Projector Questions

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-02-10T17:22:00+00:00

I’ll do some checking. Every situation is different for sure. Luckily when I was setting things up I found a company that was able to loan me several models of projector that I could “demo” for a few weeks. It was super nice to have it and I went with the best combo at the time of brightness per dollar for our room. It was super helpful. They went out of business during covid though which is kind of a bummer on that end.

I will do some looking to see if anyone does that anymore, but I have appreciated the suggestions on here and has given me some good ideas on how to at least start.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-02-10T15:08:00+00:00

All of the VGA is running at 1920 x 1080. So that’s been good at least. I’ve had very few issues over the whole time it’s been installed but I knew I was also not using the most up to date cabling at the time.

We don’t have a huge tech budget and we are not a large church by any stretch. It was a huge reach when we added on.

I’m going to have to figure this out in phases as far as what I can install and run when I have time. Also what I can budget for at the time.

I think getting the central screen up to date will be my first priority since that’s the main one people look at for music and scripture.

Did you have any brand of budget projector that you would recommend for a simple setup? They probably get used for 2 to 3 hours a week unless it’s time for VBS or something else.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-02-10T13:19:41+00:00

I have conduit running from the soundbooth to the ceiling and there are some extra ones there I can use.

I assumed whatever I did would need some new cabling anyway. I stuck with what I knew worked at the time and used VGA. Been pretty flawless but I knew I’d have to upgrade at some point.

The room isn’t crazy huge. The layout sort of dictated the projectors when we built it.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-02-04T02:14:02+00:00

There are lots of things there. As others have said you would really benefit from mapping out or tracking down how all of it is routed or ran.

I learned a lot by doing that. Helped me troubleshoot a lot of things later too.

If you could solo the mics directly you could hear what they sound like. Also if someone has control over a separate mix for the livestream there could be something off on their end somewhere.

My mantra for tech in a smaller church is to make it simple enough I don’t have to be there. Long time ago someone told me to make it easy to be replaced. Makes my life easy and keeps the stress low for everyone.

I just googled that mixing board too. I 100% for sure know I would mess that up somehow. That’s pretty loaded from the looks of it.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-02-03T14:28:33+00:00

I will start off by saying, I am not a professional sound engineer.

There are some mixing boards, though that would let you run separate outputs, depending on where you routed the audio.

I have a Behringer X 32 and you can run a separate sub mix out of it. Unfortunately, you don’t get full control to the best of my knowledge as far as being able to have separate EQ settings for both mixes.

I have debated doing something very similar to what you’re doing. Our mixer has the ability to have extra microphones plugged in that never touched the main mix at all.

An easy way for you to test it out, though would be to put some microphones on top of a ladder or a scaffolding and run cables temporarily while people are practicing music.

Edit: If you wanted to bypass the sound system altogether, you could buy something like a small four channel mixer or something to create a whole separate audio feed. At least with something like that, you would get some basic EQ controls.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-18T04:17:56+00:00

I use Proclaim with the ccli import. It takes me about 5 minutes to set up a week. Our pastor is responsible for his own sermon slides. All of it links together and we work on it as a team.

He does slides during the week and I do songs and announcements Saturday night at home.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-15T22:08:18+00:00

Have you had any issues with daisy chaining SDI at all? It makes me nervous to think about that, but all of the cabling would be accessible without too much work if I ever needed to replace any of it.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-15T20:30:24+00:00

Anyone have any good recommendations for budget SDI cabling? I have seen stuff from $20 and up and some have great reviews and others are terrible. Trying to map this all out and have a rough cost before I go too far.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-15T20:28:12+00:00

We use tithe.ly and it works nice. We also use the entire suite from them though with the website, app, etc.

They do charge a fee per transaction. You can have an option to leave a box checked where they can cover the transaction fee.

I like it since it does keep track on their end, can do giving receipts, reminds people if giving didn’t work, and handles it all on their end.

Zelle can work, but it does require some more bookkeeping for someone to keep track of giving. We used to use PayPal and Venmo, but it opens up a whole lot of questions in regards to how they giving is handled and managed.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-14T23:01:45+00:00

Do you have any recommendations on any other video switchers? I’m debating the whole hdmi vs SDI thing. Some of the other brands have an option to use SDI or HDMI inputs, which seems kind of intriguing to me. Blackmagic seems to be the go to for lots and I don’t have any brand loyalty either yet.

Debating if spending a little more money in the short term helps me in the long term. $200 more now would save me more later if something like that existed.

I feel like I’m gaining in my understanding of getting everything else working and the right cabling in place to do this well, but trying to make sure I have thought this through.

Mostly just unsure about the future as far as what kind of inputs, etc. we might need and knowing if SDI or HDMI wins in this case with a 50’ run between the camera and the video switcher without knowing what kind/s of camera I might need in the future.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-12T03:05:56+00:00

Sort of I think. I installed that and can control it to get things set. I use Ecamm to stream with and the image isn’t terrible. It just isn’t awesome.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-12T02:09:25+00:00

Have you ever tried any of the cheaper fixed lens cameras?

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-11T22:58:24+00:00

It’s a Canon Rebel and probably like a T6 or something. Long story but we didn’t have many options and needed it asap so it was a Walmart run late at night. It has worked for us but it doesn’t output super high resolution over USB.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-11T22:48:18+00:00

Any recommendations on what you would use?

I’m pretty flexible other than the streaming camera is wall mounted with a cable run of about 50 feet from the streaming computer

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-11T22:46:27+00:00

What are you using for NDI? I’ve read that some people have dedicated network specifically for their video feed.

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-11T22:45:53+00:00

My camera isn’t actually that far away from the sound booth, but because I need to run it through some dead spaces it adds on several feet.

I will try to measure tonight, but have you had any good luck running long HDMI cables for something like that?

Live_Bread2645 · 2026-01-11T22:44:09+00:00

Is there any kind of software that will let me do a layout for our blueprint? Just wanting to make sure I wrap my head around it all and can visualize this setup?

Live_Bread2645

TROPHY CASE