Software Saturday: ProPresenter 3

I’ve posted a few times about how much I like and/or have been frustrated with Renewed Vision’s software software. Recently I had the opportunity to sit down and spend more time than I ever have before just checking out the features on ProPresenter 3. Oh my goodness, I feel like a whole new world has been opened up to me. It is now official. Without a doubt, ProPresenter is hands down the best lyric presentation software available.

Trust me, I’m not saying that lightly. I’ve used just about everything out there – many times – and none of them even come close. Why? Well, for one thing most of them are for WIndows systems only and I’m not even going to begin to explain again why that is a disadvantage. PP3 has always looked slick and been easy to use but now that I have seen the light with some of the features I wonder if most of their users even know about, I am singing it’s praises and will be using it exclusively when I travel this summer.

Here are some of my now favorite features:

1. Song Automation – insert an audio track (i.e. click track) and record when the slides are supposed to change. Yes, exactly what you are thinking. You can even make it so the words change color or light up as you sing them (i.e. bouncing ball effect).
2. Countdown Timer – with it’s built into countdown generator, you can insert a clock or countdown on top of anything. Mess around with this for a minute and you’ll see how useful it is.
3. DVD Clips – Instead of having to rip sections of a DVD for a short clip, you can set in/out points in PP3 and it will play them directly from the DVD.
4. Live Video Feed – hook up a video signal via firewire or SDI and you can overlay text on a live feed.

There are so many other little things I love (i.e. color coding song sections, quick editing, common sense video library, playlists) that I regret ever saying anything negative about any Renewed Vision products. Just remember – the Apple Button is the most important button.

Interesting Survey From CCLI

CCLI polled the thousands of members who use their service and the results are interesting. Do you think this says anything about the state of the church?

What kind of worship music does your church primarily use?

• Contemporary worship songs – 18.2%
• Traditional hymns – 6.1%
• Blended (combination of contemporary and traditional) – 63.6%
• Separate services for contemporary and traditional – 12.1%

If you have separate services, which service has more attendance?

• Contemporary service – 40.5%
• Traditional service – 29.4%
• About the same – 30.1%

Do you see your church’s primary worship music changing in the foreseeable future?

• Yes – 15.5%
• No – 84.5%v

If yes, to what?

• Contemporary worship songs – 55.2%
• Traditional hymns – 1.8%
• Blended (combination of contemporary and traditional) – 43.0%

What is the average time allotted for congregational singing in your church’s main service?

• 0-10 minutes – 5.5%
• 11-20 minutes – 47.3%
• 21-30 minutes – 36.7%
• 31-40 minutes – 8.5%
• 40+ minutes – 2.0%

How many songs do you sing during your worship service?

• 1-3 – 7.9%
• 4-6 – 72.8%
• 7-9 – 17.8%
• 10+ – 1.6%

How would you rate your congregation’s response to your church’s worship style?

• Very enthusiastic – 26.0%
• Generally positive – 61.7%
• Mixed – 11.0%
• Struggling – 1.3%

What are your Music Ministry’s biggest challenges?

• Lack of funds/resources – 18.3%
• Lack of preparation time – 25.0%
• Lack of skilled musicians/vocalists – 38.6%
• Other – 18.1%

What is the age range of your church’s music pastor/director?

• 18-25 – 4.2%
• 26-35 – 14.5%
• 36-45 – 30.2%
• 46-55 – 33.2%
• 55+ – 17.9%

Does your church use movie/video scenes for sermon illustrations?

• Yes – 52.1%
• No – 47.9%

What is your primary source for discovering new worship music?

• Radio – 23.5%
• Music Club – 19.2%
• Internet – 19.9%
• Direct Mail – 7.5%
• Music Conferences – 10.3%
• Bookstore – 6.7%
• Other – 12.9%

What is your primary source for purchasing new worship music?

• Music Club – 17.6%
• Internet – 38.0%
• Direct Mail – 9.7%
• Music Conferences – 4.8%
• Bookstore – 21.3%
• Other – 8.7%

What is your annual budget for purchasing church music?

• Under $100 – 16.9%
• $100 – $250 – 22.3%
• $251 – $500 – 20.9%
• $501 – $1,000 – 14.5%
• Over $1,000 – 25.5%

Copyright Concerns in Your Church

I started out typing a long explanation of copyright law for some church leaders who have recently been asking me questions. There are plenty of sites out there that do a good job explaining things in detail, so I’m just going to give you the basics.

1. If you are performing a song in what the Copyright Office would consider a religious service (“in the course of services at a place of worship or other religious assembly”), then you can perform the songs without any kind of permission whatsoever.
2. However, you cannot print or display the lyrics, record the service via audio or video, nor can you reproduce chord charts for your band even if they include the title of the song or any of the songs lyrics without written consent from the owners of the copyright.
3. That is where CCLI comes in. They cover chart printing (not choir or orchestra sheet music copying), recordings (not distributed or sold), and lyrics displayed among other things I don’t specifically use.
4. If your band plays other people’s songs for community events or anything that is not a “religious services,” it is considered a non-exempt public performance and you would be breaking the law without permission from the copyright holder. Contrary to popular belief, CCLI does not cover these types of performances along with many other things.

• CCLI has a limited library and includes no secular tunes or many popular songs heard of Christian radio. If you just perform the song without displaying lyrics, you’re in the clear so long as your band members learned the song on there own you did not create and distribute charts.
• CCLI also does not cover web broadcasts of the music you perform – but Church Copyright Administration does along with everything else including video. CCA is expensive and requires serious planning-ahead skills – like 4-8 weeks out planning-ahead skills. They describe themselves as the difference between buying turbo tax (CCLI) and hiring a professional personal accountant (CCA).
• With so many new artists and so many new songs that are not registered with CCLI, it is legally up to you (whoever is in charge of reporting) to locate the copyright owner/publisher and report to them your use of their song and pay the PROs (publishing rights organizations) the proper royalties.
• If you are a member of the Willow Creek Association you can get discounts on licenses that are not covered by CCLI.

Bottom line, it is expensive, complicated, and extremely time consuming to be compeltely covered, but there is a slight bit of room in the U.S. copyright law for liberal interpretation. Churches are similar to schools as they are non-profit organizations that a teach reproduces copyrighted material to a face-to-face audience for educational purposes. In that regard, the “fair use” clause in the U.S. copyright law allows for even more exemptions. Though I’ve never heard of any church being taken to court over this gray area and the chances are pretty slim it ever will, it could happen and you would not want it to be you.

Tim Stevens discusses copyright a bit in his book “Pop Goes the Church.”

This site is a nice resource and much easier to read than the pages on the official U.S. Copyright Office’s website. The laws have changed from time to time, so make sure your info is up to date.

How To Roll a Cable

Anyone who has anything to do with cables needs to memorize how to do this!!!

Oak Leaf Production Part VI

In-Ears vs. Wedges

My years, I fought against in-ear monitors. I hated the way they felt and believed they took me away from the vibe in the room (still believe that) which made it harder to connect with the audience I was trying to lead. All that changed when I was forced to use them in a college service I was playing at because the sound guy needed all the help he could get controlling the stage volume. Once I got used to and met a few life long musicians who had major hearing loss from using wedges for so many years, I was convinced – and have never looked back. You might not think it makes that much difference, but I assure you, the first time you put ears in your players and lose stage wedges, you’ll immediately notice the difference even if you have loud drummers and guitar amps.

We use Sennheiser wireless ears (EIM300) because they are the best quality and also one of the least expensive options. MSRP is close to $1500 but you can find them for near half that. Compared to Shure and other reputable companies, they blow them out of the water. Almost every major Christian artist I have seen on tour is using these unless they have a Shure endorsement and can not use anything else. Add an additional body pack ($400) and you can have two separate wireless monitor systems just by panning the body packs opposite of each other and sending a separate mono mix to the left and right channel of the transmitter (the main box). We have two systems we have setup tha way to give us four mono mixes and two other systems that are run stereo. I won’t really touch on it too much here, but having stereo ear mixes is something I have just recently come to appreciate and think it makes a huge difference on stage (though I often only have only one ear in which sort of defeats the purpose).

A ton of people use the Aviom system which is great and gives each player their own control over their mixes eliminating time during sound check to get everyone’s ears checked and ready. It also frees up auxes on your board for effects or sub control since it splits the signals coming in. However, it only gives you control over sixteen channels which we use much more than. Our set-up includes a separate mixing board and engineer whose sole purpose is to run and mix monitors. This option frees up the house engineer to do his job (theoretically) and gives us a dedicated person to keep an eye for any needs we have on stage. This person also acts as a “stage manager” who handles mics for guests who come on and off stage and communicates with the house when audio is about to some through via video or whatever. It is a feature that is used mostly on big stages where there are several bands, but we had to choose between Aviom (or something similar as there are some other new options out there that are quite competitive) and wireless ears and we chose wireless…because I prefer not to have wires and I go to make the decision.

Bottom line, either option has pluses and minuses and I’m sure you’d be happy with which ever you choose. Of course, you might have so much money you choose to do both which gives you the best of both worlds and if I had an extra $5000 laying around, that’s what I would do.

Oak Leaf Production Part V

Set-up is always a beast, and I knew there was no way anyone would stick around to help me on Sunday if they had to plug all the equipment in, set-it up, then do the reverse to tear down every Sunday. So, I designed a case that rack mounts all of the equipment, has table legs in the lids to create work space, and has a connector panel so projectors, TVs, Cameras, and audio I/O (in/out) for easy plug and go, and hired someone to build it. No, it was not cheap. It cost about $2000, but as you can imagine, it was well worth it. Sometimes, you’ve got to bite the bullet and spend the money to make your life easier. This was one thing I could not compromise on.

The same guy who built the case made us some projector platforms that fit on top of ordinary, inexpensive speaker stands. Theoretically they should have worked perfectly, but for whatever reason, we always had problems lining the three screens up (they have to be lined up perfectly. We eventually moved to camera tripods with plywood platforms bolted to the quick release attachment, which worked much better and would have saved us money had we gone that direction to begin with.

We set up three risers on stage for drums and other instruments. They are Intellistage by Road Ready and are light-weight and fairly easy to set-up if you get the expandable legs. We only got those legs for the higher drum riser and less expensive screw-in legs for the other two. Big mistake. It might have saved us a couple hundred dollars but it takes way more man power and time to screw in 40 legs. We are in the process of saving up to buy the expandable legs for the other risers and will be ordering them very soon. The reason I went with this staging was because of the simplicity in set-up and the fact you can get special cases that house all the pieces making it extremely easy to load in and out. With the expandable legs, the entire system can easily be set-up by one person. The down side is the sturdiness. Compared to other portable staging by Stage Right, and other companies, it is much cheaper, but it is not near as heavy duty either. This is the kind of stage you’ll find at trade shows where quick and easy is the way to go. You want see this kind of stage in a venue where bands, dances, and other activity driven performances are the norm. for what we use it for, it is prefect. If we ever back to a room where we had to set up our own stage, we would find something else.

Several people have been asking me for pictures of Oak Leaf’s media environment so I thought I’d give you a link to a web gallery that has a few. I’ll take my camera with me this Sunday and take a few more so you can get a better idea of what is involved and how we have it set up.

I’d also like to extend the invitation to anyone who has any sort of question about anything you think I might be able to help you with to ask away. I am definitely not an expert by any means, but I have a fair amount of experience in just about every media and music related area and might be able to give some insight or at least offer an idea or suggestion. I’m not sure what people need to know and instead of me continuing to type out everything we do, it might be more productive if I could specifically help you in your area of need. Leave a comment or email me and I reply within 24 hours.

Oak Leaf Production Part IV

With a tight budget, I had to make cuts across the board to pull off the media package without sacrificing too much quality. Since I knew there was no way I was going to even be able to financially stay in the HD ball park, first thing to go was the quality chain from the computer to the projector. To maintain the 1400×900 resolution coming from the computer, I’d have to have all sorts of digital splitters, scalers, and switchers capable of handling the HD signal and you can imagine how much money that was going to cost. It’s important to realize once you go down in video quality, you can’t really go back up without spending a fortune in gear designed to make the scaling up process look better than it should. In other words, once you smash a 1064×768 source down to 640×480, trying to scale it back up to the original source is just going to create video noise that makes the image look fuzzy or blurred. And you don’t want that.

So everything is run analog BNC from the$20 DVI to RCA adapters we bought at the apple store to the yellow RCA jack in the back of the projector. I know some of you are cringing right now, but let me say me this. If I had the money, I know how to do it right. But I didn’t have the money so I had to face the bold reality that 99% of the people we were doing this for (i.e. those attending the church services) would never know we skimped on anything…well…until now. Truth is, it still looks really good and unless I had something to A/B the difference, I might just argue to the grave it is not worth the money to go HD (yet).

Now, if you are not trying to run a system where one image fits multiple screens, you can keep the digital chain for a lot less money than it would cost us to do the same thing. Most settings only need one computer, ProPresenter, a nice dvi to composite splitter, and some long cables and our in business. Not to mention, for a portable church, everything you do needs to be easy to set-up and tear down.

So how do we set all of this up on a Sunday morning without losing our minds or all our volunteers? I’m still working on that one…but I’ll tell you how we set it up and make it all happen in under an hour in the next post.

Oak Leaf Production Part III

There are several different ways to get multiple screens to do what we wanted them to do, but most of them are EXTREMELY expensive. It is all because we wanted the ability to show different images, the same image, AND one image across all three screens. The cherry on top was that we also wanted to be able to key in lyrics (cut out the background color so just the lyrics show over the video) to songs so they would appear on top and the image behind them could change (i.e. from moving background to camera feed). If you wanted to do this “right,” as my critics would say, you should expect to spend at least $50,000 on a high-end broadcast quality matrix switcher and all the other components needed to keep the signal chain from multiple computer sources at the original resolution AND provide the keying flexibility you are looking for. Well, we didn’t have that kind of money to spend on just one aspect of the project with screens, projectors, computers, TVs, and much more needing to be purchased. I had to find a much less expensive solution.

Let me step back a minute and give you a picture of what our set-up looks like (I’d show you pictures, but I can’t seem to find any – I’ll take some Sunday). The screens are Stumpfl Monblox 64 16′x9′ and there are three of them set-up end to end as our backdrop (if you’re in the market to buy screens, you really need to check these guys out – incredible quality and about half the cost of Da-Lite) We are using 3 BenQ SP831 projectors to display the images on the screens. Each projector’s source is controlled by an Edirol LVS-400 video switcher. Why the LVS-400 and not the V-4 which is about half the cost? Quality and ease of use. There is really nothing wrong with the V-4. In fact, we use one for the signal to the LCD TVs on stage and one for our tele-prompter signal. It just has about 100 features (like BPM sync) we will never use and I wanted to pamper as much as I could the end result to the main screens.

Now, I’m sure you’re asking, “did you say you are using 5 switchers?” Yes, one for each projector, the stage TVs, and the tele-prompter. Each screen image must be controlled by something that will allow an image to be keyed over another source. The switchers solve that problem (see first paragraph to see why I didn’t choose a less complicated alternate solution). You may think I am insane to have five T-bars on one desk, but it is really not as bad as it sounds. The center screen is independent so we can put lyrics over a camera feed on the left and right screens and the center screen be the series graphic or a video background or the same as the left or right. When we run one image across all three screens, ProVideoPlayer does all the work. It tells the main iMac to only show the left part of the image, which goes through the switcher and to the left screen, Mac Mini slave #1 to show the center portion ,which follows the path to the center screen, and Mac Mini #2 to display only the right portion to the right screen. As confusing as it sounds, all of that happens with the touch of button or two and can be changed on the fly instantly to multiple images, separate feeds, and just about any creative combination you can come up with. It is a ton of fun.

The next closest thing I found within a reasonable price range to do what I wanted was the media server made by Edirol which also requires slave devices and would have probably cost over $20,000 just for the control functionality. With ProVideoPlayer, one iMac (the master), two mac minis (the slaves), all the licenses and the switchers to give us the control and keying feature, we spent less than $9000. In fact, add the screens, projectors and TVs, and we still came in under what it would have cost to go with the next cheapest scenario.

So what about video quality? We are obviously not keeping the HD signal coming from the computers through the chain to the projectors. Was it worth sacrificing image quality to save a little money? Find out in the next post.

Oak Leaf Production Part II

The main component of the video system we use is a ridiculously awesome program called ProVideoPlayer by Renewed Vision. They’re the same people who make ProPresenter which is another great program we use for all of our song lyrics. Both programs are well worth the license cost and I have yet to find anything else on the market that is as easy to use as they are. Best part is, if your not sure they will work with what you are doing, you can download all their software for free and try it out for as long as you like. The actual presentation display on the demo version has their copyright info splayed across the image, but you can test, practice, and decide without ever spending a dime. And I would recommend doing just that.

Before I dive into ProVideoPlayer, let me talk a minute about ProPresenter. I’ve always been a PowerPoint fan and never really got into any of the other presentation programs out there like Media Shout and Easy Worship. I loved the text editing and animation features on PowerPoint because it gave me a simple way to spice up a boring 2D slide show. It took me a while to get into ProPresenter for many of the same reasons. That was until I applied the magic of the “apple” button (which is a mac user’s best friend). I realized everything I really wanted in a presentation program for song lyrics that would end up being keying out of the background anyway was built into the easiest to use and most esthetically pleasing presentation software out there. I still miss the animated text, but I’ve grown up a little bit and am now studying how to create kinetic typography in After Effects (or Motion, which ever comes first). The biggest downside to ProPresenter is that it only works on Apple computers. But since your reading my opinion, that is not really a downside at all. Like they say, “Once you go Mac, you’ll never go back.”

If you’re just going to using the computer source and not a video switcher or some other type of keying device to layer text onto video backgrounds, ProPresenter is all you need. however, for us, we wanted the ability to put text over camera feeds, video backgrounds, and change what was behind the text and any given moment. That is one of the reasons we run all of our videos through ProVideoPlayer. The other and more important reason is its ability to control slave nodes (Mac Minis in our case – I’ll talk more about this in my next post) so every source can broadcast its proper piece of the entire-image-across-all-screens puzzle. How does it work? I don’t know the technology in the software, but on my end, all I have to do is click a button called “Grid Mapping” and it’s done. Well, there is a little more to it than that. You have to make sure each source has the same video in the same playlist so ProVideoPlayer knows where to look. But once you’ve got it all in order, it really is the push of a button. There is even a feature for tiling so you can make your screens split into four, eight, sixteen, etc. squares of the source image. That feature is a ton of fun to play with. We don’t use it enough.

With ProVideoPlayer acting as the media server and ProPresenter as the text editor, we have our foundation to work with. So how do we get it all to go to the screens and have the control I’ve been talking about? See you next post.

Oak Leaf Production Part I

Some people have been asking about how we do what we do media wise at Oak Leaf. Since I am the Creative Arts Pastor and I did sort of put it all together, I guess it is only fitting that I write about what we use, why we use it, and how it all works. I’ll do this in several installments so it doesn’t end up being the longest post in blogging history.

Let’s start with the premise and reason behind the vision. By it’s one year anniversary, Oak Leaf had grown by nearly 300% to almost 900 and needed to move to a bigger facility, which of course led to a need for a bigger production. Michael, the lead pastor, wanted to emulate Elevation’s scheme with a background of video with three large projector screens. The only difference was, he wanted the ability to broadcast one image across all three screens. If you have any experience layering video and using keys, you’ll understand how un-simple and non-cheap that expectation should be.

So here were my goals:

- Figure out how to get three screens to show independent images, identical images, and one large image across them all without spending a fortune.

- Make sure every source was 16:9 capable (preferably native) including the projectors, computers, and cameras so all feeds could handle the desired end result.

- Incorporate two 42″ LCD TVs that flank the drum riser into the video line so they can mirror the video and images projected on the screens plus receive an independent dedicated signal.

- Work it out so a TV at the front of the stage acts as a tele-prompter showing what is on the screens as well as messages, song lyrics, sermon notes, and a picture-in-picture timer to keep people who need to be in check in check.

- Build a case to house all the preview monitors and equipment necessary to make it all work so the entire set-up can be rolled out, plugged in, and ready to go in as little time as possible.

- Run at least two camera feeds to the media case for video reference and another option for the screen background layer.

- Keep the set-up and function of the equipment simple enough volunteers could easily learn and effectively run all the equipment.

- Purchase and put together the entire system with all necessary accessories inside a budget of $25,000 by October 6th (six weeks after I was given the project).

I’m not going to lie, we didn’t meet the budget, but we came REAL close all things considered. To help me make sure I didn’t miss anything and most importantly that my plan would work, I sought out an A/V production/installation company to assist me. If I had to do it again, even though we might have saved a little money through their dealer pricing, I wouldn’t have hired the A/V company and would done the whole thing on my own. The “experts” I hired ended up being more of a frustration and stress than I needed under the pressure and I don’t see the point in paying people to miss deadlines and make me more stressed. I do that to myself just fine.

So now your asking, what equipment did we buy, how did we make it work, is the image quality good, etc… Well…find out in my next post.