Hey!

We were wondering when this question might arise :)

When we first started the podcast, this was an issue we wanted to devote an episode to, but we found we didn't know enough about it to comment. MF and I were both Mac users when we worked in ministry and we used a combination of Pro Presenter and Keynote....so we don't know much about Mediashout or EZ Worship (other than the fact that Mediashout tends to be the popular one).

So, I've contacted a couple guys I know that have more experience in this and we're going to try and get them on the show to do reviews of some worship projection products.

Sorry I don't have a good answer now, hopefully you'll be hearing about this on an episode soon...

Anyone have experience with either of these? Please throw in your review of any worship projection software here...

-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.bobchristenson.com

Hey guys!

I'll be totally honest, I'm VERY biased here, but my vote goes to MediaShout. The reason for my bias? I am a MediaShout retailer. Now before anyone starts throwing stones, I'm not here to bash EZ Worship. (Quick backgound) I stumbled across MS, at that time v2.5, a few years ago at "Created to Praise" (google it) At the time V3 was just about to be launched, and we were given a link to give it a test run. WOW! I was blown away at its ease of use, capabilities for video, and live feed possibilities! My Pastor (a good Lutheran Mac freak) was also blown away, but bummed out that there was no Mac version. I don't know if any of you know the whole Mac version story, but I can tell you its a sad story of the Apple folks not wanting to work with the MediaComplete folks in terms of information sharing. So a Mac version propably won't be around anytime soon. sad. Now, you'll hear stories about MS crashing. What Windows proggy doesn't crash? I've never had it crash, it's done everything I've asked it to do, and with great ease! (OK, now I'm sounding like a sales pitch, sorry) I guess I've avoided crashes by restarting just before each time I use it for a presentation/Worship, and close all the un-needed proggies in my tray. Give that a shot folks :-) I didn't want to go into specs here, just my opinions, you can find all the specs you want, and a nice demo (with a great tutorial)download at their site www.mediacomplete.com , and I sure welcome any questions, from you fine hosts, or my fellow listeners!

Bryan

Hi Geeks and others!
At my local church (www.parkerville.net.au)we began using MediaShout at the beginning of this year. We have been really impressed with it's capabilities and once we got our database of songs etc into it, it has been great. The bonus is that for a service I can train an operator really quickly. Setting up a cue takes a little more training, but if a person is a reasonably competant PC user, they can manage it pretty well. Basically we have had a good experience. On the downside is the cost and that it has no retailer in Australia, so I had to import it from the US. We still have the odd problem with video and DVD's but as it is a computer that I built it may just be an odd Graphics card/motherboard combination or something like that. But overall we have been really impressed. We have been bloggin the journey over at www.digitalchurch.com.au if you want any more info.

cheers,

Darren

I would love to start a new thread. Can I only post on existing threads?

Hey Havoc...
Sorry, man, our board situation currently sucks. You can post a new thread, but it's a hidden link as of now. Either post here for now, or wait a day or two and we'll fix it....

sorry about that!

-Rob Feature
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.bobchristenson.com

I have some knowledge with MediaShout, and I find it to be an awesome program. But for those churches that need some sort of worship presentation software(instead of PowerPoint) and can not afford MS, their is an alternative. OpenSong is a full featured, worship presentation software that is open source(free which is very affordable!). You can find it at opensong.org. And it is for Mac or Windows.

Yet another site using drupal... though I am not a fan of the theme.

Thanks for the info.

Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.mattfarina.com

Bryan,
You stated, "Apple folks not wanting to work with the MediaComplete folks in terms of information sharing". I would like to challange you on this statement. The reason for the death of the Mac Version of MS3 was simply an issue of cost vs. return. Complicated by the misunderstanding of Apple and what MediaComplete was trying to do. The function of rendering/displaying video and effects on the fly is a foreign concept to the Mac world where these two functions are done by 2 different applications and not at the same time. But there was no evidence of Apple not being forthcoming, in fact Apple provided some of their best people in an effort to make MS3 on Mac a possibility.
To the rest of your comments, I have had a couple of MS3 crashes and I am running on a custom built high end machine that is dedicated to MS3, no other apps running/installed and no network connectivity. The biggest challange facing MS/MC is that they are creating a very complex application that their user base tries to run on very diverse, and often low-end hardware and often their fixes have to be written for bottom feeders. That being said, I have had a number of audio quality issues that MC has been unable to resolve and rather than trying to make the PC work I have begun to make the transition to more Mac based applications, currently any video w/ audio is played from a Mac using QT and a VGA switch. I still think MS3 is a great app, and is my number one PC solution but I guess after using it for 3.5 years I am ready to Kick It Up A Notch.

We are just getting our Praise & Worship Service started. What PC do you recommend for best performance of the Media Shout software? Do we need high end graphics found on a Dell XPS or will a Precision do?

A Precision will certainly do. I would recommend at 265MB video card and as much RAM as you can shovel in..

Shrop

Be very attentive to the video card when you purchase a computer for worship media projection. I ordered a dell last november for our new sanctuary gear after having explained in fine detail what I needed. It was only after everything was installed and the tech guys gone that I realized the dell video card DID NOT support multiple monitors. It took me till Holy Week to get the right card from Dell. They were asking me for product codes -- I'm only the pastor!

Can anyone explain to me how to use two overhead projectors with mediashout. We have one that has been working for a while. It is hard wired in to the display adapter #2. We just purchased and installed a new projector and getting wiring to it was almost impossible so we bought a wireless display gateway and hooked it up. It now shows up as display #3. It seems that mediashout only supports a second display and not a third so I don't know how to work around this. Anyone got any ideals?

Thanks,

Steve

I have got a Ibuypower custom made laptop and im am running Media Shout 2. We have 2 high end projectors, and when i run the backgrounds the background loops tend to freeze but the words run fine. I didnt know what the problem might be? is my laptop fast enough....do i need to purchase a amplifier for the projectors so it can amplify the amount of energy my computer is pushing out...my theory is(and this is a long shot) my laptop is pushing out the signal but its have to push to 2 projectors and it doesnt have the power to push the graphics and thats why it is freezing...Geeks and Gods creators or anyone that can tell me whats going on, i need help!!!

Amps help with signal strength. Example, have you ever ran several TV's off a splitter and had grainy lines or waves. This is what happens when you split VGA signals. Mediashout 2 had a couple of problems with loop backgrounds, and if you are not running at the least 128 Ram on the video card this can cause the problem. Question, when you change slides do the words seem to hesitate or "skip" when they display.

You can use a VGA splitter/amp to do this. Use the display adapter #2 out on the computer to the input on the splitter. then connect your system up and see if that works.

Does anyone have any idea how many monitors you can run in MS? I'm hoping to run 2 independent front monitors, a rear with only words for choir, and of course the computer monitor. Is this do-able?

I suspect the limit is determined more by your hardware than software, especially if you're running a reasonably current version of Windows, e.g., XP, Vista, or later. In the data center where I worked we had several workstations that had three monitors and I believe a few more that ran 4.

Good luck,
Curt

Thanks to your post, our church in India is using opensong.org for its worship services. Thanks a million for some sound advice!

Hi all. I am a local geek at my church in Redmond Oregon (www.citycenterchurch.org) and we use Song show plus for our current main service. but recently have been trying Dreambeam and openlp for our kids ministry. We may actually migrate away from the paid program as these open source programs (particularly openlp) do everything the paid program does.
So i thought i would chime in with an updated list of open source worship projects i found. It looks like they really broke out since this thread was started. Hopefully this helps.

http://www.dreambeam.de/
Really liked the web page and the screen shots
Full media support
http://www.opensong.org/
Seems much more technical for muscians
http://www.logos-solutions.org.uk/songview.html
Simple and usefull, clean interface
unsure on media support
http://openlp.org/
Seams like one of the best sites out there
Full media support - CCLI song select integration - Theme builder Good online support

Thanks
Blessings
Matthew

I am reasonably certain that your laptop just does not have the horsepower to run background loops. You can solve the problem several ways including running still backgrounds or using a more powerful computer. It may be that your computer is fast enough but not have enough memory. Many laptops and other modest computers use a portions of memory for video purposes. It may be that you are running out of memory to process the motion background. If you computer has 2 meg or less you probably do not have enough.
Remember it takes more memory and computer power to process text over motion background than just the motion background or text over a still graphic.
In any event the problem is probably not in the signal level to your projectors. Insufficient signal level would not cause the problem you have described. Instead you will get picture degradation. If your picture is of good quality for a simple still graphic then it will be ok for any motion and a signal amplifier will not help.

Because we Christians are all about Resurrection, I'm going to keep this thread alive. Someone has offered to buy a copy of MediaShout for our congregation. I'm interested in whether it's worth the money, and what it offers over the free versions (besides tech support). I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, though.

will a clicker work on media shout?

I am in the process of trying out Mediashout for our Church. We have recently upgraded our computers to two high-end desktops. One has i5 processor with 8GB RAM while the other is an AM3 6 core with 16GB RAM. The Latter is for video editing and streaming live at Restoration Chapel Television 24 and has a RAID 10 setup with 4 1TB internal hard drives. We have previously used Easyworship, but since our computer stopped working...literally, I have been unable to find any CDs for the 2007 easyworship installation and none of the people who used to work in the technical department are around anymore. That has led us to thinking of getting Mediashout vs going to Easyworship 2009. Our challenge is that Mediashout seems like a more advanced system, but the interface is a bit more complex. Also we have a lot of Nigerian songs hand-typed over the years into the Easyworship database and I do not know how to get these into the Mediashout database. Any helpers?