Bethany Community Church
Bethany Community Church, a 19th-century congregation in a building defined by ornate stained glass and dense stone construction, had lived with compromised visual quality for years. Working with AV integration partner Panavid, the church replaced a failing multi-projector system with two i5LED 2.6mm direct-view displays, delivering consistent, ambient-light-proof clarity to every seat in the church without touching the historic character of the building.
Challenge
At Bethany Church, the stained glass that defines the space flooded the sanctuary with shifting ambient light that projection couldn’t compete with. Text washed out. Graphics lost contrast. On the most attended Sundays, when engagement mattered most, the visual experience was at its worst.
Maintenance added to the burden. Multiple projectors positioned across the sanctuary meant inconsistent coverage, ongoing lamp replacements, and troubleshooting cycles that interrupted service schedules. Years of incremental upgrades had produced a disorganized cabling infrastructure with no structured design, increasing the risk of failure and making problems difficult to trace.
The building itself made any upgrade complex. The technology had to work around the architecture — not the other way around.
Solution
Two i5LED direct-view displays at 2.6mm pixel pitch replaced the projection system entirely, installed by AV integration partner Panavid. At typical viewing distances, 2.6mm pitch delivers sharp, legible imagery — lyrics, scripture, and sermon graphics read clearly from the back row. Because direct-view LED generates its own light, ambient input from the stained glass windows is no longer a variable. Brightness and color are consistent whether morning sun is streaming through the windows or the house lights are dimmed for an evening service.
Installation required engineered solutions for the building’s structural constraints. Cable pathways were routed through thick stone walls using planned penetrations designed to preserve structural integrity. Mounting was custom-designed to work with the existing truss system without modification to the historic fabric of the building.
Images courtesy of Panavid AV
Result
Visibility is now consistent across every seat in the church regardless of time of day, season, or natural light conditions. The congregation experiences sharp, color-accurate visuals for every service, a standard the multi-projector system could not reliably deliver.
The project demonstrated that a 19th-century church and modern production standards are not in conflict — they require the right display technology and the right integration partner to bridge them.