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[Jacob Robinson]

Our church is finally making the dive into projection software by purchasing a PC and Software.  I have been using Easyworship 2009 for about a year part-time off of my personal laptop but now the church wants to buy a PC and software for their own use every service.  I thought I had my mind made up to buy Easyworship, but now propresenter is available for windows.  I am torn as both are same price and I am not sure which has most features and is most efficeint for church presentations.

Thanks for any advice!

[Thomas Lamb]

Just my opinion. I'm a Mac guy!! I would by a base model iMac and pro presenter. A base iMac will run for years without issueat church. I'm not getting into the argument Of y macs are better than pc s or visaversa. I will only say that anyone has to admit that a piece of hardware and software that are designed for eachother typically work better than any old harware using software that's designed to work with anything. Buy once cry once. Get the Mac get pp4 and no it's not a steep learnIng curve.

[Brian Gowing]

I've used EasyWorship 2009 and ProPresenter4 (both Mac and Windows). Excluding hardware choices and focusing strictly on the software I think you'll find that ProPresenter4 has a more robust feature set and will accomodate more refined presentation options for the future as your church volunteers get more familiar with it. EW2009 is an incredibly easy to use piece of software and I recommend it to my churches that simply have no volunteers with sufficient computer knowledge that just need to run the program.

If you want to get more imaginative and think you will end up using the flexibility and power of PP4 I would recommend it highly. Renewed Vision has done a great job of ensuring that both the Mac and Windows versions are as close to each other as possible and the Windows version is as stable as the Mac version. An advantage the Windows version has over the Mac version pertains to Powerpoint. If you have a lot of sermon illustrations that your pastor puts together in Powerpoint with a lot of animations or transitions, the Windows version runs Powerpoint Viewer natively (or the Powerpoint application if it's installed) instead of converting the individual PowerPoint slides to jpegs which it does on the Mac. The Windows version preserves the transitions and animations. The Mac version does not.

[Ben Brunskill]

we recently made the switch from easyworship on a PC,  to PP4 on a Mac Mini.

There were a few groans, as we got it all introduced, and some users would have preferred a PC. Bu the PP4 software is very, very powerful, and at the same time super easy to use. It's 100 time more stable than buggy old easyworship was.

We also had a lot of problems with the Dell PC we were using, the nVida video output card, and easyworship. Those components never played nice together, and we had lots of problems.

Propresenter is designed to work with new Mac hardware, and new Macs support two HD monitors, right out of the box. So there was no extra hardware, or complex wiring, I just plugged it in and it works. We just added a large LCD monitor facing the stage, and brought a USB - VGA card from renewedvision.co.nz, so now that one Mac Mini with Propresenter is running three unique outputs, still stable, with no issues.

Money well spent.

[timdgibson]

I'll chime in with the minority viewpoint.

I think Easy Worship gets shortchanged a lot of the time. Yes, as the name says it is easy, but it is also very powerful. Combine it with the native powerpoint capabilities and you have a very good system. Add in a competent person creating the slides and it's a fantastic system.

Later this year will be a significant update to the software. A Mac version will be released. The teasers are looking very promising and it will give Pro Presenter a run for it's money.

OTOH, Pro Presenter is very powerful. I have nothing against it. Although the early Windows versions were very buggy. Our Easy Worship has been very solid. We've been on it for about 4 1/2 years now. A few minor issues, but the support staff is excellent.


Tim Gibson
Director of Technical Ministries
The Evangelical Free Church of Crystal Lake

[Chris Carpenter]

I'm not getting into the argument Of y macs are better than pc s or visaversa.

Hahaha, sure you're not. 


Anyways, another option to consider is MediaShout. I have yet to try the other two options listed, but media shout has given the local churches that contracted me all the power they can reasonably ask for in a presentation package. There is a bit of a learning curve, but the tutorial videos give you what you need to get started.

[Arnold B. Krueger]

I've used EasyWorship 2009 and ProPresenter4 (both Mac and Windows). Excluding hardware choices and focusing strictly on the software I think you'll find that ProPresenter4 has a more robust feature set and will accomodate more refined presentation options for the future as your church volunteers get more familiar with it. EW2009 is an incredibly easy to use piece of software and I recommend it to my churches that simply have no volunteers with sufficient computer knowledge that just need to run the program.

If you want to get more imaginative and think you will end up using the flexibility and power of PP4 I would recommend it highly. Renewed Vision has done a great job of ensuring that both the Mac and Windows versions are as close to each other as possible and the Windows version is as stable as the Mac version. An advantage the Windows version has over the Mac version pertains to Powerpoint. If you have a lot of sermon illustrations that your pastor puts together in Powerpoint with a lot of animations or transitions, the Windows version runs Powerpoint Viewer natively (or the Powerpoint application if it's installed) instead of converting the individual PowerPoint slides to jpegs which it does on the Mac. The Windows version preserves the transitions and animations. The Mac version does not.

We are having a heck of a time getting Propresenter Windows to work on a number of different PCs that we have tried it on. Just getting to open up its window is often too much to ask. The vendor seems to be very little help. Any wisdom about hardware configuration?

[Brian Gowing]

We are having a heck of a time getting Propresenter Windows to work on a number of different PCs that we have tried it on. Just getting to open up its window is often too much to ask. The vendor seems to be very little help. Any wisdom about hardware configuration?

Have you checked your hardware configurations against what RenewedVision recommends? Their specs are pretty spot-on for what you need to run PP4 on a PC. Another question is how many graphics or videos do you have in the Media bin? I've found that once you get over 200 or so ProPresenter takes longer to boot up. One more thing, try turning off Check for Update at startup. If you have a slow interent connection that could slow you down too.

[Arnold B. Krueger]

Have you checked your hardware configurations against what RenewedVision recommends?

Of course!

Their specs are pretty spot-on for what you need to run PP4 on a PC.

I know of at least one glaring omission. The current version (4.0.3.6) has been highly unstable for us on 6 core CPUs, but disabling 2 cores via SYSTEM.INI cleans things up a lot. This has been obsevered on two different systems. The systems in question are highly stable with the usual run of software and heavy CPU, memory, and I/O loads.

Another question is how many graphics or videos do you have in the Media bin? I've found that once you get over 200 or so ProPresenter takes longer to boot up. One more thing, try turning off Check for Update at startup. If you have a slow interent connection that could slow you down too.

I have test files that crash PP4 with just one 3 minute video and only a few files in the video bin.  Our internet is Comcast cable via a 100BTX LAN with a light load and runs reasonably fast.

[pconstable]

Hey guys,

Just going to chime n as an employee at EasyWorship.  I agree with Brian.  When working on a PC, or essentially an open system when it comes to hardware, you need to be careful when selecting components because it can create "bugginess".  Brian describes a very specific configuration is often necessary to avoid those issues.  This is often where EasyWorship can also catch some of the "short-changed" opinions that Tim describes and Ben has expressed.  In a closed hardware system the environment is controlled and easier to manage from a programming standpoint.

That said, we appreciate those who take the time to look into the power of what EasyWorship has offered even as far back as 2007 and we are planning for so much more with our next release.  And we too hope to take advantage of the stable hardware that Mac offers to provide a clean experience for the user.

For those who want a sneak peak at what we're up to, feel free to email me for a link to a beta o the next version.  We'd love to get comments from people who stay in the know when it comes to church technology.