Category: Case Study

User Friendly Stream Upgrade - A Case Study

4/3/2021

Centerpoint Community Church realized at the beginning of Covid they would need to take their services online to continue engaging and supporting their congregation. The good news for Centerpoint was that their existing system was capable and would only need a few small additions to begin their own streaming.

As they continued to adapt, learn and improve their online streaming experience, Centerpoint identified a few areas in their current AV system that would need to upgrade to create a better end result.

The pieces of their system they noticed needed to be improved were their PTZ cameras, presentation software, and a few other aging video components. They came to Lambda looking for not only updated components but pieces that would work easily together.

A System Built to Grow with You

3/2/2021

It seems like this year has been the year of the video system upgrades. Each system has its own unique pieces that have helped each church or business to move forward in what they are able to do, not only for streaming and recording, but inside the room as well.

The video system at Mountain Springs Church had become a collection of old parts and pieces and included aging cameras that weren't able to bring the desired quality to their online environment. To bring things up to a higher quality level and build for the future, Mountain Springs Church opted for a complete system replacement. This system included new cabling, cameras, and of course a new video switcher; even new GFX inputs.

Making the switch to Stream

2/18/2021

It seems these days that everyone is looking for a way to just get online. When Springs First Church of The Nazarene (SFCN) contacted us it was just after another reduction of room capacity due to COVID-19. The Nazarene church needed to get online to reach their congregation and fast.

Whenever Lambda is asked for a bid we like to come out and take a look at the room and existing equipment. This helps us for several reasons. First, it helps us get an idea of expectations for the business and what tools might work best. Every room is different and there is no ‘one size fits all’ even in the AV business. Second, you may already have some of the items you need to do the job you want, but you may not even know it. It was the latter reason that turned out to be a major piece when we visited the church site.

A New Church Launch System

2/18/2021

*Note: Photos were pre-Covid. If you want to know more about Lambda's safety measures, or how your next appointment will look like, click HERE!

One of the projects we have not had the chance to showcase this year is a church campus launch that we helped with at the beginning of 2020. One of the great opportunities we have as a business is to see the organizations we work with grow and expand. New Life church in Colorado Springs, wanted to launch a new campus on the east side of the Springs. Our role in the launch was designing the video system.

There are many hurdles and challenges in launching a new campus: finding a building, audio equipment, video gear, seating, volunteers for setup and teardown, etc. Having a quick setup and teardown is especially crucial if you are unable to keep everything set from week to week. This was the case for New Life East.
With this in mind, we wanted the system to hit these three main requirements:
1.    Efficient setup and teardown.
2.    Simple and intuitive use.
3.  The ability for one person to run the video/graphics position.

A Portable Church in a Case

2/17/2021

Or several cases...

A local church in town, Zeal, came to us asking to help them build a portable church system. They already had a few pieces of equipment but were looking for a few more tech pieces to have a service every week in a school building. At first glance, it may not sound too tricky or like an excessively big job. What do you need for a portable system, just some speakers and a mic and you are good to go, right?? The task was a little bigger than that.

One of the things we try very hard to do in a portable church setup is to make it as simple and repeatable as possible while also making it durable. Remember, this is gear that is getting set up and torn down every single week. Plus, it’s not always the same person setting up the gear every week, so anything we can do to help to make setup simple and straight forward, can save time and a headache.

A Simple Set-up is Sometimes the Best

2/17/2021

With the unexpected rise and spread of Covid19, it quickly created new problems for everyone. The Navigators ministry was faced with the task of taking their numerous in person conferences and converting them all into virtual online conferences.

Lambda AV designed a compact streaming system that would allow them to have a multi-camera live stream of all the keynote speakers. It also had the ability to run a full graphics system while being set up virtually anywhere.

The Benefits of Installing in Stages

2/11/2021

The Summit Church upgrade covered Audio, Video, Lighting and general stage design. It was a big project for Lambda, so after the initial design and approval to move forward by the church, Lambda decided to approach the install in stages. We were able to add the equipment in a logical order over the course of two months. We did this for several reasons.

First, it gave the church time to hire electricians to come in and update the buildings wiring. We’ve joked before about using a plug strip for power, but in reality, for the install we were about to do, Summit needed to make sure they had plenty of power circuits! Not only is it safer to have the appropriate power supply, but it also protects all that expensive equipment and makes sure that when you need to power cycle, you can do it in a safe, easy way. Second, it not only gave the church more time to make a few payments towards the install, but it gave their tech team time to “play” with each new completed stage. After each stage of the install Andrew was able to request adjustments and simply better understand each detail that went into the placement of the equipment.

The third benefit of doing the install in stages was the time it allowed the Summit tech team to learn about their new equipment. It’s difficult to change a system and learn about video, audio and lighting all in one go. Doing the install in stages allowed us to plan in training time for each part. At the end of Video week the Lambda video experts trained the Summit video techs and then stayed to make sure their first service went smoothly and everyone could get their questions answered. Having the Lambda expert in video, audio, and lighting meant that Summit got the best training possible on each install phase.

Through the initial design process and even the first weeks of installation, Lambda was able to build a relationship with Summit. Summit Church and Andrew saw the benefit of having an expert from Lambda that they could trust to offer the best solution in each situation. Through this relationship of trust and communication, when Andrew said, “Get me some new mics.”, Trevor, our Audio expert, was able to go pick out mics that met every expectation from the Summit Tech Team and those on their stage.

It took a lot of planning and time to build and integrate the updates to Summit, but everyone involved couldn’t be happier with how everything turned out!

Lighting the Room At Summit

10/20/2020

Lighting was the last major piece Lambda designed and installed for Summit Church earlier this year. It made an incredible visual difference and impact to their main room. It was so much fun to see this design come to life and how incredible it looked.
For a more in-depth case study, we asked Brad Helzer, our main systems schematics designer, to write a little about what building the lighting system for Summit looked like:

“Summit Church was such a great project to work on. It presented unique challenges and a need for a fresh update in their look. The first thing I noticed when looking at the room for Summit is how wide it was. I imagine all the church attendees also got the feeling they were far away from the people on the other side of the room due to the width. So, to mitigate some of that width in the room I wanted to design something that had a central focus and moved outward from the stage toward the audience. With this in mind, we chose to use truss flown from the ceiling on a raked angle to create the sense of height and a dynamic depth for lighting fixtures to be hung from.

Backbone of an Audio System

10/9/2020

A Walk Through Summit Audio System

The backbone of the Summit audio system is Dante. Dante is an Audio-over-IP protocol that allowed us to create an audio system that was both functional and reliable, but also gave Summit church the ability to grow and change as the situation dictated now and down the road.
Now, an Audio-over-IP system is only as good as the network it is built on. Most Dante enabled devices allow you to run gear on two separate networks, a primary and a secondary, at the same time. To make sure we built in as much redundancy as possible, we ran the entire system with a complete separate secondary network so that if one network failed at any time, there would be a backup. So, let’s go on a virtual tour of the system!!
At Front of House we replaced the Midas M32 with a Yamaha CL5. This brought them from 32 input/16 outputs to 72 input/24 outputs! A big change to say the least. We didn’t get rid of the M32 however, but we’ll come back to that later.

Dynamics of LED wall vs. Traditional Projection

10/9/2020

Summit Video System Continued

The last part of the Summit video install we wanted to highlight for you is the thing that catches everyone’s attention. Let’s talk about the LED wall video screens!

Summit has two in room video screens. The first is a 2:1 aspect ratio main screen mounted to hang above the back of the stage. With the main screen being a 2:1 aspect ratio, this allows Summit Church to shoot their content in a more cinematic format and display it natively in the main room without image loss or resizing. This format was a great choice to work easily with the other video equipment for the church.

The second piece of the video screens is a lower LED wall that is split into six columns along the back of the stage. The lower LED wall columns offer a unique option for environmental videos and graphic during worship and speaking. They are primarily used for video and visual aesthetics to create the right ambiance for the church. The original plan for the lower LED wall

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