Seeing is believing: video in the HOW market
06 June 2012
Projection on Madrid Cathedral
Churches across Europe are increasingly using video. From the congregation that borrows a data projector to display song lyrics, to the group that broadcasts professional video across continents; Anna Mitchell reports.
Audio technologies have long been a headache for the church market. The buildings are often acoustically challenging, the requirements diverse and the operators unskilled. But video, audio’s secondary partner in this field, is also a growing requirement. And, whilst it presents almost as many challenges as audio, it is an incredibly powerful tool to reach congregations within a building, region or even across continents.
Craig Lawrence, AV manager at UK integrator the SFL Group, regularly works within the church market and believes the use of video is definitely growing. "It’s all about delivering a message and making it as easy as possible for the people attending the church to receive this message," he says. "Media and video plays a big part in this from things as simple as song words and Powerpoint to full blown media presentations. We’re increasingly seeing the church growing in capacity and building size which requires more video."
"I can only speak for the UK market but the use of video in churches is definitely growing," agrees Daniel Cunnnings, business development manager at Cunnings Recording Associates, a well-established player in the church installation field. "Churches tend to lag behind with technology but it is generally accepted that a church will have a sound system of some form.
Read Seeing is Believing in the InAVate Active Magazine to learn more about the market from specialist integrators and end users.