St. George’s enhances worship and aesthetics with a Tekvox multi-display solution
Published: WORSHIP
USA: St. George Episcopal Church in San Antonio, Texas, founded in 1954, had been using a projector and motorised screen in the altar area of its traditional church interior to display text and images for its two Sunday morning services, but the technology obscured the altar and had only limited multimedia applications. To enhance its worship experience for its parishioners, St. George Church opted for a flat-panel solution, based on the recommendation of integrator Multimedia Specialties.
‘The existing projection screen came down in front of the cross and interfered with the aesthetics of the altar,’ says John Joffe, owner of San Antonio’s Multimedia Specialties. ‘By installing four flat panels and deploying the Tekvox Multi-Display Solution the church got its beautiful altar back and gained versatility for worship services and other events.’
Multimedia Specialties installed four 65-inch LG LED screens on wall-mounted pivoting arms. Two of these monitors are positioned in the front of the sanctuary and two at the halfway mark in the congregation’s seating, said to afford comfortable viewing to the entire congregation.
Mr Joffe’s firm integrated the Tekvox TekTouchPad with the TEK MHD44TP HDBaseT matrix to enable control of the matrix and displays with just a single cable. The TEK MHD44TP also allows special embedded RS232 routing commands to be sent to any display or broadcast to all identical displays.
‘With this four-in, four-out set up the church can display multiple images on the four screens: lyrics on one, signage on another, graphics or video clips on the others,’ Mr Joffe explains. ‘It gives them flexibility during worship services and offers them the ability to extend the multimedia experience to other events, such as a recent youth conference.’
Control of the system is provided using the TekTouchPad LCD virtual button panel. This single gang button controller allows for simple configuration of scripts assigned to buttons. The TekTouchPad has a single RS232 output connected to the TEK MHD44TP matrix control port. For direct operation the TekTouchPad sends RS232 routing commands directly to displays via the TEK TPHD402PR HDBaseT receivers.
The system’s ease of use was a key consideration in choosing the Tekvox Multi-Display Solution, says Mr Joffe. ‘The install was easy – virtually plug-and-play. Everything worked out of the box. The TekTouchPad was configured by Tekvox so I just plugged it in. And the church staff tells me how easy it is to operate the system.’ St. George’s staff can display content from PCs as well as from Blu-ray players with the new system.
The Tekvox price point was another deciding factor, Mr Joffe adds. ‘Other systems were dramatically more expensive. Tekvox gave St. George church more bang for the buck.’
Reed Hinkel, vice president of marketing and business development for Tekvox, notes that the Multi-Display Drop-in Solution ‘can be replicated in churches of all sizes as well as in school auditoriums, gymnasiums and other facilities. It’s easy to integrate the system and extend it to meet the special needs of the venue. In the case of St. George Church, the Tekvox Multi-Display Solution gives them access to the same high-end A/V equipment that much larger churches use without the high price tag.’