QampA Tom Staniziano Philips Selecon
Published: WORSHIP
In this Q&A we ask Philips Selecon’s Tom Stanziano about the role of media servers in the house of worship environment.
How are services changing with visual technology?
I have seen the worship service evolve into something that rivals any production in secular world. Creating an atmosphere for worship has become very important in today’s church service but like the major award shows how do we “Top” the last service or production? We’ve bathed our congregation in colour to bring them into a deeper level of worship. We’ve added special effects to our lighting to enhance the experience. We added video screens to bring the action closer, or added moving background to bring excitement to projecting lyrics and scriptures. So how do enhance our enhancements?
Over the past five years, many churches are changing the way they use their video projection systems, changing them from a device to focus action to a visual element. Environmental Projection or digital scenery combines the lighting and video systems into a cohesive element greatly enhancing the creativity in worship by projecting imagery, colour, mood, and emotion into an existing surface. Images can be used on the walls to totally transform the sanctuary’s time and space. Moving video content can be used to bring natural outdoor conditions to the inside, for example snow falling. The media is carefully selected to support the service, song or message.
How will a media server help HOWs with this?
The most common way to create this visual imagery is using a media server. This is a device used to store and share digital media meaning digital videos/movies, audio/music, and picture files to provide textures, digital gobos and moving video to help create a scene.
How does a media server work with a HOW’s existing equipment?
The lighting console can be connected to the media server to trigger video content and some audio cues. Media servers can be a simple software program that turns any computer into a powerful device capable of running live video, projecting photos or pre-recorded video clips that sync with music and light. This program is capable of sending multiple image layers to a single projector or multiple projectors. Other media servers are a combination of computer hardware and software with enough power and memory to quickly control many forms of media, design layers, and control options.
Programming media servers requires more knowledge than programming lighting, because the media server’s feature set are larger than the most complex of lighting instruments. The media server allows the user to take control of media by manipulating image position and scale, adjusting transparency and colours, and combining multiple sources into different layers.
How do you select the right media server?
Because of the different configurations and combination of hardware and software choosing the right machine can be challenging and somewhat costly. A media server may require large amounts of RAM, or a powerful, multicore CPU. Determining the use of the media server can help in making that decision between software-based systems and full-fledged machines.
What is the most important thing for HOWs using media servers to consider?
It is very important that churches adding this visual to their services, develop communication between the tech team, worship leaders and pastors to ensure the visual aspects can be designed to enhance and not distract the service.