It was perhaps three years ago when I first was introduced to ProPresenter, as well as Renewed Vision's president, Brad Weston. I was covering a Chris Tomlin tour that was using ProPresenter, and was very impressed with what the software could do for media display at worship events.
Since that time, it seems like most churches I speak with are ProPresenter users. So I was excited to get a chance to take a look at the latest release of the media software package, ProPresenter 4 (PP4).
As with all previous versions of ProPresenter, the latest runs on Mac computers. But unlike the previous version, ProPresenter 4 is being released on the Microsoft Windows platform as well, anticipated for release later this year. But for the moment it's Mac only (and I am a Windows user), so I greatly appreciate Apex, N.C.'s Triangle Community Church for providing access to one of their Macs to evaluate PP4.
PP4 has its roots in worship media. Originally written to support the Passion conferences, ProPresenter's strength lies in its high reliability, ease-of-use, and focus on enabling the user to quickly accommodate changes in worship order, as well as provide excellent support of the playback of video.
In fact, support for excellent video playback is why ProPresenter has been Mac only up to this point-Renewed Vision hadn't felt that the Windows platform had sufficient support for reliable video playback to produce a product of the quality they are known for.
So, what are the key features of ProPresenter 4? Let's take a look at the feature set.
Overview
PP4 provides a slide editor for creating slides containing any combination of text or graphics. A slide can be stored as a template for easy creation of new slides with a common look.
It also allows you to build a song database of your worship music, both by manually entering the lyrics as well as by importing lyrics from text files or from CCLI's SongSelect.
ProPresenter 4 supports video playback in a variety of ways: as a foreground video, as a background video behind your slides, as graphical elements on your slides, as a clip played off a DVD, or as live video from a digital video camera. DVD clips can be pre-programmed to start and end at a specific chapter and timecode, making manual cueing during the service of the DVD unnecessary.
PP4 provides a quick, intuitive interface that enables rapid changes to what slide is displayed, what background is displayed, and enables changing both foreground and background fade times quickly through main UI [user interface] access to those settings.
PP4 also supports pre-programming transitions based on timings, and enables easy synchronization of slides to a music track.
Support for many versions of the Bible is also built in, although PP4 doesn't include any Bible version out of the box. There are both free versions and some available for a small fee (to cover royalty requirements) from Renewed Vision's website.
PP4 User Interface
ProPresenter 4's user interface is divided into three key areas. On the left side of the window is where you find your lists of songs, Bibles, and playlist. This provides high-level access to the components you use to create your presentation for your event.
The upper part of the right side of the display is the Presenter View,where you see the specific slides for the song you've selected, or the Bible verses to be displayed. This area is usually the largest area (although resizable) to enable the most slides to be accessible at one time. Along the bottom of this area is a slider control to adjust the length of the cross-fade that will take place from slide to slide.
Below that is the background media bin, where you can access media clips. The media bin also has a slider to control how quickly PP4 transitions from one background to another.
Media and slides are contained in bins, and most bins are quickly and easily accessed right from the main UI of the program. Individual slides for a song can be shown to the user as tiles, or can be presented as a list with the text easily readable in each list entry. In Tile Mode, I found that all the necessary slides for most songs will fit in that area of the program without the need to scroll to find the one you need. This is very helpful if you have a worship leader that doesn't necessarily sing verses in the same order as the song was originally written.
In addition to the normal presentation view that you project to your congregation, ProPresenter 4 also has a Stage View output that can be used to communicate to the worship team and pastors on the platform. Computers that have a third video output interface can be connected to on-stage monitors, and PP4 can be set to display slides on those monitors as well. In addition, the operator can enter messages that will only be displayed on the stage displays. So, a message telling the worship team that they have five minutes of worship time left can be shown just on those stage monitors, for example.
PP4 In Use
The beauty of ProPresenter 4 is its fast access to everything you need to be creative. Other media software packages offer some flexibility in what order you put slides up, but changing backgrounds takes a little more work, and changing transition times between backgrounds or slides (if you can do that at all) requires bringing up an Options window. In ProPresenter, your slides, background media, and transition settings are always right in front of you and immediately accessible. If you get part way through a song and find that the mood of the room has become far more introspective than you anticipated, or the band decided to slow the tempo way down for part of the song, you can immediately respond to that change by transitioning to a slower, darker background graphic and setting a slower slide transition time.
It's hard to find something to pick on with software of this quality. If I had to choose something, it's a minor annoyance: in PP4 they moved where you access DVD clips. It used to be in a tabbed interface on the main window, and it has been moved to a dialog box that you have to bring up to work with the DVD clips. But, given that if you're using a DVD clip in a service, you would set that up ahead of time and add it to the service's Playlist, it's not that big a deal.
With the Windows version of PP4 under development as I write this, I can't complain about the "Mac-only" aspect of ProPresenter anymore. However, while PC users usually approached the Mac-only aspect of ProPresenter with some trepidation, I've found that most people quickly get used to the Mac and become quite productive using ProPresenter.
Other Options
PP4 does have additional features or modules available for an additional charge. One enables PP4 and Renewed Vision's ProVideoPlayer to inter-operate, allowing the ProVideoPlayer operator to trigger background changes in PP4, and allowing the PP4 operator to focus just on bringing up slides at the right time. Another module enables PP4 to output its graphics with an Alpha channel (which indicates what part of the slides are transparent). This enables PP4 output to be keyed over other video through a production switcher. And the software's most popular add-on module is support for the Matrox DualHead2Go or TripleHead2Go modules that can expand your output screen possibilities.
PP4 has many more features than can be described in a short review article. For more details, the ProPresenter 4 user's manual is available for download from Renewed Vision's website.
At a list price of $399, ProPresenter is a great value, and the number of churches using it testifies to its suitability for the worship environment. Not convinced? Download the free trial version and try it out for yourself.
