Just had a meeting about the presentation computers and software in the Student Zone – and guess what – we’re making the switch!
Look out world, we’re going to be using Macs and running the screens with ProPresenter. I think this is a good move, but being a long-term PC user and always programming with PowerPoint and MediaShout I wanted to hear your reaction. Anyone out there using ProPresenter? Here’s some of the company line:
Perfect for live events and houses of worship, ProPresenter utilizes two screens, empowering users to quickly and easily present slides on one screen, while controlling the presentation with another screen.
Unlike linear slide shows, ProPresenter’s volunteer-friendly interface allows an operator to click on a slide in our “Control Panel”, at which point the projector screen immediately transitions to the new slide using high-quality cross-dissolves of both audio and video.
JG
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Josh Griffin has been in youth ministry for 15+ years and serves as the High School Pastor at Saddleback Church. [
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Geoff Stewart serves the Jr / Sr High School Pastor at Peace Portal Alliance Church in Surrey B.C.
wish i had some feedback to offer but i don’t.
wish we had macs at the church but we don’t.
i remain trapped in the hell we call pc’s.
we just made the switch from PC/MediaShout to Mac/ProPresentor. PP with Mac is far superior. The only down side is it has a steeper learning curve. Once you get familiar with the software the capabilities are much greater.
I’ve used most of them and like PP the best. It’s a cleaner interface, and (my opinion) a better all around product.
Good luck!
Great choice. Mac also has some incredible software for research, writing and productivity – the best I can find.
Omnifocus – Todos on Drugs – Awesome App
DevonThink – Research/Reference
Scrivener – Incredible for Writing
Bookends
Yojimbo
Rapidweaver – incredible website builder (what iWed is failing to copy)
haha iWed – the new Apple app for singles looking to get hitched!
I meant iWeb which is part of their iLife series.
do u know easyworship?
That’s awesome…
We don’t use Pro-Presenter yet… But from what I’ve heard, once you go Mac, you never go back!
Jim
Out of the three PowerPoint, MediaShout and Easyworship, I have found that MediaShout is the easiest to use. Unfortunately, I’ve never had the chance to use ProPresenter.
We moved from Media Shout to ProPresenter in January and it has been a pretty easy transition. Our media team has welcomed the changed and there is not that huge of a learning curve, in our opinion. The bes thing for us quality. We edit with Final Cut Pro so being able to export natively to say a H264 QuickTime Movie AND…AND….not losing quality in playback is huge for us.
aj
I’ve evaluated and used Easyworship, Mediashout, and ProPresenter. If you’re on PC’s then, I would definitely go with Easyworship. It is much easier to use than anything out there. And it works as advertised without crashing. Mediashout is more powerful, but it is more confusing and takes a while to train people on it. On macs, propresenter is the way to go. And if you team it up with ProVideoPlayer, you can do some awesome multi-screen setups. I’m contemplating switching over to macs, but $$ may stop me.
Please send your unwanted PCs to my ministry.
Thank you
I’ve been a Mac user for 9+ years. Once you go Mac you never go back. Welcome to 2008.
We use SongShow plus in the sanctuary and PowerPoint in the youth service. I do the slides for both – I don’t really like SongShow except for … showing songs (sermon notes and announcements slides are complicate, not easy to use) – PPT is ok. I guess everyone cuts their teeth on PPT.
If you are giving away old PCs, I one – esp. if it is a laptop.
Can’t hurt to ask.
We’ve been using EZWorship on the PC for songs and Keynote on the Mac for presentations.
Keynote is a killer app. Once you learn some of the basic principles, you’ll realize how powerful it is! Your presentation quality for messages will go through the roof. Ditch PowerPoint ASAP!!!!
We have used Media Shout for about 5 years now…and have just taken the steps to ProPresenter. We still use Media Shout on our Mac (using bootcamp) and it works great! BUT we do, as others have mentioned have to sacrifice some video quality becasue MS won’t play .mov files.
However, I LOVE the way we can do our whole service–Announcements, music lyrics, sermon slides, video clips, even audio backtracks–from media Shout, and we won’t be able to do that in ProPresenter.
we use macs and pro-presenter…best things out there to do media effectively that i’ve found in my opinion. i heard some other opinions, but we love it and it works perfect for us! congrats and i hope it works out well…i know it well!
DUDE! We’ve were using PP @ Highlands for years. They are using a very complicated CG at my new church… but I am pushing hard for PP! I love it! Nice move!
Welcome to the family bro. Just made the move in December myself. I looked at propresenter and proplayer and it is killer! I really want to make that move. I also have a friend who has created a killer countdown/keep track of each portion of your session program that is about to release. I will let you know when it is done for public. It is amazing!
it is true…once you go mac, you never go back.
we switched to ProPresenter and couldn’t be happier. great software, and the latest updates allow so many options that make sense and are so easy for volunteers to use.
our whole church has now switched.
we just used it for a conference recently, worked smoothly, couldnt be happier.
the best part about the software, is the company who creates it. they are so good about responding to issues or questions…even better, i asked them about a missing feature that i was hoping for. one week later, it was included in the update.
wow, it feels like im a salesman for them, but when you love a product, you gotta give it mad props!
We made the switch Dec 1st in the worship rooms from PC to Mac- Media Shout to Pro presenter and it has been fantastic. No more video glitches, easy interface, as powerful or as easy as you want to make it. The only suggestion is make sure you get a mouse that you can use right click features on and things are much easier and faster.
The way it works with CCLI is great too, like media shout did to but actually a bit easier for songs. Also we just take our powerpoint files and export them as .jpgs and they work fantastic and you dont have to switch programs since pro presenter does not fire .ppt files. Also if you have multiple venues it is super simple to export your presentations from the main computer (unlike the database method in media shout) We keep all of our presentations on one main computer and send out a file on the server each week that the venues just double click and all the presentations are there.
Great move, you will be happy!
I’m a big PP fan. Really powerful, and the video output you get from it looks amazing. Great choice.
Just wondered if you have looked at LiveWorship at all?
http://www.liveworship.com
We use it in our home church, and love it.
Josh –
Our church uses MediaShout and it has its problems. We do the media presentations for both the Youth Ministry and Women’s Ministry and just started using ProPresenter. ProPresentor is far better than MediaShout and offers a lot of flexibility. It will queue ‘live video’ or DVD tracks as log as they are connected via the FireWire port. You can change background video or stills on the fly (you have text up and want to change the background you just click the new background video or still).
Someone mentioned about using PowerPoint or Keynote, ProPresentor will allow you to switch between it and either Keynote or PowerPoint (although there is a trick in starting PowerPoint that you have to use). If we are given a PowerPoint presentation we will just open it in Keynote. The PP people suggest that you make the switch while on a black slide in both programs.
Our church is doing 2 major events this weekend. Friday we are having David Crowder in concert (we understand he uses PP) along with Matthew Barnett (pastor of the Dream Center) and then on Saturday the women are have an all day event with David Crowder doing morning worship and several other speakers. My wife is doing the media stuff for both events and will be using PP. We plan to hook her MacBook Pro to the video production company’s equipment. All the media has been created using Final Cut Studio (FC, LiveType, Motion) and is loaded into PP. My wife will be using Keynote for speaker notes as well.
We saw a demo of their ProVideoPlayer at YS Youthworkers Convention and it is truly awesome. We think YS was using PP for part of their main stage stuff.
Any questions, I would be happy to share.
Mike Farmer
hey josh just wait till you get to use the live video feature on the newest version man it is awesome!!!
So if you guys are making the switch to PP does that mean you will stop selling Media Shout at Simply?
Well pro presenter is much better and they have tutorials online at renewedvision.com. If you watch those you will be an expert on all that you need to know how to do. It’s pretty user friendly.
Zion has been using Media Shout for a number of years and after taking a visit to Northpoint we realized that we needed to make some changes. We are really media heavy here, so I decided to demo Pro Presenter myself. Wow….switching from Media Shout to this as far as the learning curve is concerned was not difficult at all. It is so easy to change background etc. with just one click. The ability to play our .mov files from this one program is amazing and will save money on the dvd’s that we have been burning. I’m so excited for this change…I’m actually training our lead Media Shout person today.
We have been using Pro Presenter at our church for several years…has been great to work with.
Some of my own photography is used (see web site)…I take several sequence photos and these can be used throughout presentations.