State-of-the-art projection systems brighten Northview Church services

Over the past several years Northview church has seen substantial growth. With seven campuses in greater Indianapolis and up to 2,200 attending services on the main campus in Carmel, the church leadership relies on technology to reach its expanding flock. But the technology team noticed that the 10-year old projection system was losing its brightness. The screen they use is 80x30 feet and is a large focal point for the worship service, so this was no minor issue. It’s been proven that brightness increases saliency, meaning brighter screens can help viewers retain and recall what they see. This is particularly important in a House of Worship, whose congregants want to access the Sunday spiritual experience all week long.

Travis Carpenter, Production Service Manager for Northview Church, knew he needed to move quickly to address the brightness issue before it detracted further from the weekly worship experience. Carpenter oversees the overall production value of the weekend services and was feeling limited by the inflexibility of the current technology. He knew that it was time Northview moved to a more versatile system. 

The benefits of projection are crystal clear

Carpenter and his team initially looked to replace the system with LED panels, but the project quickly became cost-prohibitive due to infrastructure issues. Carpenter moved his search to projection and, in doing so, sought the expertise of Jon Cawston, owner of JNE Productions. In addition to having worked with Northview in the past, Cawston brought a specialty in design and integration specific to church applications. After researching a variety of projectors at trade shows, Carpenter decided on Barco’s UDX 4K32 projector—an attractive option because it is laser-based and super-bright.

For a multi-location church like Northview, there’s another benefit to the UDX. The laser projector eliminated the need to monitor lamp hours. With each of the church’s locations having a minimum of three projectors, this greatly streamlined maintenance for Northview’s technical staff. The Constant Light Output mode also lightens the maintenance load by extending the life of the system. So unlike Northview’s previous system, it will never lose brightness.

Superior image and control

The installation only took three days, so no Sunday services were interrupted. The process included installing hydraulic lifts, adding additional voltage and adjusting the image blending across the six projectors so that one large seamless image is displayed. The church also acquired three additional projectors for special event use around the building allowing the church to use projection technology at more events without the expense and hassle of using a rental house.

Carpenter also upgraded their screen management to Barco’s E2 Master system. This product provides superior image quality, exceptional input/output density, expandability and durability. Supporting native 4K input/output, the E2 is the first and only screen management system leading the market that can manage a 4K projector blend with refresh rates up to 60Hz

Since the installation of Barco projectors, Northview Church reports that their services have never looked better, and their congregation is more engaged than before.