BACK TO MAIN PRESS RELEASES PAGE
Vista Systems' Spyder Video Processing System Debuts in the Rock of Gainesville Church
PHOENIX (September 23, 2004) -- The first Spyder video processing system installed in a house of worship made its August debut in The Rock of Gainesville Church, in Gainesville, Florida. The installation was performed by James Deason, vice president of design at Presentation Specialties in town.
The Spyder video processing system was selected for the non-denominational congregation because of its ability to accept multiple video sources and display those sources in PIP windows, full screen or anywhere within an area of blended projectors. Projector blending is also accomplished by Spyder, making it a single-point solution to what was once a vexing and complicated problem.
"We had been to InfoComm in 2003 and seen Vista Systems' Montage and loved it, but it was out of our price range," recalls Deason who is a member of the church. "This year we saw Spyder and knew it was an opportunity to take a new piece of technology and do some wonderful things with it. Spyder is an innovative, multifaceted machine with attention-getting results."
The Rock of Gainesville Church uses a 7 x 24-foot screen to display realtime IMAG footage during worship services to a congregation, which can number 1,150. "With Spyder, instead of just projecting the live video feed we can manipulate it," Deason explains. "We have custom graphic backgrounds and can display scripture texts and hymn lyrics since we don't use hymnals. We can size images and even use a small window as a nursery monitor to alert parents if their child needs them."
The church's Spyder 344 has 4-input/4-output processors; three outputs feed the big screens three projectors with Spyder edge-blending the images. The fourth output, which duplicates the screen, feeds hard disk and DVD-R recorders in the church's TV recording studio; DVDs of the services are popular sellers.
"Spyder is versatile and impressive," says Deason, "especially since congregations are more technically astute these days. The growth potential of Spyder is also important to us as the church builds a larger facility. Spyder can grow with us if we move to a larger screen; we can buy an expansion module to meet any future needs."
Spyder has been selected by other houses of worship and their system integrators, and more installations are scheduled to come online soon.
Spyder has also been shipping to dealers, distributors and end users worldwide. Among the first recipients are Video Networks in Gaithersburg, Maryland; Quince Imaging in Herndon, Virginia; Solotech in Montreal; A Better Resolution in Boston; Presentation Specialties in Archer, Florida; Media Solutions in Las Vegas; High Resolution Engineering in Clarkston, Michigan; and Primetec in Goteborg, Sweden.
In addition, several US-based rental and staging companies have been putting Spyders into corporate meeting environments, as well as implementing them for visual support for touring shows. A large European transportation company has selected Spyder to handle video in its two new boardrooms. Spyder is also seeing service within the US government at more than one "Undisclosed Location."
About Vista Systems
Since 1996, Vista Systems' video switchers and windowing products have become the industry standard
for blended projector video and mixed data signal switching and display. Montage, Vista's flagship
product, is the leading choice for large-venue live presentations: It creates the in-studio backgrounds on
"ABC World News Tonight" with Peter Jennings every evening. Vista's newest product addition, Spyder,
is based on proprietary Montage architecture but is designed for smaller venues, Command-and-Control
applications, and video-wall concepts, which are often in fixed installations. Spyder uses a building-block
approach allowing the user to easily expand the number of inputs and outputs and to add several
command consoles. In addition, Spyder may be configured to control upstream routing switchers and
playback sources.
For more information on Vista Systems, visit www.vistasystems.net.