For many churches, the barrier to entry into the world of worship presentation software is twofold. First is the initial cost of the top line products offering the myriad lists of professional multimedia features. The second consideration is that even if the church is able to afford to the licensing cost of the software, the hardware costs in terms of computer upgrades or new purchases pushes the notion beyond the budget. MediaComplete, the company that develops and sells the Media Shout software package has taken note of both of these concerns and created an answer in their Media Shout express product. Sharing many of the features and design elements of the flagship product, Express lowers the cost to $229.00 and also lowers the hardware requirements in order to accommodate processors and video display cards that are a few generations old.
Express installed on a Windows Vista computer without issue and when first started, it fires a tutorial presentation that should have most people ready to go to work to in no time. A presentation in Express is referred to as a script with each of the discrete events that occur within it called the cues. You as the director build a worship sequence by creating and arranging the cues. Express has a simple layout that makes creation and conducting the worship service simple and fast.
The three windows that appear on screen are where you will conduct the majority of your work. As shown in image below, the Script you are building or running is shown on the left. The Monitor window contains what the audience is seeing projected through your video output. This concept takes some getting used to when you first start to use presentation software. You can be arranging and editing other cues without your work being seen on screen until you play (fire) the cue. This ability makes it possible to fire the church logo up on screen while the Pastor is speaking while building a new cue with the scripture that he just referred to in the background. In the lower right-hand corner is the Crew window that holds all of the tools you will use in building the script. Clean and simple, the way an interface should be.
Well, mostly clean. I’m not sure of the wisdom of continuing to use the Crew mnemonics. For one thing, it’s a bit too cutesy for a tool to be used by adults building worship sequences. It also makes me think twice to handle an operation. I have to read the name ‘Philo’ for example and then verbally work out the sound in my mind to discern that it is the Ffffffile manager. Most computer users intuitively understand what the File button, folder, etc. does. Why make them work harder?
Creating a script is a breeze. The new container allows you to drag all of the components from the Crew window into your script and arrange them with the mouse until you are satisfied. The monitor window gives you an opportunity to review the script in progress to ensure that all of your assumptions are working out the way you planned. Though you can’t read the cues, the set shown in the first half (up to the blue line) of the script are a looped set. Starting with the church logo, a set of text cues runs through the welcome messages and any announcements in a timed sequence. This can be played prior to worship as everyone is gathering in the sanctuary.
What Do I Give Up?
Besides the lower hardware requirements, Media Shout has reduced in other areas in order to offer this tool at such an attractive price. The question that you want to ask is whether or not you will miss the components that are not included. For example, Express includes the KJV, NIV, Message, and RV Bible versions rather than the 54 bibles included with the full package. The song library is reduced from 2800 songs to 280 meaning you will have to do a bit more typing at first to build up your Lyra library. There are limitations regarding live video feeds, types of audio sources, and cue transitions in the Express versions but in the environment of many churches, they will have little, if any, effect.
The Final Verdict
MediaComplete has hit a home run with the Express version of Media Shout. By lowering the bars, they have made a high quality tool available to many churches and ministries that had previously been barred from using presentation software. The feature set is fantastic and everything worked well. As I have written previously, Media Shout offers one of the easiest work interfaces. It is easy to learn and that makes it very useful in a volunteer environment where new people may need to be trained in building the scripts or operating the software on a rotating basis. Give this tool a look if you are in the market.
Media Shout V3 Express
