Mobile media software

[formarch]

I'm completely new to presentation software so I'm hoping to find some direction for our somewhat unique situation.

We are a worship band that plays at various churches and would like to find a way to have a realatively consistent slide presentation. Currently we have the song lyrics in PPT or .doc and we bring them with us and hope for the best that the media staff can get them to work.

We would like to move in the direction of motion backgrounds and having specific backgrounds for particular songs.

We used to carry our own laptop but often its difficult for the churches to plug our system in especially if the church system is not flexible.

So I'm wondering if there is a presentation software out there that would allow us to bring files with us that could be played on any given computer - kind of like a traveling licence that wouldn't effect the system.

Or maybe there's a another way to go all together - thanks

[jameshorsley197]

My guess is that the church would have to have the same presentation software. Most of the presentation programs have some utility that allows you to move the presentation from one computer to the other but all that I have seen had to have the software on one computer.

[formarch]

I was kind of thinking that so I've asked most of the places were we play what they use and for the most part they're using Media Shout but I noticed on the user survey it looked like users were evenly divided between MS and EW.

Thanks for the input.

Here's a little different question...
I'm a little use to PPT and I typically have panning slides and text but from what I've gathered MS and EW isn't really designed to do that but is rather a program for sequencing events. Do you make those kinds of slides in other programs and if so how do you control when the words need to change. Can you put multiple video layers on one slide. I'm thinking of a movie type background with moving words supperimposed over the top. The movie background would have to run continuesly over several moving text slides. I would have to be able to have control over the text videos so they could change with the song verses. Do you know if this can be done with MS or EW.

Thanks

[Dan Rector]

You have a couple of things working against you. First, as you've found, finding everyone with the same software. Add to that different hardware capabilities at various churches and it becomes very difficult to do all that you want to do.

I was thinking perhaps there was a way to install MS or EW as a Portable Appor something similiar on a USB stick. While technically possible and aside from any legal issues of doing so, its still hit or miss with the hardware requirements you will encounter

Your best bet may be just to have several options available, it makes updating things tougher, but at least you know do what you want. At one end bring a laptop that can do what you want, with the software that does the job. Add to that a PowerPoint (formatted in legacy mode) on a USB stick as the least common denominator with maybe the PowerPoint viewer on the stick just in case.

It sounds like your PowerPoints are somewhat complex, and while MS and EW can handle them in general, I would say they handle linear ppts the best and are probably more similar in flow to their native operation. So maybe you have a complex and a simple ppt. You could also have the songs in text format for easy cut and paste. Perhaps add some video backgrounds you would like to use. That way an operator could create the songs in the app they have if time permits.

I know that you can find the text song format for Media Shout on the web - you could also add that as an easy way for users to add your songs. Perhaps EW has a similar format.

Another thought is that maybe you could work with a couple of churches to set up what you want in MS or EW and then export that to your USB stick. Then they could easily import it and go. (again there are some version issues to consider)

[Dan Rector]

I really didn't answer your question about how MS and EW work. I use MS regularly and have used EW for an event in the past. Both operate on a 'script' model where you lay out a ordered list of things you want to do. Now you are not restricted to that ordering (you can skip around or go off-script), but it is the default playback method. In general the application will contain the text portion (but they do allow a doc or text import) and you point the background at some type of video file either in your library or on disk.

Text over video is absolutely do-able and both of these programs were designed to do this. You would have complete control over the text (at least as far as advancing screen by screen or jumping to a different screen, say if the Spirit led you to repeat the chorus again)

Video over video is possible but pretty limited and probably not going to do what you have in mind not at least without a video mixer and a couple of inputs.

Check out both the websites for both products, both have demos available and there are users here that have offered discounts