Stage Designs

Make Your Own Jumbotron

AJ Parker from Lakewood Baptist Church in Gainesville, GA brings us his take on a home-made, three screen jumbotron

They pulled this together using 3 ultra short throw projectors (Hitatchi CP-200’s I believe) that they hung upside down on the backside of their “jumbotron”. Each of the 3 screens were 7.5×10′ suspended with rigging from above.

The bits of art behind the band came from 3 different sets in the past. The two grunge panels on the outside of the background were 12’x4′ panels that were painted black, then splatter and brushed with white. They were lit from the top and bottom with Color Rails. The very middle was a simple wood frame wrapped in white nylon fabric, grunged up with black paint and lit from the top and bottom on the inside with Rain 64 LEDs. The 6 squares were 4’x4′ frames of 2″x2″ wood with all kinds of random supports that made up the middle of each one. The white nylon fabric was stretched tight and stapled on the back side. All six were front lit with Rain 64 LEDs.

All of those pieces were supported by a 25′ wide 2×4 support system they had laying around from another old set as well.

Stone Rolled Away The Doors

12 responses to “Make Your Own Jumbotron”

  1. Mike Fowler says:

    I love this design! I’m looking for a design for my youth group’s winter retreat and this is giving me some great ideas!

  2. Tyler Herron says:

    Ah, if only if only…

    Love triple wide stuff!

    I’d like to see a little more one-ness with the screens rather than showing the same picture three times, but that’s just my opinion.

    -Tyler

    • AJ Parker says:

      Tyler,

      I’m with you on triple wide media, it’s awesome. We had actually used the triplehead2go with these projectors for other sets over the past year, but decided to try something different on this one because our folks were so used to seeing the triple wide stuff. We’re changing up this set again in January and will go back to triple wide again!

      Thanks, AJ

      • Mike Fowler says:

        I am trying to use Triple Wide and the Matrox TripleHead2Go for the first time and I’m looking for a good way to utilize it. It’s for our Winter Retreat and eventually we are going to use it for our Youth Group. Any suggestion?

  3. AJ Parker says:

    Mike, whats your current hardware setup with the TripleHead2Go?

    Thanks, AJ

  4. Mike Fowler says:

    Currently don’t have one…looking to start at the beginning of the New Year…we’re looking to get a Matrox TripleHead2Go to run to 2 TV’s and one regular projector (2 HDMI output and 1 VGA output).

  5. AJ Parker says:

    From my experience with it, you’ll probably want the aspect ratio of all 3 displays to be the same. You’ll most likely want the DVI version (not VGA) because you’ll need to convert the DVI to HDMI through a simple adapter, going from VGA to HDMI would probably be more costly since you’re going analog to digital. DVI to HDMI is digital to digital. You can convert the third DVI output to VGA through an inexpensive adapter as well.

    I’m sure you know how the TripleHead2Go works, but it outputs on very wide image out of the Mac/PC and splits it to 3 images. We had a long run to our stage and I did learn that it’s smarter to keep the TripleHead box at the Mac and run three lines to your sources, rather than one line from the Mac all the way to the 3 sources and spit it up there. Not sure why, but it was buggy when we tried that.

    As for the Mac we used, we powered the high rez files with an 2.93 GHz iMac i7 and it never bogged down. I wouldn’t try and use an extra computer you have laying around. The motion graphics at that big size will need some serious horsepower behind them.

    Not sure if any of that helps, but I hope so!

  6. Tracy Fetters says:

    AJ, thanks for the info. We are installing the TripleHead2Go with one screen in the middle and led flat screens on the sides. We are using the DVI version. Can you run hdmi over cat5 for the led’s or do you have to run hdmi cables? We have @ 100 feet between the mac and the stage. Thanks

  7. AJ Parker says:

    Tracey, you certainly can send HDMI over Cat5.

  8. Chris says:

    What material did you use? From where did you source it? Did you do your own grommets?

  9. John Weaver says:

    For those looking for unbelievable prices on cables for those long runs or wanting to do the hdmi over cat5e, I strongly suggest monoprice.com. 24/7 support, 30 day moneyback, lifetime warrantee, and unbelievable prices. Not trying to advertise and don’t get anything for mentioning them, we’ve just saved a ton using that site.

  10. Greg says:

    Hey, what brand and model projectors are you using?
    Thanks,
    Greg

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