[jimflamesfan]

Are there any discounts available for alumni on computers from the bookstore?

What I'm really looking for is a place where I can buy a laptop pre-loaded with the latest version of office and also MediaShout already on it.

I'd like to use MediaShout to have the "moving" backgrounds behind the worship songs during the service.

Any suggestions?

Thanks!

[SuperJon]

ProPresenter is much better than Media Shout.

[jimflamesfan]

Thanks SuperJon,

Here's the deal. We had an annoymous donation of money to upgrade our church's laptop that we use for powerpoints. The old one was actually a Pentium 2 that ran Windows 98 and Office '97, we were using Powerpoint '97 for the slides. The crazy thing was I only had one flash drive that worked with it, b/c with Windows '98 you needed a driver.

Anyway, now we can upgrade, and I'd like to get software that would allow us to put lyrics in front of looped motion video backgrounds that isn't too complicated.

So I guess I have two follow-up questions...Do you have Propresenter running on a Windows platform or Mac? Which platform would you suggest and which software.

Thanks!

[SuperJon]

We run ProPresenter in five different venues and I have it on my laptop, all of which are Macs.

[Sly Fox]

We run ProPresenter on both PCs & Macs at our church ... at least we did when I had to worry about things on staff. We also used to use Media Shout in our kids venues before we got everyone on the same page. If you are upgrading, that is the direction I would suggest as well. It is easier to use and looks better.

[jimflamesfan]

Sly, which are you saying is easier...Mediashout or Propresenter?

[Sly Fox]

ProPresenter is easier to operate. Frankly it is better across the board in my experience with both. Granted I haven't used either in about 2 years. Most all of my megachurch buddies have gone all in on ProPresenter in recent years.

[Kolzilla41]

DO NOT get Easyworship. It has a lot of bugs. I do a lot of the audio and media at our church and I would also suggest you using Pro Presenter.

[jimflamesfan]

Thanks for all of your help!

I see you all like Propresenter. However, there are two things that have me leaning towards MediaShout...

#1. I can buy the physical DVD of the software as opposed to the download, and the place that I would purchase this at would throw in a bunch of looped backgrounds on another DVD.

#2. The price of Prosenter for 1 copy is about the same as the 3 license copy for MediaShout 4.5

Regarding #1...our church is in a rural area...the people living closest to it...unless you have satellite or pay for a Verizon setup - their out of luck. So downloading Propresenter would require me taking the laptop to a coffeshop or somewhere and buying the program and downloading.

Regarding #2...I can get two other people to help me if they put it on their computers with the 3 licenses...otherwise, I'm sort of stuck making everything at the church - I'd rather have others help

So I hate to bother you all...I'm noting that MediaShout has a longer learning curve...however, is Mediashout as least stable enough to use once we would learn it?

[Sly Fox]

It was adequate in my brief experience using it. I didn't realize the price had dropped that much on MediaShout. There wasn't much difference in price when we bought ProPresenter for some of our venues a couple of years ago.

[jimflamesfan]

Thanks so much. I did break down and go to a place with wifi to download the trial version of MediaShout. It does seem a little complicated, especially compared to powerpoint.

I was able to get a song done with a looping motion background, however.

I'm also going to try and download a trial of propresenter so that I can compare the two.

Thanks everyone for all of your help.

Jim.