in order to do that. I'm not sure if that will still work or not.

Use a large, clean mirror and bounce the image off of that onto the screen Only need half the space that way

 

[foothead]

well for a brightly lit room, you will need to find a 3500 lumen projector, or higher. 3500 seems to be standard though.

A mirror does not work well though, because then you have a huge mirror that has to be in an awkward place. I'd look for a good ceiling mount.

 

[dude_56013]

Hmm. I guess ceiling mount might have to be the way to go. I'll try to bring my camera to my meeting there today and take some pictures. The ceiling is really really high though...so I don't know what we'll do. We might need to modify the plan...we really wanted it to be at the front of the church, but that might not happen.

Berry could you do a quite MSPaint of what you mean with the mirror thing? I'm not sure I understand...I'm quite tired.

 

[berry120]

Ah - ignore the mirror thing, it was me that wasn't understanding. They work well if you've got a closed, small room behind the screen - basically a projector fires an image at a mirror which reflects it back onto the screen. In situations like that (i.e. where the mirror will be out of sight) it's a cool trick and cuts the distance you need behind the screen by 1/2, if you're clever with lenses and concave mirrors you can squeeze it down yet more still.

It won't work well in situations where the mirror is visible though for obvious reasons!

It'd still be possible to go down the LCD screen route but you'd need to put more than one together - talking in square numbers here, so a realistic minimum of 4. This is going to push you way out of your budget though...

Personally I'd go down the ceiling mount route and make sure it's bright enough. Good ceiling mounts needn't look too ugly, sure they're visible but shouldn't be distracting. Only thing you need to take into account is accessibility for maintenance - if the ceiling is really high then it's going to be a nightmare each time the lamp goes...

Another place you might want to ask for advice is the blue room forums - there's a lot of professionals over there (amongst the egotistical teenagers) that really know what they're on about with this sort of stuff, and you may well get a good idea from one of those guys.

 

[dude_56013]

Thanks Berry. I appreciate your input. Unfortunately, 4 screens would definitely push us over budget.

I'm not sure how often the lamp will go on this, though. We'll only be using it about 3 hours per week. But, I do know that that is an expense to consider.

Once I take some pictures, it'll be easier to go from there.

You know, I'm not a structural engineer, but I have an idea up my sleeve.

Directly behind that empty organ speaker is an empty room (leads to the Pastor's study). If that's not a load bearing wall, that hole could very well be knocked out to the size of a screen (what's standard? Like 6' x 8'?...I'd assume we'd want 4:3...or maybe 16:9...idk) and we COULD do rear projection. And the nice thing is, the ceiling in that rear room is WAY lower than the sanctuary ceiling. But, we'll have to see. Because I'm not sure where that organ hole is place (it might actually be HIGHER than the back room...I'm not sure).

 

[berry120]

I'm not sure how often the lamp will go on this, though. We'll only be using it about 3 hours per week. But, I do know that that is an expense to consider.

It's more the hassle than the expense I was referring to - i.e. if it involves erecting scaffolding just to get to the thing it might be out of action for weeks until someone can get round to doing it! Have you got enough old song books spare for if it happens?

Sure as you point out it's not something that'll happen often, if you use it very occasionally and get a good lamp then it's possible it won't blow in its lifetime. I'm just pointing out potential things to consider

 

[rime123]

I know this is besides the point but anyway:
I know of a good software for displaying stuff on projector as a secondary monitor.
http://www.easyworship.com
if you have 2 monitors or 1 monitor and projector u should try it
our church have used it on their proj for many years
I think it comes with song words for like loads of songs but just some info for you if you get it working.