Mac or PC - just starting out

[joneish]

Our church is about to enter the visual media world and has already purchased the screens and projectors which will soon be installed. I came from a church where we had Media Shout on pc's, but as this church starts off on the ground floor, I would like the decision about which platform and what software to use be made by a team of stakeholders.

I loved MediaShout and wouldn't have any problem using it on a Mac if that's the decision of the team, but does anyone out there have advice as to the PC or Mac platforms for worship media? We will be using video clips and will be projecting lyrics with media backgrounds for the first year or so.

thank you

[Chkurgrnd]

Having moved from PC to Mac I guess I am a little biased. I ran with Easyworship on a PC and worked it do death! I pushed it and it submitted nicely. @ this point I am not presently at a place in our church that media is on my mind as much, thankfully.
How many screens are you hoping to do? Confidence monitor/screen on back wall or a stage monitor perhaps? (Not sure if this church is being setup in a large capacity or not). HD projection? I am asking mainly because of the hardware demands that your facility may be asking for. Adding hardware solutions for Mac is going to be costly, but as you know Mac has very few issues after you're setup. PC will be cheaper and can be expanded for fewer dollars down the road, possibly more beefy as far as memory upgrades. I personally am sitting down and learning ProPresenter just so I know how to use it. ProPresenter was made to be run on a Mac and is hands down the best software for Mac thus far, even to go as far as to say it is the standard.
For the people who will be doing media servitude, are they more PC or Mac savvy? This could be a positive, but even with learning software and what makes it work there is a curve so learning Windows or OSX is fairly simple.
What is your budget for media machines? I guess I have the feeling, regardless of platform, as long as an excellent job can be done and you are being good stewards of the blessings that God has given you, I would go with the less problematic for you to be able to train or whoever would be designated to help do that.

[Esoteric]

For me it is Propresenter, MAC or PC all the way.

[andrewc2]

I'll provide insight from the ProPresenter camp; They have a Mac and a PC version but as of right now I personally believe that the PC version is still not up to the quality of the Mac version, with version 5 around the corner, hopefully the remaining quirks will be worked out. So if you choose to go with ProPresenter I'd highly recommend getting a mac, I've never had problems running it on Mac and if you purchase now, you'll get version 5 when it comes out which adds some features that make it more competitive: Text reflow makes it work just like easyworship at least when it comes to creating slides.

Andrew

[KeckCreative]

I currently use and happy with PC and MediaShout 4.5. I'm historically a PC person. I don't have issue with Macs. I generally think the PC vs. Mac hoopla is more about marketing and aesthetics than performance. It's the human operator that's the main factor, not the equipment. That being said. I would have went with ProPresenter in a heartbeat if there was a PC version when we pulled the trigger. Church had already decided on PC platform. If starting at the ground level and wanting to grow, I'd say ProPresenter on the Mac (as that was the platform the software was originally designed to run).

[Gracetech]

I used to be an Apple fan back in the day. After much frustration with os9 i turned to greener pastures and only occasionally look back to help friends out. At this point in my life i have tried every operating system out their that i can actually get my hands on and i can say without a shadow of doubt that Windows 7 64bit is king. You will not find better network integration with granular control from another Operating System. Stability is on par with anything out their though with all things drivers will be your crux no matter what OS you run.

So running a network of 72 computers and 5 servers not to mentions 170 network devices i couldn't choose any other OS. Not one other platform gives you as much control from an admin level then the one Microsoft has provided. Am i a Microsoft Fan boy? Nope, there are alot of things that Microsoft puts out that i think are weak sauce. I am a true believer in what works though.

Also if you put the numbers together on a network of this size it always looks good from an accounting perspective. Heck you could buy back up computers and servers and still come out way ahead. I do have to admit that Apple knows how to make the hardware look good. Of course who stares at their hardware all the time...well besides me.

In a small setup environment either OS will actually do you fine. It's always good to think about the future though.

crt

[[Director] Joseph B]

I switched to MAC about a year or so ago and love it (won't be going back if I can help it) but the bottom line - computers are just tools and you need to use what works best for you.
The Media Computer at church is a PC with MediaShout. I'd love to go MAC and pro presenter but it's not feasible at this point in time.

[avtechie247]

Just make sure you have plenty of ram. if you go with ProPresenter, it doesn't matter what kind of platform you use.

[dovprst]

Media Shout has bugs in OSX Lion. They need to update it.

[EricE]

I think it comes down to preference. From stability with lack of malware to much better quality hardware that lasts longer I prefer Macs, and we are slowly switching with each computer refresh - even though we have an SBS 2011 network. We will probably always have some PC's, but the majority of staff computers and all the presentation machines are or will be Macs.

Mac's integrate into AD just fine - and much of the management stuff for Windows isn't nearly as urgently needed on Macs. The one thing I am missing - I have the windows desktops backing up through Windows Home Server (yes, running along side the SBS 2011 server) and I love it. I haven't found anything that is quite a slick for the Mac users to backup the desktops, and Lion adds an additional wrinkle with the changes made to TimeMachine. I'm probably going to install an instance of OpenFiler on my Windows Home Server just so I can have network TimeMachine backups again or upgrade the Mini in the sanctuary to a new computer and move it to the server room and load OSX Server on it. I get network TimeMachine backups back as well as some extra management stuff for the Mac's like centralized updates (ala WSUS). Hmm, not a bad idea....

For a small workgroup network? Mac's are the way to go for me...

[cjsebes]

I prefer Macs over Windows PCs, but I use both. At home and at work, I'm 95% Mac and like it that way. At my church, our media set-up is all PC.

- Core2Duo shuttle PC running XP and MediaShout for lyrics on the projector screen also routed to the Videonics MX-1 for overlay on the webcast.

- HP (I think) Core2Duo running XP for encoding and streaming using Flash Media Live Encoder.

- We also have an old laptop there to check the webcast. That's an old Dell Insprion 8200, but it could be anything, really.

This modest little set-up has worked for a few years just fine. We don't use the PCs for doing anything but what they're set up for. We run Windows Update regularly, they don't surf to sites other than Adobe (for rare Flash updates), Vimeo (to upload our VOD services), or an occasional email (through my web-based client access) that I've sent to change streaming settings. We have a good team of guys who can make sure things run smoothly and I don't think we've had a virus on either machine in 3 years. I've even set up the streaming PC so I can log in remotely and make changes if needed using LogMeIn.

Peace.
Chris