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Selecting
overhead video equipment and appropriate software/computer equipment
can be daunting. I have researched this to the point where I feel we
can push it to the budgeting stage. Please review this.
It all
comes down to 2 products on the market. EasyWorship and MediaShout - the
software prices and requirements are identical. They both look
great.
Only
EasyWorship provides automatic CCLI reporting. Both import CCLI
libraries.
EasyWorship is by far the easiest one to use and actually does a number
of important things better than MediaShout.
Take a
look at the MediaShout Screen Demos - http://mediashout.com/support/tutorials.cfm
MediaShout is the most popular product out there because it has been
around the longest and people generally don't switch once they learn a specific
piece of software. It is definitely used by the largest ministries. EasyWorship
is aimed at a regular computer user and is very intuitive. Mediashout is aimed
at a media/video/presentation guru. The net result is no better from Mediashout
and you need to learn a whole lot more to use it all. EasyWorship should be
easily managed after looking at it for an hour. MediaShout will need a lot more
training to be able to use it competently.
I am
definitely sold on EasyWorship -
1)
easy of use,
2)
automatic CCLI reporting,
3)
site license to any and all users or computers related to the
church.
A
properly configured PC with dual ouput video card and all necessary hard drive
space, extra RAM and DVD player may reach up to $2000
Sending "live" video feeds through the equipment will always have a
perceptible 1/3 second delay no matter how much money you spend so don't try to
do that with these solutions. Use them for music, video presentations, power
point presentations - anything but Live.
DVI
projectors should be used because there is no signal loss over great lengths of
wire.
Replacement bulbs last about 3000-5000 hours and cost $400-$500 each -
they can burn out at 500 hours so always have a spare in
stock.
Options NIV bible - $29.99
EasyWorship comes standard with a site license. If you own a registered
copy of EasyWorship for your church, you can install it on other computers at
your church or home. These other copies should be used exclusively for your
church.
Basic EasyWorship
requirements:
- Windows XP
- 100 MB free disk space
- CD-ROM Drive
- Two video cards or a dual head video
card
Additional requirements for DVD/Text Over
Video/Video Transitions:
- 1.7 GHz Pentium 4 Processor or equivalent
- 7200 RPM hard drive with 100 MB free disk
space
- Available DVD drive and recommended codecs
- Dual output AGP or PCI Express video graphics card
with 128 MB of dedicated non shared video RAM
These 64 MB cards may also give good results for
text over video:
- nVidia 64 MB RAM Dual Output cards
- ATI Radion 9700 64 MB dual output card
- Intel 82855 64 MB dual output card (if you have a
fast processor)
Choose the
SongSelect version that best meets your needs.*
Find out more about SongSelect.
EasyWorship does do full CCLI reporting.
There are three things that triggers the inclusion of a
song in an activity report:
1. When
you add a song to the database.
2. When you print the lyrics to a song.
3. When you project a song.
When you do one of those 3 things, it
will enter that song into the activity report.
Recommended System
Specifications
OS: Windows XP (Home, Professional, or Media Center Edition)
CPU: Intel
Pentium 4, 2.4 GHz (or equivalent) RAM: 512
MB
Graphics: One DirectX 9.0c Hardware Accellerated dual-head graphics
card/display adapter with 128 MB VRAM
Other: DVD
drive, quality sound card; video capture card or FireWire port (IEE 1394) for
external video feed
Import formats: CCLI SongSelect online lyrics, Integrity
Worship Software, Tempo Service Designer, text files, ShoutSong data files (v2.5
and v3)
Choose the
SongSelect version that best meets your needs.*
Find out more about SongSelect.
Media shout does not do any
CCLI reporting.
CCLI in the US will
only ask you to report the current song usage for the peirod of time you are
asked to report for
For example you will be given a notice that you are
reporting for Jan 1 through March 31
You only have to report the activity for
that period
It is nice to have a report to look back on to see that we
have done this song so many times in the past year or havent done this one in a
long time. CCLI will not ask you to report on the past activity only the current
activity since yoru last report to them.
Songbase is wonderful for managing music and transposing music scores but the
presentation features are just plain lousy. It is not a product that you should
be running a worship service with. It does not provide any CCLI reporting.
EasyWorship does this automatically.
It
only costs $89 per user and comes with the top 600 songs so I believe it is a
great purchase on it's own and should stand separate from the EasyWorship
system. The songs from the Songbase system can be copied into the EasyWorship
system if needed and then CCLI reporting can happen from
there.
Additional recommendations - very good
ones actually.
You may need 2 - most churches of 500+ do require 2
projectors (sometimes 3).
Get a name brand unit with a minimum of 3000 ANSI
Lumens with a
high contrast ratio like 1000:1 or better. Use a light meter
to determine your true needs
because the projector is going to be the most
expensive part of your system.
SONY SANYO PANASONIC HITACHI NEC VIEWSONIC
are all good
but cost more than the generics. Bulb life is very imortant
and you should be getting 2000 hours at least. Bulbs are $400 to $500.
Do not let unauthorized users move or use the projector.
I know of several horror stories of how the youth department ruined a projector
or two. One dropped the unit and didn't tell while the other plugged the cable
into the wrong port and cooked the circuit in the projector.
Use only a
**CERTIFIED** installer for ceiling mounted installations. Your insurance
company will demand to see a certificate if the there is an accident. A
certified installer will assure you of proper procedures and materials
Always use highly
shielded cable and get an amplifier or booster if you are
using more than 80
feet of cable.
You might think highly reflective glass beaded white is best
but it's not. You should look at getting a matte white screen especially if you
are ever going to display movies. The reason is for truer color and broader
viewing angle. Silver-grey screens shift the color to the blue end and make
flesh tones turn green while white glass beaded screens shift to the red end of
the spectrum.
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With warm regards,
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| Hi Folks!
I just wanted to give you an initial sense of what
I've been finding out from talking with some local churches.
First of all, a couple of auxiliary notes regarding
music/lyric resource bases:
Besides SongSelect, the resource base offered
by CCLI, a number of churches here in town use a song resource call "SONGBASE".
Their website is www.songbase.com They
have local trainers, who will come and train users at our church. I don't know
enough about music, re:charts and chords and all that stuff, to know how useful
it might be, so maybe, Shirley, you could have a gander at it and see if its
worth exploring further.
I've also been informed that if we were to use
SongSelect as a music/lyric resource base, then SongSelect will automatically
keep the logs required for our CCLI licence. If I remember, Shirley, that was
one of the issues you brot up--the amount of time and energy it takes presently
to keep up with the log-keeping, and how that might be complicated yet if we go
to this new format. If we use SongSelect as our basic music resource base, it
sounds like that regular frustration may be largely eliminated
Here are the churches I've contacted and the basics
of the info I've gotten from them:
Church: Kelowna
Alliance
Software used: MediaShout
V2 (switched from PowerPoint a couple of years ago)
Evaluation: basically quite
satisfied, imports video clips easily, handles video loops with lyrics over top
well, can import PP prepped presentations (though won't do fade transitions or
animations created in PP)
Church:
Willowpark
Software used: MediaShout
V3
Evaluation: very
happy with program because of its versatility, new V3 very power hungry however,
needs lots of computer horsepower--so need most most current media cards, etc.
that are available, not as intuitive perhaps as some other software programs but
because they have full-time professional staff that does the creation work and
media is such a key component of their worship its best for
them
Church: Evangel
Software used: Song Shout
Plus
Evaluation: quite happy
with it, has used PP, MediaShout, and EasyWorship as well and prefers Song Shout
because of its versatility, requires lots of computer horsepower, not as user
friendly as MediaShout but has ability to import songs directly from CCLI
without having to cut and paste
Church: Trinity
Baptist
Software used: MediaShout
V3
Evaluation: recommends it
highly--the only one to use, can do everything needed creation-wise right within
MediaShout itself, recommends getting an "Unlimited Site Licence" so that it can
be downloaded to home computers of those who do creation work
Church: First
Lutheran
Software used: MediaShout
V2.5 (and in process of upgrading to V3)
Evaluation: got it free
from their projection hardware supplier when they bought for their new facility,
haven't moved into V3 yet because they've had trouble with some program gliches
that don't seem to be worked out yet with new version (maybe a computer
power/Media Card issue), one glich with V2.5 is that they have trouble importing
DVD cues
Church: New Hope CRC
(Calgary)
Software used:
PowerPoint
Evaluation: continue to use
because they've found they when they have someone come in from elsewhere (which
they do often), most people still prep their presentations in PP and
so hasn't made sense to them to switch to another
system (The media tech from Trinity Baptist also mentioned this, but said their
solution was simply to keep their PP software up-to-date for outside presenters,
but that for typical worship situations MediaShout was the way to
go)
Church: Kelowna New
Life
Software used: PowerPoint
(with Songbase as their music resource base)
Evaluation: (Note: with
churches that still used PP, I didn't really inquire as to their evaluation of
it because it seemed by-and-large they used it only because that's all they've
ever used. Several were hardly aware even that there were other options
available)
Church: Westbank Emmanuel
Assembly
Software used:
EasyWorship
Evaluation: very satisfied
with system, they create their own video loops for background to songs and
import them easily into EasyWorship, they use PP to create their announcements
and import them into EasyWorship to display, they purchased it because they'd
gotten a $100 rebate coupon for the system at Breakforth Conf.
Church: Vernon CRC
Software used: PowerPoint
(but are looking into EasyWorship)
Evaluation:
Church: St.
David's
Software used: PowerPoint
(but are looking at MediaShout)
Evaluation:
Church: Garden
Valley
Software used:
PowerPoint
Evaluation:
Still looking to hear back from:
Kelowna Christian Center
Kelowna Gospel
Fellowship
Kelowna
Vineyard
Pastor
John
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