Daktronics Inc. of Brookings, S.D., designed, manufactured and installed two new LED video displays for Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. The new displays supplant the previously existing Daktronics displays with the more visually stunning product with features exceptionally tight 4 millimeter line spacing in a full black package.
This installation continues the nine-year relationship between Daktronics and Lakewood Church. The installation uses the existing structure to support the more than 12-foot high-by-22-foot wide displays and replaces the two previously installed 8 millimeter displays on each side of the main service platform.
“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,” said Andre Guidry, video operations at Lakewood Church. “The installation team was familiar with the facility, met our timelines and everything went very smoothly.”
The process of installing the displays took roughly five days for each display from Dec. 1 through Dec. 13.
“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 of 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 church uses the displays for IMAG (Image Magnification) shots and to show inspirational images and stories during the services as well as live video of the sermon and song lyrics for the congregation to follow along. The feed shown on television is the same video shown on the video displays inside the church.
“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 Heine.
The image clarity and contrast provided by the upgrade in equipment now makes everything much more visible to the audience, from lint on clothing to blotches of makeup and powder.
“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,” added Guidry. “By upgrading our LED equipment to the 4 millimeter technology, images are clearer and more details can be seen on the displays.”
