Case study · Church · Irvine, CA · 2024
Two LED screens, hung on walls never built to hold them
A church in Irvine wanted HD screens where its old projector screens had been. The frames were the wrong shape for HD. And the walls could not carry the weight.
In 2024 PixelPro Productions replaced the two projector screens at a church in Irvine, California, with two Gloshine P2.5 LED screens, each 7 × 6 cabinets (about 14.7 × 9.4 ft), driven together by one NovaStar VX1000. The screens were sized to fit the existing 4:3 surrounds while showing 16:9 content about a third larger. Each 800 lb screen hangs on custom steel brackets anchored to the concrete wall behind, not on the drywall bulkheads that held the old screens. PixelPro did the LED, the steel structure and the electrical work under its California contractor licence (CSLB #1063528, Class B).
At a glance
- Client
- A church in Irvine, California
- Referred by
- Elder Chang, Good Stewards Church
- Completed
- 2024
- Screens
- Two, one on each side of the cross wall
- LED
- Gloshine BD2.5, 2.5 mm pixel pitch, 640 × 480 mm cabinets
- Size
- 7 × 6 cabinets each: 4.48 × 2.88 m (14.7 × 9.4 ft), 84 cabinets in all
- Resolution
- 1792 × 1152 per screen
- Processor
- One NovaStar VX1000 driving both screens
- Weight
- About 800 lb (363 kg) per screen
- Our scope
- LED screens, steel support structure, electrical
The brief
This project came to us through Elder Chang of Good Stewards Church in West Covina, where we had built a 38-foot LED wall in 2022.
The church in Irvine had the setup many churches still have: a projector and a screen on each side of the stage, both 4:3 and neither of them HD. They wanted modern HD screens in the same places, without rebuilding the sanctuary.
Challenge 01
Frames built for 4:3, content that is now 16:9
The walls on each side of the cross were built around the old projector screens, so their openings follow a 4:3 shape. The church now shows HD content in 16:9. Rebuilding the surrounds would have meant reworking the sanctuary’s finishes, so the new screens had to work with the openings that were already there.
LED cabinets come in fixed sizes, here 640 × 480 mm, so a screen can only grow in whole cabinets. Six by six would have matched the old 4:3 shape exactly, but a 16:9 picture on it would be only 3.84 × 2.16 m.
We went one cabinet wider: 7 × 6, 4.48 × 2.88 m, a 14:9 screen that sits between the two formats. It is the same compromise broadcasters used while television moved from 4:3 to 16:9. It still covers the existing surround cleanly.
The same 16:9 picture is now 4.48 × 2.52 m, about a third larger.
Challenge 02
Walls that looked solid, and weren’t
Before designing the mounts, we worked from the building’s original architectural drawings. They showed that the two walls holding the projector screens are cantilevered bulkheads: steel studs and drywall, not built to carry a load. That is fine for a projector screen, which weighs very little. Each new LED screen weighs about 800 lb, and it hangs directly above the stage.
So the screens do not hang on those walls at all. We designed custom brackets in 2 × 2 in steel tube, four posts per screen, fixed at one end to the reinforced concrete wall behind the bulkhead and carrying the screen at the other. We cut slots in the drywall to pass the brackets through, set them flush with the existing face, and covered the whole area with plywood as a flat base for the LED.
From the front, the plywood looks as if it is fastened to the old drywall. It is actually fastened to our steel.
The weight of each screen goes into the concrete wall.
The result
- Two HD screens in the places the congregation already looked, with the sanctuary’s design unchanged.
- 16:9 content about a third larger than a 4:3 screen in the same space would allow.
- One NovaStar VX1000 drives both screens, so they always show the same picture.
- Each 800 lb screen is carried by the concrete wall, not the drywall.
How we build, level and finish LED structures is covered step by step in our Good Stewards Church case study.
Questions churches ask
Can an LED screen go where a projector screen used to be?
Usually, but check the wall first. A wall built to hold a projector screen was designed for very little weight, and an LED screen of the same size can weigh several hundred pounds. At a church in Irvine each new screen weighs about 800 lb, so we anchored custom steel brackets to the concrete wall behind the old screen wall instead of relying on it.
What size LED screen fits an old 4:3 projector opening?
LED screens are built from fixed-size cabinets, so the size moves in whole cabinets. With 640 × 480 mm cabinets, 6 × 6 matches 4:3 exactly. At a church in Irvine we chose 7 × 6 (14:9), which still fits the existing surround and shows 16:9 content about a third larger.
Can one processor run two LED screens?
Yes, if the total pixel count is within its capacity. At a church in Irvine the two screens total about 4.1 million pixels, and one NovaStar VX1000 drives both, so they always show the same picture.
We design and install LED walls like this across Southern California: structure, power and control, from one licensed contractor. LED video wall design and installation →
