Maranatha goes wireless with Avocent
Oct 21, 2004 9:22 AM
The Maranatha Chapel in Rancho Bernardo, CA recently experienced a technological miracle that rescued them on a very important occasion. Maranatha occupies 15 acres in a northern San Diego suburb. The new facility, opened in 1997 serves a congregation of 7,000. Their sanctuary seats 3,000 for services held 4 times per week.
Typically, the technically well-equipped church runs the presenter's slides from the server in their AV Command Center located behind a seven foot concrete wall from the sanctuary. The presenter's slides are displayed on two rear-projection displays in the sanctuary.
On the weekend of September 18, Maranatha hosted a seminar of experts from all over the country. One Pulitzer Prize winning author insisted that he be able to do his presentation from his laptop at the podium in the sanctuary. This presented a physically challenging request to Maranatha's A/V group. Should they spend the time and money and endure the physical disruption to run cable from the laptop back to the A/V Command Center or politely tell the Pulitzer Prize winner that he would have to present like all others without actually controlling the advancement of his slides?
One very astute member of the Maranatha congregation, John Jensen from Sound Image Communications, an A/V integrator, had a very brilliant solution to the problem. He picked up the phone and called the Avocent Wireless office in San Diego and asked Brook Svoboda, Western Area Regional Sales Manger, to bring over a LongView Wireless pair of extenders.
The LongView Wireless transmitter was plugged into the presenter's laptop on the podium and behind the seven foot concrete wall, in the A/V Command Center, the LongView Wireless receiver was plugged into the Extron Video Switcher. In a matter of minutes, the slides on the laptop were being projected to the two big screens in the sanctuary.
Bob Gillespie, Director of Communications & Media for Maranatha wrote in a follow up e-mail to Brook, "Everything worked great! Thank you for providing this fantastic new product. Getting through our thick cement wall slowed the transitions, but I don't think anybody even noticed. Our east coast presenter was very pleased with our facility and our ability to accommodate his needs."
The Avocent LongView Wireless extender saved the day - no cabling, no disruption to the infrastructure, no network, no special software - just plug and play - now that is a technological miracle!
For more information, visit www.avocent.com.
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