We are a small church and looking to connect a few tvs around the building. I’m curious about how larger and more modern churches, manage to display videos and even just simply photos around the church. I obviously do not want to go with the ancient method of loading photos onto a thumb drive and having those play. It needs to be updatable. What are the methods with a pc, and are there methods available without a PC?
Welcome to the CITN forum!
There’s a couple different options I’m aware of others using. It depends on what capabilities you want for your screens and budget.
If you want your screens to show the exact same content, you could run SDI to all of them from a central location and feed it with a computer running the presentation software of your choice. If you also want the capability to mirror your sanctuary/auditorium screens, this will be the most reliable way to do it. There are other transmission methods (like NDI), but SDI is the most approachable method for distributing video signal around a building.
The other approach is with a digital signage system. With this approach, you place a small computer (often called a player) at each screen which is connected to your WiFi or wired network. Most digital signage systems have a web site you use to load content and send it to the players from there. This is probably more cost-effective than central distribution. I have personally used Yodeck for this, and you will find many other happy users of Yodeck on this forum. You pay a monthly fee per screen, and they provide the player hardware for you. It looks like they have an app for Tizen powered Samsung TVs and LG WebOS TVs too. You could get clever with scheduling to make the TVs all show the same thing, but it won’t be perfectly in sync.
Hope that helps!
Thank you my friend!! What do you mean by “small computer” though?
Thank you my friend!! What do you mean by “small computer” though?
For Yodeck, it is a Raspberry Pi. The one that Yodeck provides comes in a nice case and is about the size of two decks of cards stacked on top of each other.
Fantastic! Thanks so much! Would the Yodeck be compatible with streaming
the church service as well? Or would I need a separate direct feed to it?
Looks like you could sync lots of displays if you make a video “wall”. Check out this KB. How to create a simple Video-wall with Yodeck – Yodeck
we use https:/pisignage.com which uses the RaspberryPi. Cost is minimal and the interface is easy to use. Majority are wifi connected. We have about 15 tvs or monitors around campus.
One very simple way to do it that does not cost anything. If the tvs are smart tvs or smart panels then you can download an app called EShare. I use this app a lot with the led walls I install and the app comes on all the smart panels I use. That added plus is that when you use this app it works through you wifi network and it also can allow two communications across all your video screen with ANY operating system (apple, iPhone, android, PC, etc). If your tbs are not smart then you can use a small computer that can down load apps like Ben stated.