Welcome TFWM Readers!

I received my copy of the issue recently so I imagine there will be some new visitors to the site trickling in.  Unfortunately I haven’t posted in a long time as I’ve had some major events occur in my life that I hope to share some day in the future.  Needless to say God has been doing some big things in my life to further mold me into the person He wants me to be.

I created this site as a resource for those wanting to learn about sound boards and church audio, but a string of posts comparing MediaShout and ProPresenter became more popular than I could have anticipated and opened up the opportunity to work with Mike Sessler and Jay Delp to create the article that may have led you here.

Some of the postings here have more detail than I was able to include with the limitations of the magazine article.  And I’d be happy to interact and try to answer any questions if there was something the article couldn’t answer for you.  Just leave a comment here or find my contact info on the about page.  At the moment I can’t guarantee much in terms of response time, but I will make an effort to respond as quickly as I can.

Thanks for stopping by!

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, The View from 20,000 Feet

MediaShout and ProPresenter have some big differences in how they operate that are inherited from their platform. ProPresenter uses QuickTime, MediaShout uses DirectX, etc. But there’s also a big difference in the user interface that is by design and not just because of the computer the program runs on.

The person responsible for making MediaShout work uses tools such as Scripts and Cues. The ProPresenter operator relies on playlists and miniature versions of the actual slide as you would see it on the big screen. This isn’t a matter of one method being superior to the other, but they are completely different in how easy it is for a user to get results and be able to make last minute changes. And as the ongoing debates I participate in demonstrate, everyone has their own preference for which option is better.

As I said, MediaShout’s primary tool is called a script. This is because it can have all the same content as the actual script for your production. The content of your production is placed in order from top to bottom. Section headers can divide the script into different parts, such as “Announcements”, “Music”, “Sermon”, etc. The lyrics or notes can be seen like normal written text, or hidden away to only see titles. The user interface isn’t so much a preview of what you will get on the big screen, it is a detailed view of what is coming up and can give you enough information that you won’t need a copy of the script next to you. The contents of the full script appear from top to bottom much like a document.

On the contrary, a preview is exactly what you get with ProPresenter. The operator selects what goes on the screen by clicking on a miniature picture of exactly how the output will appear. The Renewed Vision team wanted to give you a full “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWG) experience. So rather than see the lyrics in a paragraph format like you would find in a script, you see the individual lines inside boxes positioned exactly as they will appear on the projector once you click on them. Likewise, the background and foreground elements are divided so that you can click on different backgrounds for the same slide as you feel compelled to. All the background options appear on the bottom half of the screen and you can click on them at any time without affecting the foreground (the words or pictures being presented).

Generally speaking, MediaShout is geared more for the person who has planned the whole script in advance, while ProPresenter allows for more fluid on-the-fly options. The MediaShout operator can go through the whole production by hitting nothing more than the spacebar over and over because the whole script is already present and in order, while the ProPresenter operator will have to rely on the mouse to change songs or find the appropriate video clip or background graphic. On the other hand, the ProPresenter user will have an easier time switching between slides if last minute changes means you need to find a different slide than was already planned for a given segment.

I’m not saying the MediaShout operator can’t stray from the script or be more dynamic, it just isn’t the default mode. You can scroll up and down the script and double-click any entry that you want to switch to right away. And there’s a couple of additional windows MediaShout has that works much like ProPresenter, showing thumbnail views of different video clips, graphics, or even songs that you can have sitting on the side just in case.

MediaShout vs ProPresenter, Round 5

I’m glad to see that Renewed Vision is actively adding to the feature list in ProPresenter. Mike’s recent posting inspired me to write about one of the features unique to MediaShout that I love to use.

Above is the screen you get when you insert a “Script Control” type cue into the MediaShout script. If you want to loop through a series of announcements (stills or videos, or any other type of cue), and then automatically start a video (opener or countdown) at a given time, you can do so with two script controls. The first control tells the system to loop, the second has the box marked “Start Action At:” with the appropriate start time.

This means that I can start the announcements and then go backstage to talk to the worship team or whatever, and even without my presence the announcements fade out and automatically begins the opening video (which then cues me that I have x minutes to get back to the booth).

Want to buy MediaShout?

I’m willing to bet that most of my readers are going to favor ProPresenter since that is the type of people I am doing ministry with most of the time.

But I’ve been using MediaShout more often recently with a couple of events and I’ve decided to pursue becoming an official reseller.

I’ll be doing video (and possibly sound) for the Southeast Conference of the Covenant Church in a couple of weeks, and I’m building a custom desktop for the job, which will be for sale including MediaShout after the event.

Here’s what’s included:

• nVidia card with 256 MB RAM
• Windows Vista Home Premium (can be upgraded to Business if your church has a domain)
• 2 x 160 GB hard drives with RAID mirroring protection (the two hard drives work together as one and keep functioning in case a drive failes)
• 2 GB of RAM
• Duo Core processor, not sure of the GHz yet
• 19″ widescreen LCD

I’m estimating the price tag will be somewhere around $1600, including the licensed copy of MediaShout. I’m also considering the idea of providing a support plan for an additional $300 or so, but not sure about this yet. The support plan would include LogMeIn.com IT tools so I can remote into the machine when you call about various problems, AVG anti-virus, and CounterSpy anti-spyware, in addition to automated patch management and monitoring software that will warn of any hardware failures or other preventable issues.

Anybody have any feedback? The price seems high to me, but it is quite low compared to the ProPresenter prices, and you get the extra features like the redundant hard drives (something I would never live without on a production machine).

MediaShout vs ProPresenter, Round 4

Question for you ProPresenter fans out there:

On Wednesday nights there’s a group that meets in the room I volunteer at. They watch a 35 minute clip that’s on a DVD and then break out into small groups. I’m trying to simplify my life by capturing the DVD clips and converting them to H.264 format. This would be particularly useful next week because I will be absent, and they are showing 2 clips from 2 different DVD’s. So my preference would be to have the clips on the hard drive ready to go in ProPresenter rather than have my substitute mess with switching discs, etc.

So, last Wednesday, I tried running my H.264 clip. It was 640×480 and encoded at 1200 kbps. I figured this was a reasonable quality for a standard definition projector, not too high, not too low. I watched the first five minutes before hand, everything looked good. So the event starts, I click the video. And about 10 minutes in, the audio and video get out of sync. After a few more minutes it got so bad that people started coming up to the sound board to see if I noticed (Yes, I did, thanks). I ended up switching to the DVD mid clip.

What’s weird is that the video on the local computer display was fine, it was the projector feed that was horribly out of sync. I’m thinking it was just too high quality for feed for that computer. Am I right? How low can I go without noticeable loss? Any other recommendations?

When a program like ProPresenter or MediaShout runs the video in two different places at once (on the projector’s output and on the preview display), it takes quite a few computer resources to pull that off. That’s why MediaShout defaults to not showing the video on the local display, it only shows the thumbnail (along with Play/Pause, seek bar, etc), but there is an option to turn it on if you think your computer can handle it.

Does ProPresenter have any such option to turn off the local preview? Would it help in this case?

MediaShout vs ProPresenter, Round 3

I was going to save Round 3 for another day, but Mike’s already commented on Round 2 and it seemed necessary to respond.

Round 3: Reliability

Winner: Nobody, it’s all a bloody mess. Mike has blogged about his horrible experience trying to play an AVI file in MediaShout. For me, I would have checked what codec was used on the AVI and (re)install or fix it. I probably could have had it working faster than the time he took to convert the video. I have mentioned the problems I’ve been having with ProPresenter on the computer I work with at North Point (and my “boss” there has gotten quite the earful on it). Likewise, the right Mac expert can probably fix that computer in no time. The fact is, all computers are prone to some kind of failure, whether it is a hard drive failure, bad memory chip, improperly installed software, malware, poorly written add-ons, etc.

Okay, maybe the statistics say that Pro/Macs win this round too. But I’m not going to repeat everything I said in Round 1. I once heard a quote, I think it was C.S. Lewis but could be wrong…something to the effect, “That which has the greatest potential for good also has the greatest potential for evil”, or possibly the inverse. Point is, a PC has a lot of open doors which could be really really bad, or really really good, equal potential in either direction. A Mac has the same relationship. A functional properly installed/maintained PC has great potential and can do more than the Mac will allow. A messed up PC will be so much worse than a messed up Mac.

So if you are reading these posts trying to make up your mind about which platform to go with or what software…re-read Round 1 and go with whatever you have the best support for. If your IT dept (or IT volunteers as the case may be) are better at working with Macs, go with ProPresenter. And if you have a shortage of IT volunteers, then Mac/Pro is probably the safer option as well. (Notice I said safer, I can’t bring myself to say “better”, there’ll be a lot of features you miss out on, I’ll get to those in future rounds.)

MediaShout vs ProPresenter, Round 2

MediaShout:

• Laptop with good amount of video memory, and decent processor: $600

• Cost of software: $429

ProPresenter:

• Check out the Renewed Vision store if you want to see who wins this round.

Disclaimer:

Okay, so the Macs that Renewed Vision sells have a 2.0 GHz processor vs the 1.7 I saw at TigerDirect. But the point is PC’s are a lot cheaper. You can still buy a 2 GHz PC for a lot less than $1140. And a 1.7 dual core is more than adequate for most applications. My last event that I ran Mediashout at was a Men’s Retreat for the Covenant Southeast Conference. I was using my personal laptop for recording, and using my wife’s laptop (which was my laptop years ago) for MediaShout. That computer is a 1.4 GHz *single* core processor with 768 MB RAM. Granted, it was simple as far as video clips and such go, but it handled the job just fine without any complications. I even played AVI’s, FLV’s, and SWF files on it. MediaShout will play anything as long as you have the proper codec installed.

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.

Presentation Software

At North Point, I’m just a volunteer at the bottom of the food chain.  So I don’t get to be involved in creative process (generally speaking, there are exceptions) or make administrative decisions.  One of which is to use ProPresenter and Macs exclusively for all video, lyrics, and even music.  So I’ve learned to use it as best I can and try to appreciate what we have (that they’re not making me use PowerPoint!).

More than not, I’d rather be behind the sound board mixing than behind the computer managing what’s up on the screens.   I’m not really visually wired, I love the worship experience of being behind the mixing console, closing my eyes (with my hands one or two key volume faders), and soaking in the experience.  But for some reason God has been putting me more and more into the position of running the computer graphics and being responsible for the creative components of projecting lyrics, backgrounds, video clips, etc.

So in the environments where I’m the creative director and I make the executive decisions, I use MediaShout on my own laptop.

At Highlands Church, I’ve also had the opportunity to see EasyWorship in action and play with it a little.  Granted, not as much as the other alternatives, so my opinions are worth no more than what you are paying for them.  But I’d like to share my opinions on the software and offer my perspective on which option to go with if you are considering a purchase for your ministry.

My preference is clearly for MediaShout over ProPresenter, just as I would prefer to have a PC than a Mac.  When staff at North Point hear me say this, they respond, “I’ll pray for you.”  And so be it.  But I do make a living working on PC’s, and know them inside and out, so one could say I’m biased.   Keep that in mind when reading future posts where I attempt to compare the different options.

Mike Sessler has a clear opinion too and would much rather have ProPresenter.  He blogs about his transition from MediaShout and I posted some comments if you want to follow along.