Eiki International, Inc.

Aurora, CO – October 2016… Founded in December of 1999 as a small non-denominational church, Calvary Aurora is one of the many affiliates of Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, CA, which today is home to some 30,000 believers. Calvary Aurora is home to a wide range of ministries geared towards children, youth, and adults from all walks of life. To further ensure that its message is relevant and engaging, the church recently upgraded its video projection capabilities—drawing from the product catalog of Rancho Santa Margarita, CA-based Eiki International, Inc.

The new video system was designed and installed by Brett Nelson of Nelson Audio & Light of Eldon, MO, a sound, lighting, and video integrator that caters primarily to the worship and education markets. After consulting with church leadership to ascertain their goals and expectations, the decision was made to deploy four Eiki projectors: two LC-HDT2000 HD widescreen projectors with 15,000 ANSI lumens brightness, a 3000:1 contrast ratio, and native 2K resolution, and two LC-HDT700 HD widescreen projectors featuring 7,000 ANSI lumens brightness, a 2700:1 contrast ratio, with native 1080p resolution. Nelson Audio & Light owner Bruce Nelson discussed the project.

“Calvary Aurora’s services are pretty contemporary,” Nelson explained, “so they're able to really take advantage of the ability to project a wide variety of content, which helps keep their services upbeat and interesting. The sanctuary’s center screen usually shows a themed picture or an abstract background video while the outer screens typically display live video of the worship team or the pastor. Lyrics can be overlaid on any or all of the screens.”

For the center screen, Nelson and his crew configured the two Eiki LC-HDT2000 projectors to handle front projection onto Rosco scenic paint. The video for these projectors comes from an iMac running Renewed Vision’s ProVideoPlayer. The Mac feeds a Datapath X4, which splits the video before it is sent to the projectors over HD-SDI. The edge blend is handled by the LC-HDT2000s.

Two Eiki LC-HDT700 projectors handle the two outer screens. They are doing front projection onto two DA-LITE tensioned screens. The video for these projectors comes from a Blackmagic Atem 2M/E switcher, and usually displays IMAG video.

When queried as to why he elected to use Eiki projectors, Nelson was quick to stress image quality, robust performance, and quality support services. “We chose Eiki projectors because they deliver an exceptionally bright picture and have the richest color for the money—without sacrificing reliability.”

“Equally important,” he continued, “is that you need to know that the companies whose products you’re using will have your back when questions arise. One of our key challenges on this job was how to properly achieve a sharp, 35-foot wide center image, while ensuring that the side images would be a close match in color and brightness. In this regard, Eiki support services were great. There isn’t a lens available that’s supposed to do the extreme wide angle we needed to handle the center screen from such as close distance. When I voiced this concern, Eiki experimented with their lenses to see if they could push the limits and they then came up with a lens that could handle the job. That level of support is very reassuring.”

The installation of the Eiki projectors at Calvary Aurora took place during August 2016 and the equipment was placed into service immediately afterward. Since that time, Nelson reports he has received numerous compliments. “According to Jason Klein, church Media Coordinator, everything’s been going great,” says Bruce. “They’ve been training volunteer switcher and camera operators how to use the new equipment and that has been going well. The images and videos all look great on the Eiki projectors. The visuals really add a new level of impact that most churches services simply don't have, all of which helps make their services all the more compelling. It’s been a win-win situation for all involved.”