Worship Software » Worship Software Support

Why 1080p For Motion Loops?

Tony — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 17:08:15 +0000

Interesting subject has come up at Worship Media Pro from our customers asking us about 1080p HD loops. We just started making our motion backgrounds in 1080p for worship software. The main reason is simple. There are larger screens now in service and projectors that are capable of 1080p projection. If you do not have a 1080p projector but use a 16:9 aspect ratio screen (widescreen) 1080p is still the right solution because with any image or movie when you scale it down “maintaining aspect” you have a richer motion loop.

If you want to get more on different sizes and how to choose look at this post.
http://wmp.me/oLHr2t

Custom Font & Positioning per Background – EasyWorship

Tony — Mon, 23 May 2011 04:19:34 +0000

Custom Settings Per Background in EasyWorship from Worship Media Pro on Vimeo.

If you notice the global settings for song lyrics and scripture do not work on all backgrounds. There is a way to override global settings for each background. This is very easy to do and makes life better for anyone creating a schedule.

Here are two other tutorials that complement this one.

1. Global Settings (Songs & Scripture)

http://wmp.me/lGDqYx

2. Adding Media to EasyWorship

http://wmp.me/kC5VU2

Mastering Schedules in EasyWorship 2009

Tony — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:34:49 +0000

This video tutorial by Worship Media Pro steps you through setting global font sizes and types. Global lyrics position and sizes. Editing songs in the database and much more.

To watch this short video go here:
Mastering Schedules in EasyWorship

Using Schedules in EasyWorship 2009

Tony — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:28:21 +0000

Learn how to create a schedule EasyWorship from the ground up. Also how to package your schedule to transfer between computers. Most media departments create the schedule on their laptops and transfer to their production system in the media booth. EasyWorship can do that.

Buy EasyWorship here. www.worshipmediapro.com

Watch the video tutorial here:
Creating & Managing Schedules in EasyWorship

Loading Backgrounds in EasyWorship

Tony — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 16:20:51 +0000

Learn how to load and manage media files in EasyWorship 2009. Work with EasyWorship’s media library and schedules using backgrounds with motion and mini movies.

Get the EasyWorship tutorial here:
Loading Media in EasyWorship

Worship Motion Loop Sizes & Formats

Tony — Wed, 26 May 2010 23:35:10 +0000

Common questions around the right motion format or size to use with your worship presentation software come my way weekly. My hope is this brief explanation will help you make the right choices when selecting your motion backgrounds to use.

Get more information on choosing backgrounds here.

Motion Background Sizes
There are two common sizes used for motion loops. These sizes have become the unwritten standard in the worship community.

Widescreen 720p
This is a newer size used in Church projection today. The format is for wider 16:9 projection screens and allows for more horizontal real-estate. This is also the HD format for mini movie clip playback as well. The resolution is 1280×720. A common encoding is MOV format to maintain resolution. However, the new features in WMV allow for 2-pass VBR to deliver high quality Windows native encoding.

Standard 480p
Still popular in Churches around the world and for more years to come. This size is more of a square design 4:3 aspect ratio. The motion video resolution is 640×480. Common encoding for this format is MOV and WMV.

Formats
MOV is native to Mac OS X and H.264 encoding. You can use K-Lite codec for MOV use on Windows operating systems. Used in ProPresenter natively. EasyWorship and MediaShout with K-Lite Codec.
Installation tutorial on installing K-lite codec here.

WMV is native to Windows and with 2-Pass VBR maintains high quality HD video. Used in EasyWorship and MediaShout.

MPEG-1 is an older interoperable encoding but lacks quality and is slowly phasing out.

EasyWorship 2009 Tutorials

Tony — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 21:36:21 +0000

If you looking to explore EasyWorship 2009 and all it has to offer I suggest you look at Worship Media Pro’s online tutorials. They cover each aspect of the worship software in small lessons. Pretty much teach yourself EasyWorship 2009 in a day if you wanted to.

View EasyWorship 2009 Tutorials

There are some new features in EasyWorship 2009 that I discussed in a previous article. Make sure to check it out.

Let me know your thoughts on EasyWorship as well.

Worship Software Video Cards

Tony — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:35:43 +0000

Video cards can make or break your worship software capabilities. If you use the wrong the video card you limit yourself to low quality video play back. To get the full power of your worship software and the ability to play HD video and high quality video transitions I recommend NVIDIA GeForce cards. The Windows drive installation is easy to do and the expanded desktop application for your video card makes it easy to configure.

Caution: Stay away from the NVIDIA Quadra chipset because of known support issues with worship software like EasyWorship.

Here is a list of good NVIDIA GeForce cards that work on all Window’s based worship software:

7600, 7800, 8400, 8600, 9400, 9500
HD Support 8800, 9600, 9800

You could also use some basic NVIDIA cards like 5500 or 6200 but I would check your worship software website to ensure these basic video cards work.

Capture Cards

Capture cards are used to get live camera feed from stage cameras to project through your worship software. The biggest challenge is delay of capture to presentation on the projection screen. As an example in EasyWorship you should set the capture setting to 640×480. This is great for projection quality. You would not want to record at this setting due to quality.

Some recommended capture cards for Window’s machines:

KWORL X-Pert VS-L883D (5 volt PCI)
ViewCast Osprey 100 (5 volt PCI)
AverMedia EZMaker (5 volt PCI)
ViewCast Osprey 230 (Universal PCI)
KWORLD PlusTV PVRTV-PE360-A (PCIe x1)

PowerPoint And Video Backgrounds

Tony — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 14:54:22 +0000

PowerPoint has been a great tool in worship services for several years. Not only worship service but sermon presentations as well. Many Churches still use PowerPoint as the preferred presentation software. The thing about PowerPoint is lack of simplicity. It’s a great tool and perfect for those who are trained in PowerPoint application creation and presentation. But most have been educated by force only because there was no other solution out there 6-7 years ago and the newer solutions are expensive.

One draw back is text over moving backgrounds. There has been no support for this feature and no roadmap from Microsoft regarding text over moving backgrounds. This is the focus of my blog today. What can we do about this setback using PowerPoint. There is some good news. Third party companies have developed plugins for PowerPoint which allow for moving backgrounds (video backgrounds) to play in a PowerPoint presentation with text overlay. The last problem is the price. I’m convinced they have no idea who their customers are or who their customers can be. If they priced this right it would ’sell out’. Maybe one of the companies just might read this blog.

Where to get your moving background plugin

The best price is from 123PPt but it is not very user friendly. The best all around plugin is from Crystal Graphics but it is a little more expensive.

The moving background file codec is WMV used in Windows Media Player. PowerPoint is very stable playing 4:3 640×480 size video.

To sum it up you can play moving backgrounds in PowerPoint but you need a plugin to get it done. If you have not started using worship software in your Church I highly recommend you check out software specifically designed for worship (EasyWorship, MediaShout etc.).

Worship Software Video Codecs

Tony — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 18:57:26 +0000

There are several forums and posts with this one question regarding video formats or codecs. Depending on your worship software you can use a few different formats. Most worship media sites include (.mov .mpeg & .wmv). This is because they cover a wide variety of worship software and the compressions are high quality.

What is a Codec?

Codec (enCOder/DECoder or COmpressor/DECompressor) is used to reduce size of audio and video. Find out more about Codec here.

A safe way to determine the supported codec or video format for your worship software is directly related to your operating system. The most popular operating system in the worship community is Windows XP / Vista. Alternatively there are a hand full of Apple Mac users but this is mostly in the high end mega Churches. There is a great deal of power in an Apple Mac for worship service and worship software offerings which I’ll talk about in another blog.

Windows XP and Windows Vista uses a native video player Windows Media Player. Windows Media Player supports for video: AVI, MPEG1 & WMV and for audio: WMA, MP3 & WAV natively. So this means if you are using EasyWorship, MediaShout and SongShow Plus you can use MPEG1, WMV & AVI.

MPEG4 & MOV Support On Windows

Alternatively you can run MOV or MPEG4 video files in EasyWorship, MediaShout, SundayPlus and SongShow Plus but you need a special CODEC called K-Lite Codec Pack. Be sure to follow install instructions from the worship software’s website.

Apple Mac OS X Worship Software

If you are using an Apple Mac OS X operating system then you can natively support MOV, MPEG2 & MPEG4. If you wanted to support WMV or AVI you can install separate codecs from Apple’s website under Quicktime Player. The most popular worship software for the Apple Mac is Pro Presenter by Renewed Vision. This is a very professional software and used in the entertainment business as well.

Side Note: You can also use a DVD to play your video backgrounds on all the worship software mentioned in this blog.

Please leave a post with your experience to help others.