OpenSong: Best of the Freebies?

[LaneLester]

I'm the new video guy at my church, and Presentation Manager is our software. It has characteristics I don't like, and I want to look at options. Buying another expensive package is probably not one of my options, so I've been looking at the freebies.

OpenSong seems to be the best of the bunch, in terms of active development, interface, and Bible versions available (my pastor uses the NKJV).

Do you have an opinion?

Lane

[[Director] Joseph B]

Try it out and if you like it, it's the one for you.

[kbob]

We briefly used it at my former church as a live production system, before turning to EW. We went to it for an all in once control surface, but OpenSong certainly was good.

[waynehoskins]

We used Opensong for a while several years ago. It's pretty good.

Drawbacks (with that version at least) included modal nature: you couldn't edit while in Show mode. Limited non-lyric support (e.g., images, certainly no video). One of the features I loved about it was that it was quite functional on a single-display computer, using hotkeys to navigate through a song and setlist. Perfect for using on that vintage of laptop that might only support mirrored displays.

For a two-display setup (edit, program), my favorite freebie is Lyricue. It's a Linux program, but excellently written. Its user interface and workflow are more similar to the commercial worship software. It follows the client-server model, so you could operate it from a laptop or tablet in the congregation (that's how its author uses it) or locally. I don't believe it had video playback support, but it handled images well.

Lots of good free/open-source software out there, most of them used regularly by their designers. Lots of good commercial software out there too. See what works best for your church.

[LaneLester]

Thanks for the replies. If I were the only person involved, I would take a good look at Lyricue, since Linux is my main OS at home. I would also consider OpenSong as an option, because I've learned more good things about it.

But there are several other people who diddle with the software one way or another. They are used to Presentation Manager, and a switch is not important enough to try to sell them on it.

Lane

[timtaman5]

We have been using OpenSong for lyric and scripture presentation for about a year. I have found it easy use and to train others (inexperienced) to use as well. We also use a software that is also free for download called ScreenMonkey to present various types of media ( i.e. video, music, etc.). You can also layer one media over another in ScreenMonkey. Also when ScreeMonkey is in presentation mode it will overtake OpenSong and will return to OpenSong presentation when ScreeMonkey presentation is stopped. ScreenMonkey is also capable of displaying lyrics as well. God Bless!!