Pro Presenter vs Songshow Plus

[jksbc]

Originally Posted by bodowd

My church runs SSP with multi-screens. We have a video splitter that runs it on our computer monitor and on our screen for the congregation. We're about to add two more projectors and two more screens. Hasn't given us any issues...

I believe what they are referring to is support for more than one image on multiple screens not multiple screen support. ProPresenter offers a package with a Triplehead2go that allows you to stretch your background image across three screens or tile it. You also have the option to put lyrics on any screen or not. SSP doesn't do that.

[[Admin] osborn4]

SSP will stretch across 3 with the triple-head to go, but not tile.

Also, margins can be set to place the song on any 1 screen. But it has to be done manually. And there is no way (other than a specialized slide show) to get the lyrics on more than 1 screen through a triplehead to go.

[twj]

If you have SSP and three screens but two of them show the same thing you can follow Joel's idea but use a DualHead2Go and send the output with the words to a distribution amp for the two projectors showing the same thing.

[james tucker]

Originally Posted by osborn4

SSP will stretch across 3 with the triple-head to go, but not tile.

Also, margins can be set to place the song on any 1 screen. But it has to be done manually. And there is no way (other than a specialized slide show) to get the lyrics on more than 1 screen through a triplehead to go.

We tried this and it worked

[putprush]

Hey All Ive been using SSP for 9 years and have to say that I still think it is the best presentation out there and getting better every year, keep up with your yearly pro modules it is worth the cost. The only time we have had major issues with SSP is when our video cards weren't fast enough and our computers weren't big enough. Remember to keep your hardware current and that goes for any software. I've used Easy Worship, played with pro presenter and ran from media shout. Always coming back to SSP. The learning curve is doable and really not that hard. Good Luck.

[mstroven]

Without turning this into a Macs vs. PCs argument... (You can be a PC-based church, and still use a dedicated Mac for ProPresenter.) But what we found at my church was that for solid reliability, low maintence overhead, and just all-around useability, the Mac platform has really reduced the amount of time we spend "just keeping things running". Without dedicated IT staff, the Mac solution seems more robust. That said, we used SSP for several years without any significant problems. The learning curve was not too severe, but as time progressed we wanted more multimedia capability, and made the switch to MediaShout (with their assurance that a Mac version would be forthcoming) When MediaComplete pulled the plug on Mac development, we looked to ProPresenter, and have been very happy with it's features, ease of training/ease of use and flexibility. Top on the feature list are things like dynamically changing foreground and background elements without editing a slide, setting in and out cues on CD/DVD media for use as a background, and the direct import from CCLI song-select within the app.
There are still some esoteric features that I would like to see, (no other package has these either... ), but overall, we are very happy with the decision to go with ProPresenter and are eagerly awaiting version 4.0

[[Admin] osborn4]

I have not had any windows related problems on my SSP projection machine for years.

[rkresge]

We've been using SSP for just over 9 years. The only time we've needed any IT effort has been at upgrade time (OS upgrades, video card upgrade, new hard drive, etc.). Otherwise, IT time has been all but nonexistent. I'm with Joel.

We used SSP on a 2002-vintage Sony Vaio desktop until early this year, and overall it was rock solid. We upgraded the video, and replaced the hard drive with a bigger one, and upgraded from XP Home to Pro, but it kept right on running throughout. 7 years from the same computer???? Amazing!

I can't offer a product comparison because I've never used any of the others, but IMHO you will be more than satisfied if you choose SSP. Having said that, I've also found that Screen Monkey is a VERY worthwhile tool to have in your pocket, for those rare/occasional things that SSP won't do, or won't do well.

Blessings,

Roger