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May 2012

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Video Review: Renewed Vision ProPresenter 3

by Jim Kumorek

I first encountered Renewed Vision when covering the “How Great Is Our God” tour (CPM July 2007). In talking with tour manager Greg Dolezal, he described the gear being used on the tour, and two of those pieces of gear were ProVideoPlayer and ProPresenter from Renewed Vision, running on Macs. I was impressed with the video and graphic capabilities I was seeing, and as it turned out, President Brad Weston of Alpharetta, Georgia-based Renewed Vision was in town for the tour (Renewed Vision did a special release of the two products to support interconnectivity—now a standard feature). I was able to learn more about the products over dinner.

ProPresenter was originally written specifically for the collegiate tour that raised awareness of Passion’s OneDay 2000 event. Passion needed the flexibility to change things up quickly as they were playing at different college campuses every night and the worship needed to be spirit-led. They also didn’t want to have to carry a bunch of video gear with them. Weston wrote what eventually became ProPresenter for them as a volunteer, and now numerous churches across the country are using this application for their worship software. Renewed Vision reports that nine of the 10 most innovative churches, as ranked by Outreach Magazine, are using Renewed Vision Products. Let’s take a look at why.

Overview
ProPresenter is a Mac-only application, retailing for $399 for a single-user license. My initial reaction to the Mac-only aspect was disappointment—I am a PC user. However, as Weston explained, the Mac is a more stable platform for media, and there are a lot more viruses written to attack PCs than Macs. And as I learned through this evaluation, getting this up and running for someone who has hardly ever touched a Mac was trivial. Put a shortcut to the program on the Mac’s desktop and, frankly, if your media volunteers can’t double-click on that to start it up, media ministry probably isn’t their calling.

My neighbor’s 17-year-old daughter allowed me to use her newly acquired iMac for the evaluation, and installing the software and getting it up and running truly couldn’t have been simpler.

ProPresenter’s purpose in life is to enable you to easily put up text over static or moving backgrounds, quickly add Bible verses to slides, enable media playback such as DVD clips, put up “your child is going ballistic—please come get them” messages, and even do pre-service countdowns, all from the same application with, for the most part, merely the click of a mouse by the time the service starts. And it does this well.

The interface is divided up into several functional areas. Down the left side is a “program” window showing what’s being sent to your screens; a multi-tab list section for selecting songs for lyrics, Bible verses for display, and media to play; a playlist where you can build up a sequence of media segments for your service; and a two-tabbed section to create a countdown to the start of your service and create temporary “come get your kid”-type announcements.

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Jim Kumorek is the owner of Spreading Flames Media, providing video/media production and writing services to the A/V/L, technology, architectural and hospitality industries. He has led audio, video and lighting teams in churches as both staff and a volunteer for over 10 years. He can be contacted at james@spreadingflamesmedia.com.