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 programs, uses fulfillment centers 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 asked to equip one of the organization’s fulfillment distribution centers with Thor LED panels. Last year, the charity called upon the team to increase the size of its existing screen and add their LED screens at fulfillment centers in other locations across the country, 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 program for people to fill shoe boxes with gifts for children, which are then sent to the fulfillment centers 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 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 fulfillment centers, a training center, 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 uses 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, color-accurate, and vivid way that projectors could not achieve in warehouse fulfillment centers. LED technology allows them to share their vision and Samaritan’s Purse’s world-wide impact inside the fulfillment centers 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 color accuracy and ability to fine tune the color space, providing the designers with solid visual consistency for each video project.
“Hydra measured LED panels with enabled Dynamic Calibration, On Screen Color 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 color 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,” Vettel adds. “The team at Tor AV and Technical Elements has been blessed with outfitting Samaritan’s Purse in locations all across the U.S., 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.”
