Samaritan’s Purse is a world-wide evangelical Christian humanitarian relief organization based in North Carolina that helps meet the needs of people who are victims of war, poverty, natural disasters, disease, and famine. Operation Christmas Child, one of the charity’s best known programmes, utilises fulfillment centres to send gifts throughout the world. Minneapolis-based developer of LED video walls and headset microphones, THOR AV, was first introduced to Samaritan’s Purse back in 2019 when it was asked to equip one of the organisation’s fulfilment distribution centres with THOR LED panels as a proof of concept. Last year, the charity called upon the THOR AV team to increase the size of its existing screen and add THOR LED screens at fulfilment centres in other locations US-wide, as well as incorporating an LED display into Samaritan’s Purse broadcast studio, all driven by Brompton Technology processing power.
Operation Christmas Child is a programme for people to fill shoe boxes with gifts for children. The shoe boxes are then sent to the fulfilment centres for volunteers to prepare them to be shipped all over the world. Since 1990, more than 186 million children in over 160 countries have experienced God’s love through the power of simple shoebox gifts from Operation Christmas Child.
“The THOR LED walls are used to display video footage of Samaritan’s efforts, with these encouraging clips becoming part of the overall experience,” says Luke Vettel, Director of Sales & Marketing at THOR AV. “Steve Hooge, Production and Technical Services Director at Samaritan’s Purse, even mentioned to us how much of a difference the LED walls have brought to their staff and volunteers.”
Samaritan’s Purse has THOR AV LED walls installed in six locations. These include four fulfilment centres, a training centre, and a broadcast studio. Some of the LED walls measure 12m by 6m with others 5.4m by 3m. Each location has THOR EDGE 3.4 LED panels, along with a Tessera SX40 4K LED processor and four Tessera XD data distribution units. The broadcast studio LED wall utilises a 6.7m by 3.6m screen made up of THOR RIDGE 2.5 and driven by two Tessera SX40s and four XDs.
“This project was the first LED wall installation at Samaritan’s Purse facilities,” explains Vettel. “The charity wanted to show content in a high contrast, colour-accurate, and vivid way that projectors could not achieve in warehouse fulfilment centres. LED technology allows them to share their vision and Samaritan’s Purse’s world-wide impact inside the fulfilment centres to a countless number of volunteers. These volunteers are an integral part of accomplishing the charity’s mission, so it’s a great way of thanking them for their continuous support!”
Brompton processing offers unparalleled colour accuracy and ability to fine tune the colour space, providing the designers with solid visual consistency for each video project.
“Hydra measured LED panels with enabled Dynamic Calibration, On Screen Colour Adjustment (OSCA) and ThermaCal were instrumental for this client,” says THOR AV’s product manager Jonah Johnson. “Dynamic Calibration and Brompton’s Tessera software features allowed the team to set the colour space. If there were any thermal effects, ThermaCal made it possible to fine tune the LED walls for image uniformity so their content remained consistent over time. OSCA allowed them to clean up any visible seams and helped create seamless images.”
Speaking about the challenges, Vettel notes that, as with all industries, supply chain and logistic delays created deadline challenges. “This project had several locations involved which made for some long days as we navigated condensed installation timelines and commissioning. Our installation partner, Technical Elements, has been incredible to work with the past couple years, especially throughout the installation process,” he says.
“It’s been said that the best indication of customer satisfaction is return business,” concludes Vettel. “The team at THOR AV and Technical Elements has been blessed with outfitting Samaritan’s Purse in locations all across the USA, with more on the way. The combined performance of the THOR LED panels with Brompton LED processing will continue to provide unmatched value and experiences for end users and audiences this year.”
Photo: © Samaritan’s Purse