Pro Presenter vs Songshow Plus

[Karen39]

Hi,

The church I used to attend is thinking about switching from Songshow Plus to Pro Presenter. Do you guys know what the differences are? I hate to see all my 6 years worth of work go down the drain so am looking for some concrete reasons as to why they should stay with SSP.

Thanks!

Karen

[james tucker]

I haven't played with pro presenter in depth...

Our church has song show on three different machines.

some downsides to song show:
>no .mov support ( I think they are updating that here real soon)

>software runs slow doing the simplist things (even on nice dedicated CPU's that get professionally maintained) On all our machines, when you right click to edit display properties, and click "motion background" or "text" it takes a pretty long time to load up the preview slides or anything in that display properties pop up - therefore - editing the way the song text looks or changing the background takes a really long time per song!

>The global display properties thing is useless.... I want something like the slide master from ppt - change something there - changes the whole show. I have to go to each song and add drop shadow, change font, and add dissolves.

>I want to be able to do different background for verses and choruses (does pro presenter let me do that?)

>I want the software to LOAD the Bible onto the computer not rely on a third party site. We wanted the NIV for services when our pastor pulls a random passage during sermon - song show doesn't actually install the NIV, it downloads(?) each verse... Which is fine.... Whenever our internet goes out - A - song show crashes during load up, and B - you can't access the online Bible.

>No multi screen support - I can live with all the above - what I desire is support for more elaborate projection setups... Works fine if all you want is one output with words and lyrics....
Pro presenter with the Advance module and the Matrox blows SSP out of the water.... for $1000 you can have PP, the advance module, and a matrox to output stretched backgrounds and tiled or stretched lyrics across three screens.... Not everyone needs this - but my church does, and that is the selling point for me.


Try it out.... don't let your selling point be to your pastor "yeah its on a mac, its going to be perfect - cause its on a mac and macs are awesome, they had macs at Northpoint, and they are awesome" (while listening to your iPod and texting someone via your iPhone).

Its all about having the right tools. Our church went from using PowerPoint in all the small rooms and using a character generator for lower thirds in the Sanctuary to buying a site license for Song show for every venue at the church.... We started doing lower thirds with moving backgrounds behind the text on our 2 outer imag screens.... Then one of our leaders saw a Hillsong dvd or something where they had three screens right above the stage - then violla(!) we now have three screens above our stage.... The hardware required at the time to key one moving background across three screens and key song show on the center screen was too much.... So we bought two scalers (one for the center screen, another for the L/R center screens)... We had an iso of one camera on the center, song show with moving backgrounds on the two other center screens, and line cut on the outsides...

Now pro presenter can make our three screen dreams come true for not an amazing amount of money (compared to buying a FSR Eagle scaler to do cool stuff to our screens). Song show was the right tool for us at the time - now it looks like Pro Presenter is the right tool as we are wanting to do more creative video stuff in our sanctuary and do some creative video staging in our youth room.

anywhoo. hope this helps you out....

[[Admin] osborn4]

Sounds like you have some issures that need addressing. I've not seen most of this with SSP in my 7+ years of using it.

Originally Posted by james tucker

some downsides to song show:
>no .mov support ( I think they are updating that here real soon)

Yes. Currently in beta. You will have to provide your own codec. They will have instructions on that.

Originally Posted by james tucker

>software runs slow doing the simplist things (even on nice dedicated CPU's that get professionally maintained) On all our machines, when you right click to edit display properties, and click "motion background" or "text" it takes a pretty long time to load up the preview slides or anything in that display properties pop up - therefore - editing the way the song text looks or changing the background takes a really long time per song!

I have not experienced this delay at all. I would contact SSP support have them take a look at it, because it should not take that long to change the display properties and doesn't on any of our machines, including mid-range laptops.

Originally Posted by james tucker

>The global display properties thing is useless.... I want something like the slide master from ppt - change something there - changes the whole show. I have to go to each song and add drop shadow, change font, and add dissolves.

I don't know what problems you are having with the global properties, but they work just like the individual properties, except they are applied globally (except where overridden individually). I just added a secondary shawdow as a special effect to the lyric text and it's showing up on all my songs.

Not as simple as the PPT master slide, but a lot more control, IMHO.

Originally Posted by james tucker

>I want to be able to do different background for verses and choruses (does pro presenter let me do that?)

Not directly, but there are a few ways around that.

1. You can set the background to Background Improv and have the operator change backgrounds on the fly.
2. You can convert the song to a SongShow Plus Slide Show (.sspss) and then edit that slide show in SlideShow Builder to change each page/verse however you want. Just right click on the song and select Convert to Slide Show.
3. Add the song several times to the program, once for each verse/chorus and change the backgrounds on each item in the program. Set the verse order for each item to only show the verse or chorus you want there.

Originally Posted by james tucker

>I want the software to LOAD the Bible onto the computer not rely on a third party site. We wanted the NIV for services when our pastor pulls a random passage during sermon - song show doesn't actually install the NIV, it downloads(?) each verse... Which is fine.... Whenever our internet goes out - A - song show crashes during load up, and B - you can't access the online Bible.

I've not seen SSP load scriptures off of the internet. However, it will connect directly to the Online Bible. After you install the Online Bible on your projection machine, you need to rerun the SSP install and make sure it installes the Online Bible module. Then you should have access instantly to any versions you have installed/unlocked in the Online Bible. Same with QuickVerse and Logos.

Again, if you are having trouble with this, SSP phone support or the SSPlash.com forums should be able to help.

Originally Posted by james tucker

>No multi screen support - I can live with all the above - what I desire is support for more elaborate projection setups... Works fine if all you want is one output with words and lyrics....
Pro presenter with the Advance module and the Matrox blows SSP out of the water.... for $1000 you can have PP, the advance module, and a matrox to output stretched backgrounds and tiled or stretched lyrics across three screens.... Not everyone needs this - but my church does, and that is the selling point for me.

And if you are looking for multiple screen support, then SSP is not going to do what you want it too. From everything I've heard, ProPresenter is the way to go.

Originally Posted by james tucker

Its all about having the right tools.

Completely agree.

Thanks for sharing your experience and path.

[[Admin] osborn4]

Karen, if I were in your position, I'd take a look at the walk through videos at the RenewedVision site, so you have some sort of basis of comparison.

Unless you happen to have a nice Mac around to try out the demo.

[Lucas]

SSP's preferred Bible provider package seems to be Online Bible.

Despite it's name, it DOES NOT connect to the internet to retrieve bible verses.
They are locally stored on your HDD's.

You can now specify to SSP that you want to play MOV files, you have to provide your own codecs though, they discourage the Quicktime Alternative, however I've had good success with it.

Your global properties (in my experience) are working as intended.
I prefer to set per-song propeties, or insert a display properties item in the playlist.

As for the delay, I have never experienced it either, and would suggest contacting GoFishMedia for support on.
208-639-3950
From 7am to 5pm Mon-Fri
From 8am to 12pm Sat-Sun

Alternativally, use SSPlash forums, often the developers chime in.

[jksbc]

Karen,I guess I have to add my two cents worth since I have used both SSP and PP. Its like anything else. I have always enjoyed reading your posts and sharing ideas on the SSP forum as well as this one. It's a matter of personal preference and needs. I used SSP at my former church which is a blended/traditional church. I made up slideshow loops for announcements, a slideshow for the sermon outline, used the bible module for scripture, and ran lyrics over pre-selected motion loop backgrounds. The interface really worked well for putting together a pre-planned "order of worhip". It is a good fit for that church. On the down side SSP has quite a learning curve. I was sort of a one man multimedia team and it was a lot of work training someone to replace me. I was and still am a big fan of SSP. There is great support and knowledge on the forum as you are already aware. IMHO SSP cannot be beat when it comes to customizing anything you do on it. It is tremendous software as you know and the creators really listen to the user's suggestions when it comes to making it better. Other cons besides the learning curve is that it takes a "hoss" of a computer for it to run smoothly. That can cut heavily into smaller budgets. I experienced growing pains trying to get the "powers that be" to upgrade computers. They just could not understand why I couldn't just go on Dell's website and order a $500 computer to run everything.On the other hand. I am now part of another church that is very contemporary. We use ProPresenter. It fits what we do. We are growing and are looking to add to our system. In the very near future I can see us taking advantage of the three screen feature. I don't have a need for the bible software any more because the pastor types the scriptures into his notes and I just copy/paste it all into Keynote. I also do the announcement loop in Keynote. I just use PP for countdowns, videos, sermon visual aids, and song lyrics. It's very user friendly and easy to learn. I am new to Mac and am impressed with how easy it is to run multiple applications at the same time. I switch back and forth between keynote and PP without any problems. ------------I was recently contacted by my former church and asked whether they should upgrade computers for SSP or go with Mac and PP. I told them if they have someone who will commit to learning SSP I would definitely stick with it and upgrade but if not I would go to the Mac and PP.--------I don't know if I've been any help or just muddied the waters more.

[twj]

What's the cost difference of a good Mac for PP and a good PC for SSP? $1000.00 will buy a pretty good SSP PC.

[[Director] drew ryan]

One thing that Pro Presenter just came out with that I believe non of the other worship software is doing is Alpha Channel. So if you want this for ultra clean Keying, then Pro Presenter is the way to go.

[sadlerjon]

Originally Posted by twj

What's the cost difference of a good Mac for PP and a good PC for SSP?

If you don't mind B-stock goods, you can get a refurb Intel Core Duo iMac for $650 (os included)...

[jksbc]

Originally Posted by twj

What's the cost difference of a good Mac for PP and a good PC for SSP? $1000.00 will buy a pretty good SSP PC.

Yes, you can get a PC for $1,000 or less to run SSP (basic version). I am not satisfied with just running the basic version though. In order to run SSP in it's full professional mode with cinFX and all the bells and whistles it takes a high end processor, high speed hard drive and high end gaming graphics card. IMHO it's worth every dime you spend to run it in it's full blown feature packed mode. If you do anything less you are just shortchanging yourself. Just my opinion. A fully spec'd out computer from gofishmedia.net is $2,500-$3,400! These are SSP certified computers and come with great tech support. I would recommend them in a heartbeat. At the same time you can get a new iMac starting at $1,100 to $1,500. We purchased one for about $1,200. It runs very smoothly as I said before running multiple applications along with ProPresenter. As I said previously I am a fan of both. I run PP now but miss all the fun I had being creative with SSP.

[Lucas]

Originally Posted by Drew Ryan

One thing that Pro Presenter just came out with that I believe non of the other worship software is doing is Alpha Channel. So if you want this for ultra clean Keying, then Pro Presenter is the way to go.

SSP can do this too.
It's been beta for a while, but they are wrapping it up now.

[bodowd]

And if you are looking for multiple screen support, then SSP is not going to do what you want it too. From everything I've heard, ProPresenter is the way to go

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...