A reader needs help!

The following was posted by Twila on another post as a comment.  I’m not the Mac/ProPresenter expert, so I figured I’d bring it to the foreground here if anyone can help out.

I have recently become involved in a church that uses ProPresenter. In the past I have used MediaShout or SongshowPlus. One problem we are having with ProPresenter is that the pastor likes to have his sermon information in a powerpoint presentation which he controls from the pulpit. Unfortunately, once we start PowerPoint, if we do anything on the mac (including moving the mouse, etc.) it locks up PowerPoint. Is this common or does anyone know of a solution?

ProPresenter strikes again

For a perfect program run on a perfect computer, it sure is out to get me.  This past Sunday morning I was running sound/video for a volunteer orientation.  Part of that orientation was to show a video, which was given to me on a USB stick.  On the disk were two copies of the video, higher quality and lower quality.  I added the lower quality video to the playlist and tested it, video played in its entirety with no problem.

Later my boss came in (still before the event started) and asked if the higher quality video had worked and if I tested it.  I explained that I just worked with the lower quality and she requested that I try the higher quality.  By this time people were already gathered in the room and I had no video switcher to keep the video off the screens for people to see.  So she says just to try it out in Quicktime “because if it works in Quicktime, it will definitely work in ProPresenter”.

So I do, and the video stutters a little.  Then I open the lower quality video and play the whole thing in Quicktime, which works fine.  I add the video back to the playlist and the event starts.

It comes time to start the video, and it doesn’t start.  I click.  Nothing happens, I click a couple of times, finally the video starts.  And stutters, and pauses, and resumes and stutters.  It stopped for 1 second every 4 or 5 seconds.  I was so embarrassed, I tested this video in advance, even played it in Quicktime, there is no reason why this should have been happening.  I’m guessing the CPU was busy working on something else, but darned if I know what.  Do Macs have an equivalent to the Task Manager in Windows that lets you see all running processes and their CPU usage?

So that’s my story.  I don’t know what I could have done differently.  I was wrestling with whether or not to stop the video or try something else, but I didn’t have DVD backup or anything to fall back on, so I let it run through the whole 3 minutes that way.  I’m thinking I’m just going to use my own laptop and MediaShout for all future events.  At least until North Point kicks me out for defiling their equipment like that.

MediaShout vs ProPresenter, Round 1

Based on my conversations with people who have decided on MediaShout or ProPresenter, the PC vs Mac debate is really at heart of the issue.  Some of the other issues like “Ease of use” are really just side issues based on which platform you are more used to or can handle.

So Round 1 has to come out in favor of ProPresenter.  Macs are easier to use, easier to train volunteers on, and generally speaking (though I’ve seen exceptions first hand) are more reliable.

But, I still choose PC’s and Mediashout for the same reasons.  Macs are easier to use and more reliable because they leave you with fewer choices.  Businesses default to the PC platform not because they are easier to use, but because they are easier to customize.  Their potential is greater because the PC platform is generally open to any form of customizing you want to do and you can make a PC do something you want it to even if Microsoft didn’t think of it first.

I’m generalizing here, but the opposite is true for a Mac.  If Steve Jobs & Co didn’t think of it first (or Renewed Vision in this discussion), there’s little you can do to add the feature yourself.  This is why Macs are more reliable, people aren’t customizing it with conflicting options or accidentally changing something they didn’t intend to.  Developers can’t write code that has the same access to the core of the system the way they can on a PC.  This is great if the only developers you interact with write viruses, but bad if you run a business and want to hire developers who can automate your business.

The catch to it all is, you have to know what you are doing.  This means that the PC user needs more training, and generally speaking the average user won’t get to utilize the benefits unless they go into advanced training and learn to develop their own software solutions.  ProPresenter and Macs in general take much less training to get a new volunteer used to using it, and it’s difficult for them to mess anything up because their aren’t nearly as many options to mess up.

The bottom line is that if you give me a good computer with MediaShout installed, I can usually accomplish more and spend less money than anyone using ProPresenter.  But I know what I’m doing, and I will freely admit it’s harder to get a volunteer to start doing what I do.