Projection Blues
Posted on November 5, 2006
I’ve got a pet peeve and it’s probably a siutation where my expectations are too high. Many churches do projection well, but some don’t.
Here are my simple rules of projecting the words to songs on the screen:
- The entire verse does not have to fit onto a single screen - 2 to 4 lines may be enough, there’s no hard and fast rule, but if there are too many words, it’s too hard to follow along.
- Anticipate the next screen - Do not wait for the next set of words to begin in the song to change to the next screen. The words need to be up on the screen before they are sung, don’t play catch up.
- Do not mis-spell words - That is a huge no-no. Use the right punctuation, as well. If you notice a mis-spelled word in the first service, correct it for the second one. Even better, use a spell checker, either on the computer or have someone else proofread.
- Make sure the words and the background are contrasting - Backgrounds are cool, but that is actually a secondary consideration, the primary purpose is to display the words at the appropriate time.
Ultimately, what’s on the screen needs to guide people in worship, not distract them. I’m no expert when it comes to this kind of thing, but I did run EasyWorship and oversee volunteers in 3 services for a couple of years, so I’m just going by my experience.
There are some options for presentation software, the simplest is PowerPoint, a part of MS Office. A better choice is EasyWorship, which is pretty easy to use, plus their support is responsive and helpful. Another option is MediaShout, I’ve never used it but I hear it’s one of the best. There are others, but you can’t go wrong with either one of these, especially for the price.
MediaShout is $409 and EasyWorship is $399 and that’s a decent price to get quality software like this.
UPDATE: As you can see in the comments, my smart, geeky wife added her 2 cents, a great option that is totally free is OpenOffice Impress, the open source equivalent of Powerpoint. I know many churches don’t even have the budget to spend $400 on software.
There might be some guidelines out there, like I said, this is just my opinion and experience. Make your media a priority, not an afterthought.
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22 Responses to “Projection Blues”
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Jim Walton is the leader of the Tech Arts Ministry of Fairview Christian Church. This blog is produced independently by Jim and it is his thoughts, his interests, his observations and his ideas. Anything expressed here is not necessarily representative of Fairview Christian Church, but it's likely pretty close! ;)
Even if your church doesn’t have the budget for EasyWorship, MediaShout or even MS Office, you can use OpenOffice Impress
And even if you can’t correct the spelling by second service, try to correct it by second service of the next week. That’s all I’m saying.
Jim, you are right now with your list. As a person who has used MediaShout for over 3 years and has tried and used a couple of the others, I must say for small to mid size congregations it is the best buy. I do have a number of issues with it that we have overcome, but the features that it offers keep it in the mix. I am hoping this next year to take our media up to the next level and go to all Mac/Apple based that will heavily increase our “production value” and allow to make the environment exactly what we are wanting but it will require another 5-10K to be put into our media equipement which would double what we currently have.
Hey Jim,
Our church uses MediaShout for the Adults and Youth. It seems to be a good program. I really do not get my hands on it that much, but I do know it requires a beefy computer if you want to use some of the advanced features. So that is something else a church should consider when purchasing presentation software, is the cost of the PC to run it. We have, what I consider, above average pc’s for the Adult Congregation. But after the sound guys spoke with MediaShout, they were told optimal performace would come from a computer equivelent to Dell’s gaming PC’s, they carry around a $2,000 and up price tag. So, somthing to consider.
Not sure what happened to my previous comment. But Brandon, if you have someone who can custom build a machine you are looking at around 1K, so about half the Dell cost.
For what it is worth Media Shout is the most feature rich and user friendly presentation application for churches with a smaller budget.
Hey, I’m a entrepreneur and web application developer for churches. I’m wondering if anyone thinks there is a market for offering churches a web based alternative to the products mentioned above. I have followed Zoho, Thumbstacks and others.
A couple advantages is that on the web we could share “song”, we could also automate any license reporting, we also could create a “marketplace” for back ground images or fonts, you could also have multiple users helping to create or edit screens. We could also figure out how to network churches via the web in networked chat or something (create for multi-site churches or conferences) — we could also allow YouTube embedded video or something too..
The downside is that it is you need an Internet connection (but we maybe able to provide a tool that creates both a web version AND a desktop file. And that It would be more limited in the fancy effects.
The upside is that it would be cheaper, like a mo/subscription for $5, $9 or $19 a month.
Does that sound interesting to anyone?
Our church just added a projector. I looked at the feature set of the various commercial programs and two or three freeware options.
The downside of PowerPoint, and presumable Impress, is that it is harder to shift songs, or the order of slides during the service. That is one of the advantages of the worship-specific software. With these programs, there is a library of songs, and you can pick a song mid-service, if there is a change. The connection between the library and the projection software also makes it, I think, faster to set up an order of worship.
Since I was given a very small budget to start out, I selected a freeware program. Easislides seems to have all the features of the $400 programs. At least, it has the features that I plan on using in the next year. Another package that I considered is Zionworx.
We are still getting better at projection, we have begun breaking verses across multiple slides to make it easier to read. We had one or two glitches this week, but it is improving, and good not to have everyone reading of a song sheet.
As to Tim’s question about internet based projection software, I think there are some issues to work out before I can decide if it would be beneficial. For a small church like mine, there is probably no benefit. Also, sharing songs, creates a copyright issue. There are already some marketplaces for background images, and looping videos. With quality low-priced or free software, I don’t see a large need for such software.
Before you buy anything I would reccomend trying OpenSong (http://opensong.org) it doesn’t do audio or video, but when paired with Foobar(http://foobar2000.org) or Winamp(http://winamp.com) and VLC(http://videolan.org) with a bit of work configuring the advanced options in VLC you can obtain a pretty much the same effect as Mediashout(imho) with a bit of extra work, but all free software.
These are all great responses, I’m glad to see this discussion start and these ideas be shared.
I agree with what John is saying, PowerPoint has it’s downside and is not ideally suited for this kind of thing, but the reality is, churches use it currently and will continue to use. It is an option and it might be a place to start.
Keep the comments coming, clearly there are other free/open-source options out there as well as other approaches.
There are so many good worship software programs out there. Make sure to include Sunday Plus http://www.sundayplus.com in your list of options to check out. Its a robust program also with a $349 price to get into it along with the biblesoft software included in that. If you are into powerpoint and don’t want to leave it then you should look at Freepath http://www.freepath.com Its designed for business/education use but for a ppt church (85% of all churches that are using projection are using ppt in their services). One of the benefits it gives you is a point and click on your powerpoint presentations so you have the freedom of the non-linear but still using powerpoint but in thumbnails.
Just my 2 cents. I couldn’t agree more about the “simple rules” though. If we have distracted anyone then we are in the way.
Our situation and another piece of software
We’re in the dark ages! At the moment our church is still using overhead projectors for the songs. Several of us would like to move to a data projector, but there isn’t room for it in the budget at the moment.
One problem is our morning congregation is about 120 but our building could seat over 300 comfortably (we do have the pews arranged so it doesn’t feel that empty). Currently there are two screens, one on side of the stage, and IMO, too close to the sides. We only use one screen, so half the congregation is looking across the church, towards the opposite corner - not ideal at all.
To modernize things, we would need 2 data projectors, or we would have to get a new screen and completely redesign the whole setup at the front of the building. So nothing happening any time soon
But I like to dream, and I’ve spent a bit of time looking at presentation software:
openlp.org is “a fully featured presentation application written especially for churches” and is even open source. It is under active development and seems to have quite a bit of promise.
There is also a fairly comprehensive list of worship software (both free and commercial) available on the eBibleTeacher site.
YouTube, Multi-Site and Pews…
Building Rockin’ Church Web Sites - Church Communications Pro Cory Miller just keeps the series coming. Projection Blues - Jim Walton at Church Tech Matters shares some simple tips for improving your projected worship lyrics. The Oddness of Pews - Dan…
Regardless of the software you use, I think the key thing is to practice. You wouldn’t expect your music team to turn up on Sunday and play/sing without having practiced. Given that the music team is there to lead the congregation in praise and worship, just like an off key instrument or vocalist is distracting, a mistake in the projection is very distracting if not more so.
There are no mistakes, only distractions…
I’d like to second Sean Goheen’s suggestion of trying OpenSong (though I’ve heard openlp is good, too). I used OpenSong both in youth and main services. The Music ministry purchased MediaShout since then, but the youth and college both still use OpenSong. The nice thing about OpenSong is that it also generates guitar chord sheets for each song (which is nice if you’re the musican) and it integrates into CCLI so you don’t have to type in any new songs (you *do* have a CCLI license for your church, right?). And I *love* the keyboard shortcuts for navigating between (and within) songs. Naturally, it has the dual screen view and you can insert scripture in several versions easily. MediaShout is nice, but cost can certainly be a factor. When cheap counts, OpenSong is really good.
I have been using MediaShout for over 2 years now with only a few complaints. The features that I feel like it lacks are really only done well in high end Character Generator systems. As a larger church, we fall in the gap between the pack of programs (MediaShout, EasyWorship, etc) and CG machines. I feel like there would be a market for some software in that gap. Features that would be useful to me would be alpha channel support and more specialized video usage; basically I want it to act more like a CG, but not as featured/expensive. We don’t use much of the audio and other media features of MediaShout, and I doubt that many larger churches do.
As for the web based software, I would not trust it. I would need the option to run it offline. If someone else on the network starts up BitTorrent, then my presentation runs slow. I keep a backup of the MediaShout show on a USB key every week, and I would need that feature in any presentation software.
I could talk forever about this! Its good to see the church utilizing media more and more all the time!
cl
While on this topic, does anyone know of projector software that can handle 2 projects, each with a different image? Plus the operator’s console of course. I know that I would need 3 VGAs out of my PC.
Presentation Manager claims to do it, although I have not tested it yet.
Thanks
John,
I have seen churches run 2 different PC’s to do what you are talking about. For instance, one PC controls the 2 side screens and they are identical and a second PC controls the center screen. I think it would definitely take some practice for one person to manage that much at once, but I would love to hear how it goes.
I’m going to be exploring more on this topic soon.
We’re going to be switching from MediaShout to ProPresenter from Rewnewed Vision at some point next year. I really like it’s ability to output video over firewire rather than the main monitor port (backgrounds/video play via firewire and lyrics via monitor). The text keys very cleanly as well (still no alpha though).
We’re using ProPresenter http://renewedvision.com/pp.php
Mac only, but it was a sweet step above PowerPoint
Some deets on our presentation/projection gear can be found here http://www.google.com/search?q=spyder&domains=jpowell.blogs.com&sitesearch=jpowell.blogs.com
Jason
While the software discussion is interesting, I’d like to hear more guidelines for displaying song lyrics. I’d been to so many churches where the singspiration leader spent 3+ hours rehearsing the songs, only 3min making a PowerPoint, and 30min looking for unrelated background images to up on every 2nd page.
As Jim said, “Backgrounds are cool”, but “cool” is bad (i.e. distracting). I come to worship, not admire someone’s photography/Photoshop skills.
I’m a worship pastor, and I think Video and creative slides behind the words can acutally enhance the song you are singing and not detract from it. For instance, if you’re singing “God of Wonders” and you have a video of Galaxies and other aspects of creation, it helps you see all the things that God has created. Singing the song “Grace like rain” having a moving or still background of rain falling is also something that enhances the song. We use Media Shout V3, we’re getting a new gaming computer from tigerdirect.com because our previous computer was incapable of what we wanted to do. It seems to me that Media Shout is a little more user intensive than it should be, it requires a substantial amount of time in set up of the presentation as well as a substantial amount of training for volunteers to do this. While this may not be a problem for some churches, if your church is solely volunteer run, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to succeed.
We are having a problem in our church with using opensong. Our preacher sometimes adds verses to songs after the presentation is set and in motion. Does anyone know how to get the verse in without interrupting the slide show?
Do NOT spend any money on this (or any) software before trying out the free options, especially Easislides and OpenSong. It can’t hurt to try something free.
We use Easislides, and it does everything we could ever want and more. The only downside is that it is Windows only.
I have tried OpenSong too, the main advantage with this is that it runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, so if you change computers in future you won’t have to learn a different program. It is also open source if you care about the philosophy of your software. But I do not find it as simple and intuitive to use as Easislides, and it doesn’t seem as fully-featured. It also comes with a smaller selection of music to download. Having said that it is still an excellent program and well worth checking out, it is very different to Easislides and you may prefer it.
Make sure you proofread the songs you are using, especially checking if all the verses you know are in the song. We have had many songs where Easislides has run out of verses while the congregation still knows a couple more… Make sure you fix this before presenting the second time! It is easy to do.
http://www.easislides.com
http://www.opensong.org