Worship Software recommendation

[raw]

I have now spent several hours reading, downloading, and testing various worship software packages. This is all new to me but a few of the items we need are the ability to make immediate updates and announcements without using power-point, but we have to be able to display power point slides if they were created by others. The second requirement we would like is the ability to see most of the praise song in one or multiple windows, this is so the worship leader has the flexibility to skip around or repeat as he feels the spirit is leading him. I liked Easy Worship but as I understand it they require power point to create announcements that loop, and makes it more difficult for on the fly updates. I believe we have narrowed down to MediaShout 3.2 or SongShow Plus 7 at this point but we are still open to other suggestions. Besides the 2 requirements I mentioned above we are also looking for good support and a company that has a history of upgrades. Any advice is very much appreciated.

[ABHin]

Mediashout....we found it too many bugs......
If you do not mind the bugs...then that's great

seems song show plus 7 is quite good, but since it does not support Chinese , so we cannot use that. I like its on-the-fly effects.

[Tony Kanago]

I personally use EasyWorship but I definitely recommend MediaShout for your needs. Try an older version if you need!

[[Director] Joseph B]

PM Me for a great price on Media Shout - However download the trial versions of the various software and try EACH of them. While I love mediashout a good steward will try them all and see which works best for your particular circumstances. After all if there really was a single BEST everyone else would be out of business. All of them are a bit different so see which works best for you.

[[Admin] osborn4]

As always, the right worship software is what works best for your church.

You asked 2 specific questions, however. I can give you the SongShow Plus perspective.

SongShow Plus has it's own slide show builder which allows you to build powerpoint type slide shows, using SSPs 3-d animations and transitions, as well as it's background motion visualizations or video loop. It's not as easy to pick up as PPT and doesn't have all the features (e.g. exit animations). But many who use it love it.

To show a PPT, you need to have a full version of Powerpoint on the machine. But that means you can edit it, just not while it is showing.

Since SSP7's release in June of '06, they have realeased 4 new editions with new features. Here are the features added with each release.

To continue to get the updates, you do have to pay an annual subscription fee ($100/year, if I remember right). they also offer online training classes, if you opt for a higher level subscription.

At SSPlash.com, they have an active user forum, as well as an interactive wish list, where you can vote on what features you'd like to see worked on next. While this isn't the final say in what they work on, it does influence their choices.

They do not have 24/7 phone support. In fact, you have to have a gold level maintenance contract to call on the weekend.

They are not yet fully compatible with Vista. However, the June 2007 edition made some major strides in that direction. Some are using it with no problem. Others are still having issues.

I hope this is useful and doesn't just sound like a plug for SSP. I like SSP a lot, but I tried to include some warts that I know of to try to give a modicum of balance.

[raw]

thanks for the advice, does SSP or MS allow the operator to see most the verses in a song so that if the worship leader changes things (goes back to the first verse and then adds as an example) the operator can try to keep up? That was one thing I liked about Easy Worship and was hoping the others have that feature.

[ABHin]

yes they do

[[Admin] osborn4]

Originally Posted by raw

thanks for the advice, does SSP or MS allow the operator to see most the verses in a song so that if the worship leader changes things (goes back to the first verse and then adds as an example) the operator can try to keep up? That was one thing I liked about Easy Worship and was hoping the others have that feature.

I'm sure Media Shout does this. In fact, I imagine that most all worship software does this. It's the nature of the beast.

With SSP, when you display a song, buttons appear in the control panel for each verse, chorus, bridge, etc. If you hover the mouse over each button, the words for that song item show up as a hover tip, so you can see what you'll be getting before you push the button. (you do have to turn on the "current item control panel" in the view menu and turn on hover tips in the options)

You can also click the down arrow icon next to the song in either the program list or the song database, and it will expand to show all the verses with a play (show) button for each verse.

[ncmacasl]

MS does all that you ask and is on its 3rd version and continually releases updates and bug fixes. their forum is very helpfuo as well and is read by their staffers who respond to problems quickly. It is very powerful and flexible. It can be set up to be very easy button-clicks for beginners and volunteers to display, while is strong enough to do all types of task, including looping, display at a certain time, etc.

[ABHin]

I do not agree. The problems i faced recently, their staff cannot answer me, and keep asking me to "update the drivers" and "get windows updates". I am tired of this.

Moreover, Mediashout is getting even more buggy as i update the versions. And now, the playback bar is missing... LOL
Sometime, i even got errors for editing the song lyrics...
The transitions got slower now, and the video got choppy, AS I CHANGE A NEW DISPLAY CARD ATI X1650 256MB!!! LOL

Tomorrow i am going to have a presentation, hope that would succeed.....for MS not getting errors....

[Sysmom]

Try them all - and take your time doing it. Have several people do the same trying them out - those who will be using it. If they're only going to be using it as the operator, then provide them with a presentation that is like they'll be using.

This is how we decided to go ahead and upgrade to MediaShout 3, and I was NOT a fan of MediaShout 2.whatever. I was the first in line to dump it, until we spent about 6 weeks evaluating other products.

We ultimately made a list of the things we REQUIRED, and a list of the things that each of the main candidates did poorly, and went with MediaShout.

It has not been buggy for us for a very long time. It, like any complex graphic software, has things that must be memory intensive, and so we have made some usage guidelines that prevent public disasters.

1. We only run it after a fresh reboot - (The machines it runs on have 2 gigs of ram, 512Vram, and are around ~3mHz dual core processors)
2. We don't allow auto updates from any of the software. Sheesh, that happened to me once during service!
3. We don't run any other software while it is going, except for WMP, Windows Explorer and AIM on one computer, Audacity on the other.
4. We never load in two cues with video anywhere in them back to back. Never. Ever.
5. We only let trained people run the show
6. We never put a nursery call up during a video.
7. I have prepared BAIL keys and images ready at all times, but we rarely ever need them.

Most of that is simply common sense when you're running a presentation package during an event. But they're all things that we had to learn the hard way because there just was no list before this of any of those things.

It actually came down to two packages, Media Shout and ... I forget which other one. And the actual deciding factor was ... believe it or not ....

Media Shout allowed comments on the operator's panel. This leaves me free to leave specific instructions about the service that day to the operators.

The other package did not allow for comments. And had no intention of adding them or even saw a value in them.

We'd be lost without comments. Not only do they not have TIME to reference back and forth between printed instructions and the Media Shout control panel, they'd never be able to see the printed paper. Our computer operators work in the very dim lighting. There's very little light at the computer stations.

I'm sure there's churches everywhere which get by fine without comments in their script. But wow, I don't think we could now that we've had them.

I leave instructions there - I leave cues the speaker will be giving, I leave caveats about a potential change, you name it.

We all laughed afterwards that it was something as simple as a comment line which proved to be the single deciding factor. Because you'd really never guess it could be THAT important.

deb

[LjStevens]

We use Media Shout (San Antonio). I really like it - - plays all kinds of video files and still runs the ppt loops (announcements/pastor's stuff). I'd highly recommend it!