PP and MediaShout

[JIman]

My ministry center uses powerpoint and meiashout for displaying the words. What does your's use and does anyone have a suggestion for a better setup.

[twc_admin]

Hey ...
Actually, we use neither .. we use Easy Worship ... and love it! Occasionally, we have to import PowerPoint presentations, but EasyWorship allows for that easily.

[chrismoncus]

My vote is in for Easy Worship. Yes, PowerPoint will suffice, but if you are a fan of efficiency, great features, and a solid application - go for Easy Worship.

[jsheehan]

The best (by far) software that I have seen is ProPresenter (http://renewedvision.com). It only runs on a Mac so therefore it is incredibly stable and it is pretty easy to use. Granted, it doesn't have as many bells and whistles as some of the other competitors, but, it works great at what it does. AND, look at the programs with the bells and whistles - a lot of them crash a lot - which ProPresenter never does - and I sometimes use it in 3-5 different setups per week and experience great stability.

Now, most people will think that the more bells and whistles, the better, right? I don't necessarily agree with that, for multiple reasons. One, you are putting a lot of weight on your volunteers. Think about it - you are asking one volunteer (and one computer, I might add) to be responsible for your sermon notes, your lyrics, your video playback, etc... While some churches are priviledged enough to have great volunteers that can handle this, there are usually only one or two and they run the risk of quickly "burning out." Maybe its worth thinking about another idea - splitting up the responsibility between multiple volunteers and multiple machines. Getting one volunteer to be solely responsible for lyrics and one to be responsible for CG/playback will help to make sure that your transitions go smoother and that your volunteers can do a better job at what they are supposed to do.

Though, I would suggest that you look into ProPresenter. They just released a new version and it is pretty slick. Also, they have some deals to help you with entering into the Mac world if you're not already a part of it. They have some pretty cool video playback programs also - a "loop/video" type application and a "SD/HD sync application."

And no, I don't work for them or have anything to gain by any purchases you may or may not make - I am just a satisfied user.

[chrismoncus]

The best (by far) software that I have seen is ProPresenter (http://renewedvision.com). It only runs on a Mac so therefore it is incredibly stable and it is pretty easy to use.

Yes sir. You are right. I am also a Mac guy and I fully agree with everything you said. ProPresenter is an outstanding app. Paired with a Mac we have a solid show machine. My advice, get a Mac (http://www.apple.com/getamac/) and ProPresenter and sleep easy knowing Sunday will go well.

But for those stuck in a PC world, here's my advice. Get a Mac (just kidding, sort of).

I would go with EasyWorship, as I said earlier. Avoid MediaShout at all costs. It's sluggish and hard to use at best. PowerPoint is the least-featured of all of them but is pretty solid at what it does.

Also note the computer it's used on. Buy a powerful computer. A Celeron processor is a mission-critical failure waiting to happen. If you got in under $1000 you are getting yourself into trouble, especially noting the need for two video cards. The two video cards alone should cost $300-400, otherwise choppy video is your new best friend. Get the fastest processor in your price range for smooth running of the app. Get at least a gig of RAM for ensurance of smoothness as well.

I hope this helps. If you have other questions, please ask them.

[Wojobass]

We are using mediashout, that's all I've got to say about that (Forest Gump voice implied). We are getting a powerbook for our video editing, maybe propresentor is worth looking into. We are very video intensive with moving background and lots of segues.

[JIman]

Thanks guys I loathe mediashout as is and wanted to get an idea on how to move. I like Macs for graphics and sound work hands down but I doubt they will switch. People need to learn PC is personal computer not Professional computer :-) so I will probably just buy the church easyworship.

Thanks again

[worshiptrench]

hey we still use powerpoint, here is why. (http://www.worshiptrench.com/?p=73) You might be suprised by what we can squeeze out of it and why we still hang onto it.

[Brooke]

I can certainly agree with those of you who have a distaste for Mediashout. I've just recently been forced to work in it and I hate it. Yes, I know, hate is a strong word...but I meant it when I said it. It is highly user UNfriendly & complicated to use.
My choice for presenting would be Easy Worship, though I've never touched Pro Presenter (my church isn't Mac Savvy yet).

Just my .02 :D

[dtpuga]

I hear you on those reasons WorshipTrench. You have exercised the features of PPoint that few have dared go near.

We still use PPoint for our sermon notes each week. We may be going to Keynote soon, its the Apple "equivalent." I like the presenter mode in PPoint better than Keynote '05 so I am sticking with it for now.

We use two cmputers for CG source on a normal Sunday for now. We have the ability to do the same thigns on both for redundancy, although, fortunately so far, we haven't had to go there. Normally we use one for worship and the sermon notes in ProPresenter and PPoint respectively. We use the other computer for ProVideoPlayer and iTunes.

All images and video content come from PVP. I highly reccomend it, it is also made by Renewed Vision. It allows the click whereever and fire whenever interface like Pro. The real icing on the cake for it is its live editing mode though. You can force transitions & mixes, sort by playlist, change play rate, set videos to loop, palindrome, stop on end, or fire the next at the endpoint. All those features are nice, although not exclusive. What sets it apart is its 'live edit' mode. While a video is live on playback creens you can adjust brightness, contrast, saturation, and cycle through the color spectrum in turn tinting ur video output. When used right it can make for great integration of video and still image content. (Not to mention it works great as an audio player at the same time.)

Well, I am falling asleep, more on this later,
Travis

[worshiptrench]

Trav,
Why don't you use propresenter for everything. My brother is a professional graphics designer who does a lot of design for ANdy Stanley's church (and a Mac addict) and he beats me down with "you gotta get a mac so you can run pro-presn and PVP, man."

Just curious why you don't use it for everything? What would you recommend? Also our video screens are humongo and we need mpeg2 as source or it is grainy. Will PVP run mpeg2 level images?

[dtpuga]

Well, we use ProPresenter for all lyrics and ProVideoPlayer for all other media. PVP will play 'anything that your Quicktime install will play' according to their website. So, if you can play it on your mac you should be able to play it in PVP. The only thing that we don't use one of those two for is some announcemnts and sermon slides. Northpoint, Brownsbridge and Buckhead Church (all three Stanley's) use those two progrms and then Keynote for announcements and sermons illustrations. I already stated why we aren't in Keynote yet.

Sometimes we will create announcements in After Effects or Motion and run them as a straight video loop in PVP. We however still suffer from last minute-itis so I have found that keeping things in PowerPoint (i.e. editable) has saved alot of stress even though we can't make it look as cool.

We DO use propresenter for sermon notes sometimes to but our pastor likes to have the lists that reveal one line at a time on a slide, and that is just easier to set up in PPoint or Keynote. I know, again, that I can make that happen in Pro by just duplicating slides and adding a line but this way is a little easier for now.

The only other thing we use is iTunes. If I am frunning Front of House I usually set up my laptop and play the pre/post music off of it. If I am not the FOH guy on a Sunday we set it up on the iMac that is running PVP and access my office computer's library.

Our setup is not quite as intense as yours it seems. In our 'booth' in addition to the FOH sound stuff, we have 2 iMac 17" (one for Pro/PPoint and one for PVP/iTunes) and an Edirol V4 switcher that runs to our to standard def. projectors. We have a DVD player but try not to use it. Anytime we need a DVD clip, if I have time, I rip it to the PVP iMac's HDD and play it in PVP. This allows me to get only the clip I need and not have to deal with the annying DVD displays on the main screens that we fight on the consumer DVD player we have. We keep the DVD player in place just in case.

I just said a lot real quick, did that make sense?

-Travis

[worshiptrench]

Does PVP output resolution and compression wise the same as a DVD or mpeg2 or is it getting squeezed?

[dtpuga]

PVP Standard will max out at 800 X 600 Res and it will stretch, squeeze, or whatever any footage to make it fill the 800 X 600. If you get the "HD" version of the software you can run it at any resolution.

Know that the 800 X 600 output will still play your HD content it will just look squeezed. When I had HD footage that I didnt want squeezed I just set it in a letterbox in FinalCut to force the resolution to what I wanted.

Travis

[worshiptrench]

so the HD version will play 16:9 ratios? what if i am piping non-HD material through it? all of our new screens are 16:9 and our current projectors even at 4:3 are at 1080 output...sounds like it could be grainy.

I'll have to check into the HD version.

[dtpuga]

The HD wersion will play whatever resoultion you type in the box as far as I know. And yes, it will 'stretch' or pixellate non-HD footage. However, ANYTIME you play something back at a higher resolution than it is formated in you will have the same effect. So if you are doing it now, it shouldn't be different with PVP.

When I create a PPoint presentation at 800 X 600 and play it on a projector that is 1024 X 768 native, I have the same 'issues' to deal with as I would with SD content on PVP to an HD screen.

Currently we are using the SD version of PVP in but new building we will be scaling up to 16 X 9 screens even if the content is not HD. We are getting a scaler to put in line to prepare everything for the native resolution of our 12K projectors. I know that will also make a difference.

I reccomend you visit www.renewedvision.com and check out their specs on Pro and PVP. Give them a call even, they have always been very helpul when I have talked to them.

Travis

[mjdaniel]

I'm reading a lot of diversion back to ProPresenter for MAC users, but if you're still stuck in PC world, check into SongScreen Liquid. It integrates everything into one easy user interface.

[moores90]

I would also suggest Sunday Plus. I have used it for 8 years and its a very easy to use program with a short learning curve with many of the bells and whistles that the other programs have also. It uses quicktime as its viewer, so you can use mpeg, avi, mov, and swf files for video along with playing audio files, ppt files, and has items like nursery call and automated loops that you can make very quickly.

Mike