Need advice on another nice software package.

[Trigger_tre 1]

Thanks to all those people who gave advice on the Adobe Web Bundle package I got last week. That package is awesome and I have only begun to scratch the suface of it capabilities.

I have a new request though. My pastor of our church would like me to get him some sort of software package that will be used to operate our video projector screen during songs (basically having the words to the songs display while music is playing). He would also like this software to be able to use incorporate something like powerpoint presentations on the video projector.

Is there a certain editing product/software you guys recommend that could be used specially for the video projector either for song lyrics, presentations, videos, text and just good animation graphics to display before church with various information on it or during other times when the video projector would be used.

As far as his computing skills, he is very familiar with powerpoint and he is fairly quick to learn stuff but I would like a product that is at least semi-user-friendly.

Your advice and/or comments are more than helpful.

thanks,

trigger.

[Skink000 0]

Hi Trigger, this is way out of my league, topic wise, but you might look into what the other churches in the area use. This is such a specific use and I am sure they would be happy to give advice.

Good Luck and have great day.

Congratulations on Web Bundle.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Stick with what you know, and use Powerpoint on a laptop.  You should be able to trigger it with a wireless mouse and you can certainly connect one of the new projectors to the video port.

[Trigger_tre 1]

Well, some products I found thus far are the "Easy Worship" and "Media Shout" software that act in the manner that I need. However, the price is $379.00 and they dont offer student versions.

Powerpoint is easy to use but its so limited.

We also already have a labtop hooked up to the projector.

I was hoping to semi-automate the process also (Almost like the Karaoke screens but not exactly the same). I would like to be able to have the powerpoint presentation run simultaneous with the music.  However I know the sound capabilities are limited with powerpoint so the quality might sound crappy.

Does anyone know how I might accomplish the simultaneous tasking?

Would it be better to create a Flash video inside the powerpoint that would play the music insinc with the words? I think at least that way the sound quality would remain and the music and image projections would display simultaneously.

Anymore thoughts on this are helpful.

Thanks,

-trigger

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Frankly, your church sounds very unorthodox as churches go.  Don't you have an organist?  Even a band would be good?  Why play music with an automated system?  I don't think I could be a member of a congregation that was that automated.

[Ma8thew 77]

There are ways of embeding Flash in a PowerPoint, you might want to Google it.

[Trigger_tre 1]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body Frankly, your church sounds very unorthodox as churches go.  Don't you have an organist?  Even a band would be good?  Why play music with an automated system?  I don't think I could be a member of a congregation that was that automated.quote>

Well our church is very small. Like 100+ members so its harder for us to find enough members skilled enough to play live music every sunday.  Though we do play live music on Wednesday nights. No we dont have an organist. Often those are seen in Catholic, Southern Baptist, etc. the more traditional chruches). Our church is alot more lively, its an Assembly of God or Pentecostal. I grew-up going to Soutern Baptist churches and the having to listen to the old organist play and singing monotone hymms always put me to sleep. I often had to sit in the back of church so it wouldnt be so obvious when I started catching Z's.

Right now we just play lively worship songs from CD's but edited out the vocals in our sound room. So our Pastor and choir can sing to it along with the rest of the congregation.

Considering we now have a video projector it would be easier to automate this process with music and graphic/text display so it could be operated by 1 person and there would be less chance for something to go wrong.

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Well, you are creating a single point of failure.

If you can't find instrumental music, why not go a capella?  Everyone can sing, not necessarily on key.  Most sacred songs are pretty easy.  We are not asking you to render Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring in SSAATTBB you know.

Good luck, and God bless.

[Trigger_tre 1]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body Well, you are creating a single point of failure.

If you can't find instrumental music, why not go a capella?  Everyone can sing, not necessarily on key.  Most sacred songs are pretty easy.  We are not asking you to render Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring in SSAATTBB you know.

Good luck, and God bless.quote>

You kinda lost me there. I never said we didnt have the right CD's though they are not just instrumental versions, we just used normal CD's because its easy to drop the vocals when we have a nice mixing board. Why not go a cappella?...Isnt it obvious that most people CAN'T sing well and to get the congregation involved in church and comfortable & on beat its easier just to have music playing in the background. Plus we dont listen or sing sacred/hymm songs. We sing more new age and upbeat music as well as some older southern gospel, but almost never hymms. Think of the the church Forrest Gump visited when he became a shrimp boat capt'n. Or the church in the movie with Nick Nolte & Shaquille O'Neil (I think it was called Blue Chips, not sure though). We are more involved in our singing, we clap our hands and sway occasionally, etc. As opposed to the number of years I went to a Southern Baptist church where only hymms were sung and no one ever clapped in beat with a song or even moved for that matter. Every one was so stiff and uncomfortable looking.

Anyway back on subject, all I want to do is have it so the guy controlling the mixing board in the sound round to be able to concentrate on just the volume and quality controls on the mixing board and not have to worry about fooling with the notebook that controls the video projectors graphics. That way I wouldnt have to sit back there and control the prompter. I guess I will just have to experiment on this one.

I think I am going to just create individual flash files for each song and just add them to an individual slide in powerpoint. That way each Sunday I can just plug in the slides with each flash file and BAM....automatic sound/graphics display.

-trigger

[A Nonny Moose 8,261]

Sorry, as someone who knows more than somewhat about choral music, church choirs, and what it takes to have a rousing good (service) time, I think you are setting yourself up for a fall.  What happens if the power is off?  (It doesn't work anymore, because of this single failure).  Ditto if the light burns out, etc., etc.

It is hard to shut down a choir, singing by itself, even if it is dark.  Not only that, but you get better participlation If you can find a choir director of some stripe, probably your minister, you can have practices, which are social events, and tie people closer to each other.  A church is a wonderful place to be closer to each other and closer to God.

[Trigger_tre 1]

Originally posted by: N_O_Body Sorry, as someone who knows more than somewhat about choral music, church choirs, and what it takes to have a rousing good (service) time, I think you are setting yourself up for a fall.  What happens if the power is off?  (It doesn't work anymore, because of this single failure).  Ditto if the light burns out, etc., etc.

It is hard to shut down a choir, singing by itself, even if it is dark.  Not only that, but you get better participlation If you can find a choir director of some stripe, probably your minister, you can have practices, which are social events, and tie people closer to each other.  A church is a wonderful place to be closer to each other and closer to God.quote>

I think you might not be reading all my posts or something, because you seem to be a little off target.  What if the power goes out? Uh...Duh. Obviously we would not have any of the necessaities that utilize power. Like sound, lighting, HEAT, or air conditioning.  If that were the case I seriouly doubt that sound would be our main conern above light, heat, or AC.  Church might get postponed because many people either would not come or if the power was out there would be a good chance that  it would be a county or statewide thing and for safety sake church might get cancelled. I think you are being a little overly hypethetical. Besides between my family am my wifes we have 3 generators that might suffice the light, heat, & sound room.

As far as the choir.....just because we use regular CD's and edit out the vocals doesnt mean our 8-10 member vocalists are not capable of singing without sound. And yes out pastor does lead the songs and the 8-10 choir members act as backup.  Having sound just makes it better obviously.

Our system we have now works for us and our congregation likes it so I guess I must not be doing a good job of explaining it to you. The problem is that recently we purchased a nice video projector and my pastor would like to utilize it to illustrate images, information, as well as the lyrics to songs we listen to before church and during praise & worship..

I still dont understand how I am setting myself up for failure considering many churches small & large have video projectors that either display event information or song lyrics before church as well as during praise & worship times.  Generally I am not doing anything new that has not been done already by many other churches. I am just trying to keep from spending an additional $400 on software when it can be done with powerpoint and flash 8.

Either way, I would like to drop this conversation on how my church operates because its taking away from the original point of this topic. That being how to incorporate lyrics and sound simultaneously in some program like powerpoint so that the process of switching songs or display specific information can be automated on the video projector.

-trigger

[Skink000 0]

Hi Trigger, like I say this is way out of my league, topic wise, but I was wondering if you could do what you want with the web bundle you just bought? 

I have been playing around a little bit with animated gif files lately and was just wondering if a page of lyrics could be one frame in an animated gif. The frames can be timed to change in time to the music. I know there are ways to add sounds to a animated gif (I have not tried it yet my self, and do not know if it would complicate things) but could you not make the text and music part of the same animation? You could also add your own graphics and backgrounds.

I'm guessing but couldn't it be set up as a web page, click on the title of the song to start it . On top of that you could probably set up a menu on a set up page where when you clicked on a songs title it would copy it (just the link to the song) to the working page where the pastor would click on the title to play it. Add a button on the working page to clear that menu at the end of the service so it is clean for the next time. Burn the whole thing to a CD-RW so as not to take up a lot of HD space if you don't have it.

I have never used Java but that may be the way to go(?).

Like I say, just a thought. And if the power fails it sounds like a good time to pray .

Good Luck and have a great day.

[Trigger_tre 1]

Thank you Skink000,

That is actually what I plan on doing.  I am going to start building a seperate flash file for each song (with the sound embeddded in the file). So each Sunday I can just paste the .swf file for each song into individual powerpoint slides in the order the pastor wants them. This way I can still get high-quality sound as well as nice graphical illustrations and have it all animated. I dont think it will be that difficult.

-trigger

[Skink000 0]

Sounds like a good plan Trigger - Great minds think alike