Daktronics revisits Lakewood Church for visual upgrade
Published: WORSHIP
WORLD: Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, has been installed with two new LED video displays from Daktronics Inc. The new screens, which are used for image magnification shots and to show inspirational images and stories during the services, supersede the previously existing Daktronics screens and provide the congregation with clearer and higher contrast images.
The project continues a nine-year relationship between the manufacturer and church. The installers removed the 8mm displays one each side of the platform but made use of the existing structure to support the more than 3.5m high by 6.7m wide new displays.
‘Continuing our relationship with Lakewood Church is a testament to Daktronics history of exceptional support and up-front honesty with our products,’ said Joel Henie, Daktronics sales representative. ‘A trip to a recent installation at Saddleback Church really helped confirm Lakewood's choice to upgrade with Daktronics.’
‘It has been a great experience working with Daktronics to provide our church with high quality displays that easily fit into the existing display space we had available,’ furthered Andre Guidry, video operations at Lakewood Church. ‘The installation team was familiar with the facility, met our timelines and everything went very smoothly.’
The complete process of installing the screens took roughly five days for each display. ‘We started tearing down one of the old displays after the final service on Sunday and had the new display installed and operational before the Saturday service at the end of the week,’ said Nathan McGillivray, Daktronics project manager for the installation. ‘It was critical for Lakewood to have zero display downtime, so we installed one display the first week and the other display the following week. Services went off without a hitch and with full video display functionality.’
The leap up in image clarity and contrast did, however, introduce some new considerations. ‘After the displays were installed, the wardrobe and makeup departments had to be notified of everything that was now visible on the new high definition displays,’ said Mr Heine.
‘We originally discovered that LED displays provide much better punch than projector options with less obstacles to overcome, such as direct and reflected lighting which can distort or wash out projector images,’ concluded Mr Guidry. ‘By upgrading our LED equipment to the 4mm technology, images are clearer and more details can be seen on the displays.’