Granger Community Church in Granger, IN, has acquired a pair of Vista Systems Spyders to enhance multimedia worship services for its congregation of 6,000 people.
The two Spyders, which have a total of 10 inputs and six outputs, are used in conjunction with three big screens in the church’s auditorium. The center screen, measuring 43’x18’, is driven by four Christie 8K lumen DLP projectors. Two 16:9 side screens, each 24’x13.5’, are driven by two Christie 7.5K DLP projectors.
The Spyders send images to all of the screens, treating them as one huge pixel space. While the side screens are primarily used for IMAG display, powerful, prerecorded dramatic images and vignettes may also be showcased. Moving backgrounds may cover all the screens with images running from one screen to another or hymn lyrics supered over the backgrounds.
Spyder sources include the IMAG feed, a new Grass Valley Turbo DDR, ProPresent and ProVideo Mac-based worship software, and multiple DVD players. A Leitch Panacea router feeds the Spyders’ SDI inputs.
“We picked Spyder because we really liked the software interface: It was very operator-friendly,” says Granger Community Church’s technical engineer Mike Sill, a veteran of 23 years in broadcast engineering. “The timelines, buttons and layering were very intuitive for our programmers.”
After just three months of use, the Spyders’ capacity to further enhance the church’s worship services is still being discovered. “We’re still at the point where we’re trying things,” notes Sill.