The Rock of Gainesville church uses high-tech accessories to accentuate its highly spirited messages of worship. In August, Vista Systems' Spyder™ video processing and windowing system made its debut at the non-denominational church in Gainesville, FL. James Deason, vice president of design at Presentation Specialties, performed the installation.
“We had been to InfoComm in 2003 and seen Vista Systems’ Montage™ and loved it, but it was out of our price range,” recalls Deason who is a member of the church. “This year we saw Spyder and knew it was an opportunity to take a new piece of technology and do some wonderful things with it. Spyder is an innovative, multifaceted machine with attention-getting results.”
The Rock of Gainesville uses a 7 x 24-foot screen to display real-time IMAG footage during worship services to a congregation that can reach 1,150 participants. Spyder was selected for its ability to accept multiple video sources of nearly any description and to display them in PIP windows or at full screen, anywhere within an area of blended projectors. Projector blending is also accomplished by Spyder, making it a single-point solution to what was once a vexing and complicated problem.
“With Spyder, instead of just projecting the live video feed we can manipulate it,” Deason explains. “We have custom graphic backgrounds and can display scripture texts and hymn lyrics since we don’t use hymnals. We can size images and even use a small window as a nursery monitor to alert parents if their child needs them.”
The church’s Spyder 344 has 4-input/4-output processors; three outputs feed the big screen’s three projectors with Spyder edge-blending the images. The fourth output, which duplicates the screen, feeds hard disk and DVD-R recorders in the church’s TV recording studio ( DVDs of the services are popular sellers). “Especially since congregations are more technically astute these days," says Deason, "the growth potential of Spyder is also important to us as the church builds a larger facility. Spyder can grow with us if we move to a larger screen; we can buy an expansion module to meet any future needs.”
In addition to houses of worship, several US-based rental and staging companies have been putting Spyders into corporate-meeting environments, as well as implementing them for visual support for touring shows.
For more information on Vista Systems, visit www.vistasystems.net.