Screen monkey, freepath, others???

[buggyboy]

Quick update:

I downloaded openlp 1.2.7 (the stable release and have a few thoughts on it's suitability for my application.
First, I liked the preview screen
I liked the ability to edit song lyrics while "live"
I missed opensong's easy "arrow down" keystroke to change slides. in openlp you have to click the desired text area on the screen.
I like the ability to add a custom slide on the fly.
It doesn't work with openoffice (although that is in the works for version 2.0 due in june 2010).
It will play videos, but it makes no provision for cueing to a desired point within the video file.

Open song has a superior lyrics interface, there are shortcut keys to jump to any verse, chorus bridge, etc...and each slide occupied only one line in opensong as opposed to openlp where each slide takes up 4-7 lines. (this should be an option because i like having more text visible for bible verses, but prefer one line only for song lyrics.)

so all in all, I like it...but I'll probably wait for the next version. I'm downloaded the beta now, I'll probably post here in a bit to update.

[buggyboy]

Update: openlp 2.0 beta

They have improved navigation by assigning the down arrow as the "next slide" key. it still lacks a shortcut interface for jumping between song verses etc using the number keys.

video playback remains the same, no punch in and out points.

it now has an interesting scripture feature allowing display of two versions of the same text side by side. that's a good idea.

without PowerPoint installed on this machine i can't evaluate that aspect. it obviously calls on the external program to deal with those files.

custom slides can now be created using multiple slides...could be useful.

so, all in all, I'm liking this as an alternative to opensong, but it lacks a few key features.

and fundamentally it doesn't accomplish what i started this post for...the ability to cue up multiple videos and display them neatly on demand.

at this point screen monkey is the leading horse, I think I'll have to pursue that avenue for now.

thanks to all posters,
David

[owaits]

Hopefully I can answer some of your frustrations with Screen Monkey.

It would seem to be quite useful, but so far I've been unable to send the output to my secondary display

The default is to display on the primary monitor as this avoids you running the software and nothing happening the first time. I would recomend watching the introductory video which shows you exactly how to change the output monitor.

http://www.youtube.com/user/ScreenMo...13/o_lV_fB-_s0

also, it refuses to play or que video files

Nearly always the solution to not playing videos is downloading and installing the k-lite codec pack.

the dvd feature refuses to que to a selected place, instead it starts at the beginning every time

This is not a bug it is a legal restriction I have to adhear to. There was a version which got around this issue but I was kindly asked to remove it. The DVDs you are trying to play have a flag set which requires the copyright information to always play at the start of the DVD. If you cue a DVD without these copyright restrictions then they will play fine.

I find the layers functionality to be overkill

My hope is that if you ignore the layers it will all work fine but they are there if you need them.

I'll probably give it a shot in the main projector computer eventually, but with no internet access at the church and screen monkey needing .NET 3.5 (which isn't installed) I'll need to cart the computer home to update and instal

The link on the Screen Monkey website takes you to a microsoft downloads page that if you scroll down has a "Full Package" link. This does not require any internet connection and so saves you carting the PC home.

[buggyboy]

@owaits,
First off, thanks for putting the time and effort into creating screen monkey. Anyone (myself included) can point out problems, but many of us haven't the training (or time to learn) to actually build solutions to those problems.

Anyway...

I haven't had the time to experiment on the main projection computer yet. I recently reinstalled everything from scratch, so I'm hesitant to fiddle with a working system that is critical every service.

My testing was done on a laptop with a desktop monitor hooked up as the secondary screen. I watched all video tutorials available at the time I was playing with screen monkey.

I did not install the k-lite codek pack. I had some rather unfortunate experiences with codeks a few years back. as a result, i switched almost exclusively to VLC as a media player.

as for the dvd issue. I didn't realize the problem was legal. oy, what a pain.
Still, as others noted, ripping the dvd is probably a better idea anyway from a performance standpoint.

indeed, the layers function is quite transparent. it didn't get in my way at all. and all in all, it's a nice function to have available even if it isn't used.

you may perhaps make the link to the /NET full package download a bit more obvious. I didn't catch on to that last time around. It makes sense that MS would provide a download like that, but i missed it completely.

I have a feeling I'll end up using screen monkey, but with the 14 million things that were happening all at once, I just needed a simple, workable solution. I documented the MPC batch file I ended up using in another thread.

thanks again for your work on this.
Cheers

[dovprst]

I see that no one answered about theatre mode. I've only seen this on ATI video cards. I don't know if Nvidia has that feature. You can't preview on just the computer unless you use a switcher to prevent it from being seen on the projector. It just automatically plays on the 2nd monitor (projector, etc...)

[frank]

Originally Posted by buggyboy

I've run into the same problem every other small (or tiny) church has had when beginning to incorporate multimedia into services. Namely, having to drag video players onto the projector, maximize them, and hit play.

David, we use Media Player Classic. Configure it once and from then on if you click a video link it'll open fullscreen on the projector output (takes over from SundayPlus in our situation). At the end, right-click on the taskbar and it returns full control to the worship software. And it's free.

[buggyboy]

Hey frank,
I've been using a batch file to run MPC with my desired options. I posted about it here. New solution for playing videos (free)

It does a good job for a quick video clip, but it would be nice to line up multiple clips with punch points. which is why I looked at screen monkey, which is the best in class for now.

thanks for the input.

[Max]

EasySlides and Screen Monkey can be used together to produce some exceptional presentations. You can assign a graphic to show between EasySlides screens, then play a Screen Monkey presentation over the EasySlide screen. Makes a very professional looking presentation

[buggyboy]

Hi Max,
I haven't looked at easyslides for about 8 months, but last time I looked I couldn't find any decent videos that demoed the software. They would be well advised to create some.

Can you elaborate on the integration of easylides and screen monkey? A video would be great, but some pics would help me grasp what you mean.