Opinions on worship software.

[Chris3jam]

Right now, we use Powerpoint for our worship software. I've also downloaded a Mediashout demo, and learned the very basics. Those are the only ones with which I am familiar, so far. I am looking for opinions, though. If I were to make the change from Powerpoint, which one would be the easiest to use, plus be most versatile for church presentations? For instance, one of the issues I have with both Powerpoint and Mediashout is that moving video does not move properly. There are jerks and gliches that I just cannot make go away, particularly in changing videos and/or slides. What are your (collective) opinions on the various software out there?

[LeAnn B]

The jerks and glitches may have to do with your computer performance but I can tell you my personal experience. I had used SundayPlus for a long time and couldn't use video backgrounds because of the jerkiness. I recently switched to EasyWorship and haven't had any more problems with video!

LeAnn

[[Admin] osborn4]

You'll find proponents of most all the worship media out there. I prefer SongShow Plus, but that doesn't mean it will be right in your organization.

Fortunately, they all have free trials, so you an check them out.

If you are getting jerks and glitches in MediaShout, it could be that your projector is underpowered or cluttered with adware.

Can you tell us more about your machine? There are certainly MediaShout experts around that could help you figure out what the problem might be.

[GospelLighthouse]

Try Worship Live! It integrates PowerPoint, scripture, images, audio, songs, songs with audio, automated screen changes to audio, slideshows, announcements, notes for the tech guys, video, songs with video backgrounds, and even has a built-in countdown timer. It can sync a common database of songs over the internet among multiple worship leaders. We use Worship Live! to produce a multimedia playlist of multiple elements (video, audio, Powerpoint, songs, etc.) for our weekly children's program. Dual-monitor capable. Preview videos with a single-click, go live with a double-click. One thing Worship Live! has that most presentation software doesn't is that it can store chord sheets for the worship band, and on-the-fly it strips out the chords for projection. That way you don't need multiple versions of the song. Lyric sheets, lead sheets, and projection slides all from the same song file. Click on a chord to hear it played. Worship Live! is inexpensive too.

[[Admin] danroth]

There are lots of programs out there. Each has its positives and negatives.

If you're making the transition from PowerPoint, many of the programs will play PowerPoint files - which can also be helpful when other people create them and you want to show them.

EasyWorship tends to get credit from most folks for living up to its name in ease of use.

Song Show Plus and Media Shout (both on Windows) and ProPresenter (on Mac) are popular programs which are rich in features. (disclaimer: all three are advertised on this website by various people, although that's not why I'm mentioning them)

There are also many other packages with loyal fans for different reasons. (For instance, Presenter is popular in Australia.)

[Chris3jam]

Originally Posted by osborn4

You'll find proponents of most all the worship media out there. I prefer SongShow Plus, but that doesn't mean it will be right in your organization.

Fortunately, they all have free trials, so you an check them out.

If you are getting jerks and glitches in MediaShout, it could be that your projector is underpowered or cluttered with adware.

Can you tell us more about your machine? There are certainly MediaShout experts around that could help you figure out what the problem might be.

Well, I downloaded the demo to my laptop. As I was getting familiar with it, I went to their website, and joined their forum. I asked a bunch of questions, and I made the changes they suggested, but the video *still* glitches (when changing from one to another, or when the video starts/stops playing, or it gets caught up in a loop). Otherwise, it seems like a great program!

I will have to try and check out the others that have been mentioned.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by danroth

(For instance, Presenter is popular in Australia.)

It's made by a Aussie, EasyWorship is probably the most popular ATM down here, though SongShow Plus is getting ahead very well.

[twj]

Laptops are often known to have under powered video cards for worship software. I have SongShow Plus on my notebook and it can be quite slow. However, our desktop PCs with higher end video cards have no problems handling the software. I'm guessing that the other programs could have similar problems on most lap tops.

[[Admin] danroth]

unfortunately laptops often use shared memory for their video and have other characteristics that make them unable to adequately render video using higher-end presentation software

[voyager529]

Originally Posted by Chris3jam

Well, I downloaded the demo to my laptop. As I was getting familiar with it, I went to their website, and joined their forum. I asked a bunch of questions, and I made the changes they suggested, but the video *still* glitches (when changing from one to another, or when the video starts/stops playing, or it gets caught up in a loop). Otherwise, it seems like a great program!

I will have to try and check out the others that have been mentioned.

First, a little background: Powerpoint is a business-oriented program. While it is versatile enough to enable lyrics presentation, it is not designed for it. Most churches (mine included) started out using Powerpoint because the church already had a copy of it along with someone who knew how to use it well enough to bring it into the Sunday morning service. The problem is, since Powerpoint is designed primarily for business, it lacks many of the features that most of us rely on in our worship software (i.e. solid video and DVD playback support). Because Powerpoint was designed primarily for business users for presentations, it was designed to run on *very* light hardware; most business-grade notebooks lack good GPU's or high-power processors because most business laptops rarely run anything more power-hungry than Office and a web browser. Additionally, Powerpoint 2000's animation engine remained largely unchanged from Powerpoint 4.0; said engine was designed to run on Intel 386 processors! XP/2003/2007 definitely modernized the process, but was still designed to run on very light hardware; the "Set up Show" dialog makes using a graphics processor *optional*. Powerpoint is great in the regard that it will run on pretty much anything you give it (or rather *don't* give it), but the obvious side effect is its limited functionality. This is where worship software and its higher system requirements come in...

It's been touched on by a few others here, but I'll ask outright: can you tell us the specs of the laptop you're trying this on? Processor/RAM/Hard Drive/make&model of the graphics chipset? I remember a few years back using Mediashout 2 (much easier on system resources than version 3, but less powerful) on a 1.1GHz celeron with 256MBytes of RAM and a Trident graphics chipset using 8Mbytes of shared RAM. The laptop was so slow, doing cross dissolves on still images took the machine to its limit and the refresh rate was woefully visible. Conversely, I run Mediashout 3 on a Core 2 Duo @ 1.67GHz with 2Gbytes of RAM and an nVidia Geforce Go 7600 w/256Mbytes of dedicated RAM. I can run Mediashout 3 with power to spare. The guts of your machine are going to directly dictate what you can and cannot do in regards to video in the context of worship presentation.

If you are using a lower end laptop and are unable to upgrade at all, then realize that no matter what package you get, you will be limited in your capabilities. For example, let's hypothetically assume that SongShow Plus is easy enough on your hardware to enable you to show a video without a problem (I don't know whether this is the case or not, but for the sake of argument we'll say that it is). You may experience glitches or lag when showing lyrics over video, and if you try their layering feature (SSP reads alpha channels and as such can show multiple pieces of media at once if said media has transparency information), it will likely be unusably slow for you. From here, one must make a choice: purchase software that runs on hardware you currently own, even if it is not the optimal choice for your situation and volunteers, or purchase the software that works best for you along with a computer that can run it. Obviously I recommend option B (whichever title that may be, though I'm a Mediashout user myself if you haven't already guessed), but I'm acutely aware that it's sometimes difficult to sell your moneymen on the option that isn't cheaper.


Joey

[Rick Everingham]

Joey is spot on in his assessment. All the major software packages have their pros and cons. Our church has used SongShowPlus for 6+ years and are very, very happy with it. But the real key is making sure your hardware will support the features you want to use, whether it is SSP, MediaShout, EW, Presenter or any other package. If your hardware isn't up to the task, no software will perform well. That is by far the biggest mistake most churches make, they try and run the software's advanced features on a low-end pc.

[MPCC Media]

It does not really matter how great your computer is, you should not be running directly off of a hard drive. I've seen reports of how even some of the best computers out there these days have issues with skipping right in the middle of service while running through any good software.
The safest way to play video is from a DVD.

And my personal favorite lyrics program is EasyWorship. Takes about 5 minutes to teach a teenager how to use it.