5/5

posted May-24-2005

Churches have been adding video projection in exponentially increasing numbers. Along with the influx of computers has also come the need for a computer to handle the demands of worship software, PowerPoint™, digital photo editing and even video editing.
I know what you’re thinking: “A PC is just a PC. Same thing, different name.” I used to think that myself. Heck, I’ve owned HP, Compaq, Sony and Dell computers over the years. For the casual church running Microsoft Word, Outlook or Excel, off-the-shelf PC’s can work just fine. But I contend that the PC in your church service is a mission critical piece of equipment.
With that in mind, I reviewed the Tantus Rendition system. I wanted to see how stable the system ran when I pushed it to its limits, installed new software and generally did my best to make it crash! For my review, I used Microsoft PowerPoint®, Instant Effects Office FX (plug-in), Easy Worship, Media Shout, Windows Media Player 9, Cyber Link’s Power DVD 5 and Adobe’s Photoshop CS.
You can always find a bigger and faster PC – that’s just the way Moore’s Law plays out. What’s really important, as anyone who spends a significant amount of time in front of one will tell you, is how stable your computer runs. Given that many of us have the need for PC’s, since there is a staggering amount of software made for the Windows operating system, it’s not enough for serious users to simply look for the lowest price with the fastest CPU.
I can find the latest and fastest processors just by shopping online. Finding a company that will provide a system that has been tested to run best with only certain types of hardware, instead of whatever is left on the shelf, turns out to be a pretty hard thing to do. My own discouraging experiences in trying to run off-the-shelf PC’s for the demanding work of real-time, glitch-free operation during a worship service have taught me that the mission-critical application of weekend services needs more than off-the-shelf PC’s can ever hope to provide.
The first thing that got my attention when I went to check out Tantus on their website was this customer quote: “I have some amazingly speedy machines in my studio but none are nearly as fast as your box,” says Louis Broome, a Media Specialist with Microsoft. When the boys at Redmond, who have access to the best PC hardware on the planet, make a statement like that, it gets your attention.

I can tell you that I’ve now had that exact same experience.

Using the latest worship software, complete with full-screen, full-motion animations and live text overlays, I tried to punish the Rendition with the real-world tests of running PowerPoint®, worship software and graphics software - simultaneously.

The system handled everything I threw at it without an issue. All videos played back without a single stutter, even when I had the memory intensive Adobe Photoshop CS running in the background. The combination of the fast and stable Intel Pentium 4 processor along with the ATI video card proved to be more than adequate. Furthemore, when I installed new software, none of the common driver issues cropped up, ensuring that the system continued to run rock-solid stable.

When I compared this to a very similar Dell system, I found that the prices for the components were almost identical. The Dell Dimension XPS Gen4 system was a bit more expensive, coming in at $3,415. However, the Dell system only included a 1 year warranty for that price. Adding up to four years (Tantus has a 5 year standard warranty) of Dell’s warranty added another $259 to the price.


This quote from Edward Borden, the CEO of Tantus, really puts the term “value” into perspective:
“People are only going to be able to excel at what they do and reach their highest potential if their tools are built to stand up to the highest standards. We believe that this is where the general computer market has failed, as computer system builders have given into the temptation of completely sacrificing quality and service for lower prices and quick sales. We are determined to be at the opposite end of the spectrum. We will deliver no less than the best computing experience available.”
I often state that being a good steward has less to do with how much money we can save a church and more to do with how we don’t waste a church’s money on inadequate technologies.
Think of it this way: if the main PC crashes during a poignant moment in corporate worship, what kind of price would you pay – right then - to not have a major distraction to the service? If you’re like most churches, the answer is “whatever it takes”. It’s at times like these that “saving a couple of hundred bucks” comes back to haunt you. Instead, stability and peace of mind are what you need in your mission critical computers.
I can say with full confidence that Tantus is a first-choice vendor for churches looking for mission-critical computer systems.

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