All Your Questions Answered

For those of you finding this page apart from the video - this blog has been put together to answer all of the many MANY questions I was receiving almost daily since I put up this video:

"What type of curtains did you use?" That type question on the screens themselves is almost all listed in the description below the video on YouTube. YouTube only allows so much space there though, so I wasn't able to post on the following issues - which are mostly about the technology side of how I did this. So, here are the common questions I've received that are NOT answered under the video.

What did you use for supports / to "hang" the screen?  
We had one of THESE (click that link to see it) at the church already, so we bought 2 more - giving us enough to hang all three screens. We simply used a lightweight rope (clothes line type) to thread through the grommets along the top of the screen, looping the rope up and over the bar. Then for the bottom left & right corner we used thin bungie cords to hold the screen taunt, but not stretch it.

Is this done with rear projection, or front projection?  
Rear projection.

Is this using one projector or three?  
Three.

How far away from the screen did you have to put the projector?  
Good question. I don't know. :-( Sorry. My guess though is 10-13ft. Why a guess? Because this was a temporary setup that we did for a Winter Teen Retreat we did at a Christian camp. This is not setup at our church for me to go measure it - and, I didn't measure it when we did it. All I did was setup the 3 projectors on tables right up against the wall - then setup the screens and moved them away from the projectors till the image size was correct. You could do similar with your projector... to see if you have enough room for this sort of thing in the space you have to work with.

What projector did you use?  
Nothing special - just what we already had at the church. Benq SH910 I'd recommend that anyone trying this use the brightest (highest lumens) projectors you can find. Makes a BIG difference as to the crispness of the picture.

Does it have to be completely dark in the room to use this?  
No. But, the darker the better... as is the case for all rear projection setups. They work by passing light THROUGH the screen, and catching part of that light to create an image on the screen. So, this "strength" becomes a negative if there is a lot of other light sources in the room. Ambient light (sun!) is the worst. Really washes out the screens picture (lumens can't compete with sun).

Are you using multiple computers?  
No, just one computer.

How do you "stretch" the image across all three screens?  

1. We use a piece of hardware called a TripleHead2Go. HERE'S A LINK (click on that to go there) to a website that sells them, including pictures as to how it works. Here's a picture though to show you the basic setup - only difference is I was using projectors, and in this pic, they are using monitors. 
   
2. We are also using a dedicated program called ProPresentor, (click on that to go there) with an add on module giving us total control of all 3 screens. The TripleHead2Go will split any signal (well, basically) but with ProPresentor you can then control what content goes to which screens - both the video, and any text or graphics you put over the video. Pretty nice. Pricy, but we use it for church so, it wasn't an expense for this screen project / we already had this.

How do you make "normal width" video "fit" this wide of a screen size... without the video looking all stretched out?  

1. Simply edit any footage (think "crop" like you would for pictures, but with video) you have to fit this odd screen size. For me, I do this with Final Cut Pro ("X" currently, but that'll change as they keep updating the software) by exporting the footage through a Mac program / app called "Compressor." This program allows you to "crop" to virtually any size you want.
2. Buy footage that is made to work on a triple wide display. I recommend and use THESE GUYS (click on that to go there) - they are the best of the best at this - and when you buy ONE screen size, you actually get all THREE sizes - triple screen width, double screen width and single / normal. Nice.

Is there anything cooler / more awesome than a triplewide display?  
Yes. "Environmental Projection" - you can see a sample of the setup for it (same as whats "behind" the screens in my YouTube video) and some illustrations of its use in this video.

Here is us playing with Environmental Projection in our little church - using just 2 projectors, instead of 3. Still using the TripleHead2Go to do it, just with only 2 outputs being used, instead of 3. And... using 2 junky projectors / stuff we had laying around the church. You can clearly see the differing brightness / lumen levels between them. Not good. For multi-screen or environmental projection, you ideally want all of your projectors to be identical in brightness - so there is no difference in color brightness across the entire width of the picture (spanning all 3 projectors).

Any other questions, feel free to contact me, "Pastor Mark" through our church websites contact page www.ImperfectChurch.com (click on that to go there). Email is better than by phone. Do read the info in the "About" section under the original YouTube video (first one up above) first though, as between that info, and the info here, you should find most of the info you are looking for.

Hope this helps,
Pastor Mark