For the past two years I’ve been using Sunday Plus for media presentation. It’s actually what our church had been using for several years. It made perfect sense to use it since we had a site license, a vast library of songs, backgrounds and tons of video loops. But man was this software buggy. I had a love/hate relationship with it. It was so much better than PowerPoint, but very frustrating on many different levels. If I had a video clip to show, I’d have to get the video guys to rip it off and it had to be encoded to a very specific type of video file.
About a year ago my church launched it’s third campus. The tech director intended to test a new software called ProPresenter for this campus. At the last minute leadership said no, but the equipment and software had already been purchased for the Children’s Ministry there. This did cause some problems as I was using Sunday Plus, another campus was still using PowerPoint, and the new campus was now using ProPresenter. When we’d make all the slides, we’d make them as JPEG’s so that each campus could just import the pictures for the slides. However, just a few months ago the rest of the church decided to make the shift to ProPresenter.
Let me tell you, it’s the best presentation software I’ve ever seen. Like all things Mac, the look is clean, simple and fresh. Most importantly, a volunteer can run it with absolute ease. It also offers the flexibility to make changes on the fly. ProPresenter also has integrated video better than anyone else I’ve seen. Like most other software, you can import video clips. However, you can also pop in a DVD and navigate through the DVD setting in and out points and naming the clips. Then where you’re ready to show the clips, you can simply click on the clip you’ve saved and it will bring up that cue on the DVD. Nothing is more embarrassing than introducing a video clip that got lost because the volunteer hit the wrong button. Oops… but it happens. Not anymore with ProPresenter.
Go to their web site. They’ve got all kind of video tutorials that show how it works. I’m pretty sure they offer a free trial as well. The only limitation is that it’s only for Mac. So, you’ll probably have to convert your tech booth machines. It isn’t exactly cheap, especially if you have to buy new equipment. But just think of the time you’ve spent getting that presentation ready and pulling your hair out getting clips and slide in just the right spot. When considering all of this, it’s worth it’s weight in gold!
NextWhat do you use to blog? I’m using Windows Live Writer!