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[Tim Weaver]

Hey all.

I have a church install that is 98% audio plus 2% video. I'm basically putting a system in a youth room in a church where they want 2 big flat panels, one on each side of the stage for the typical church-y things like lyrics and powerpoint.

I'm not to hip on video stuff so I thought I'd throw my idea's out here and let you tell me how it could be done better.

So, I'll have 2 TV's that will both play the same thing. As far as inputs go I have the podium computer, FOH computer, and a DVD. I'll need a switcher to handle these inputs and send output to the pair of screens. No local monitor is needed.

What is the best format for the distribution of video for this? Since these are TV's I was thinking HDMI. My longest cable run will be approximately 75 feet. Will HDMI handle this? Will I have issues converting the PC's to HDMI?

Is there another format that I should be considering? Should I be looking for TV's with specific inputs? ie a computer input of some kind? Then how do I handle the DVD?

What is the current best practice for this type of install? The last time I handled any video we were using VGA for everything. It seems like that is almost a dead technology now, and I'm not caught up with the new stuff!

Thanks,
-=Tim=-

[Glenn James]

Find a DVD player with component video, use the VGA from the laptop and put it all through a VGA switcher, using appropriate VGA/YUV adapter cables for the DVD. Just make sure any TV you buy supports component video on the VGA input and you will be fine. HDMI is a crap shoot best to leave it in the domestic world.
Kramer make several suitable switchers which are not too expensive and work well.
If you need to switch video seamlessly (no dropouts or blue screen) then you will need a scaling switcher.

[Brad Weber]

Tim,
 
I seem to find that the current situation is that you may encounter laptops with only HDMI or DisplayPort and no analog video out or that require adapters to a VGA output but you may also still encounter laptops and existing computers with only VGA and no digital video out.  So it is common to also support digital formats such as HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort and HD/SD-SDI, however VGA is not at all dead and all of my clients still want it supported.   I have found that composite video, S-Video and even component video, along with five wire RGBHV connections, are what are usually decreasingly critical to support.
 
You may also want to think of the future.  You mentioned DVD but what if that was replaced or supplemented by Blu-Ray?  Or if you wanted to use Blu-Ray from a laptop or PC?  While the Analog Sunset for Blu-Ray only affects protected content, which may not be a factor, that is leading manufacturers to focus on digital outputs for those devices and especially with consumer Blu-Ray players you may find an increasing number eliminating analog outputs.
 
Some of the things I would probably consider for your application include:
 

• What do they want to support at the computer locations?  VGA?  HDMI?  DVI-A/D/I?  Multiple of these?
• How big is the space and what cable path lengths are involved?
• What infrastructure exists for running cable to all of the locations involved?
• Will they potentially be displaying protected HD content (is HDCP involved)?
• How do they want to control the switcher?
• Does the switching need to handle the associated audio?
• Do they want to plan on allowances for future expansion?

You might find that the path lengths and infrastructure suggest or require using video over UTP/CAT or technologies such as HDBaseT or AVB.
 
You might also want to verify the flat panel concept.  Worship spaces tend to be able to get away with smaller images than many other applications as they can often fit the content to support that, e.g. displaying fewer characters with larger fonts, but people often overestimate how a display that seems large in your living room translates to a larger viewing space.
 
Glenn, it's just terminology but I tend to think of a switcher/scaler as switching the inputs into a single scaler while a seamless switcher uses at least two scalers so that it can scale the current and selected source and then switch between those identically scaled signals.  It is a detail but if you want truly seamless switching you would want the latter.

[Amy Taylor]

Tim- the current standard for HD video is HDMI. This is the most commonly found HD video connection available. Almost all current video sources ( DVD players, video cards ,etc) and HDTV will support HDMI.

For a 3 input to 2 HDTV system with <100ft of distance between the source and HD display, you can connect and distribute using a 4x2 HDMI matrix switch  over Cat.  This will allow you to connect 4 video sources and switch and route to 2 HDTV and it does have a "local" port if you wish to add a local monitor.  The 2 distant displays are connected to the matrix using a pair ( x2) of CAT 6 cables.
If you are running new cables, you should run CAT 6 Shielded as that will provide best performance.

Hey all.

I have a church install that is 98% audio plus 2% video. I'm basically putting a system in a youth room in a church where they want 2 big flat panels, one on each side of the stage for the typical church-y things like lyrics and powerpoint.

I'm not to hip on video stuff so I thought I'd throw my idea's out here and let you tell me how it could be done better.

So, I'll have 2 TV's that will both play the same thing. As far as inputs go I have the podium computer, FOH computer, and a DVD. I'll need a switcher to handle these inputs and send output to the pair of screens. No local monitor is needed.

What is the best format for the distribution of video for this? Since these are TV's I was thinking HDMI. My longest cable run will be approximately 75 feet. Will HDMI handle this? Will I have issues converting the PC's to HDMI?

Is there another format that I should be considering? Should I be looking for TV's with specific inputs? ie a computer input of some kind? Then how do I handle the DVD?

What is the current best practice for this type of install? The last time I handled any video we were using VGA for everything. It seems like that is almost a dead technology now, and I'm not caught up with the new stuff!

Thanks,
-=Tim=-

[Mac Kerr]

Tim- the current standard for HD video is HDMI.

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