DynaScan Blog

When Malibu Presbyterian Church burned down in 2007 as a result of wildfires in the area, it took the opportunity to modernize the facility with new audio visual equipment when it came time to rebuild. Award-winning architectural design studio Domusstudio architecture designed a new modern facility comprised of large plate glass windows giving access to the breathtaking ocean views, and allowing a vast amount of external ambient light to enter the sanctuary.

During construction, the sanctuary was originally equipped with a video projector built into a niche in the ceiling – a common solution for house of worship display applications. It quickly became apparent, however, that the projector was simply not capable of producing a clear image with the high contrast needed in the brightly lit environment. Late morning sun would enter the facility during church services and wash out the image projected on the screen.

Originally hired to design the acoustics of the church and consult on the electro-acoustic integration of the audio system, engineering firm Shen Milsom & Wilke was later appointed to take over the video display portion of the construction and find a better alternative for the video projector system.

After taking a look at the challenges presented with the ambient light entering the sanctuary and the major problems it posed for a video projection system, SM&W recognized the driving factor in selecting any replacement display device would be its high brightness capabilities.

Since the customer needed a display large enough so the entire congregation would be able to clearly see the information presented, and it was apparent that projection optics wouldn’t work, video wall displays were the next step in finding a viable solution.

Modular system offerings from Barco and Christie MicroTiles were considered, but the DynaScan solution was selected due its high brightness being able to overcome the ambient light in the space, and based on good color uniformity and super slim bezel lines of the modular grid.

After receiving a recommendation from a colleague, the project manager eventually convinced the customer to consider a hanging video wall and to take a look at DynaScan high brightness video wall LCDs in person.

Malibu Presbyterian’s music director, pastor, and construction manager traveled down to DynaScan’s offices in Irvine, California to personally see the displays firsthand. The team took a look specifically at the DS55LX3 55” 1500 nit high brightness LCDs and was immediately convinced. They recognized these displays would provide the brightness needed for the ambient light in the sanctuary, produce a high quality, color calibrated image, and the super narrow bezel would allow the church to create a nearly seamless video wall. They also learned that price was actually less than they were originally considering for the unusable video projection system.

While the LCDs did already offer automatic brightness control, Malibu Presbyterian staff found they needed to be able to quickly make on-the-fly brightness changes to the displays depending on different lighting situations in the sanctuary. Working with DynaScan, software engineers were able to quickly provide the customer with a custom software solution that allowed video technicians to easily make behind the scenes brightness changes as needed.

The new facility opened earlier this year featuring a 3×3 video wall comprised of 55″ DS55LX3 high brightness LCDs to much accolade. The video wall solution proved to be a huge success and the customer was highly satisfied. Evan Reiley, senior associate for Shen Milsom and Wilke, says the DynaScan displays were the “right solution to fix a problem, and the performance was there. It gave them the quality they were looking for.”  The architect was also impressed – DynaScan high brightness video wall displays were able to successfully provide a solution in a space where optical projection systems were once the only option.