5 ProPresenter Myths

Transcript:
On today’s ProPresenter show,
(brought to you by ChurchTechU.com), 5 ProPresenter myths:

Hi, I’m Paul Alan Clifford from TrinityDigitalMedia.com, where you can find hours of church tech tutorials, just like this one, courses, and my exclusive community, ChurchTechU.com, because Ministry Loves Company.

This tutorial is going to be different than the rest. You see, I keep hearing myths about ProPresenter and I’m tired of addressing them one at a time. I hope you don’t get offended by these, but you should know that I didn’t just make up my reasoning. I eat, live, and breathe ProPresenter, so what I’m about to say comes from talking to hundreds (no really, hundreds) of churches and learning from them.

Myth one:
It’s not made for/ and they don’t care about Windows.
This is a common one. I hear it all the time. I realize that I’m probably gonna get some hate for this, but..it’s just not true. Look, I’m a Mac guy. I switched way back when Windows 98 was still in use. I’m going to edit this video on a MacBook Pro, using Final Cut Pro. I have an iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch.

I tell you all that to say, “I’m NOT a windows fan boy.” Quite the opposite, in fact, I wouldn’t personally use Windows for ProPresenter, but not because of ProPresenter. There seems to be a glitch in Windows 10 that makes it autoupdate, sometimes, even AFTER you tell it to stop…with every piece of advice on the internet. So, that IS a problem.

But, there are churches that run Pro6 on windows with no problems and some that even say it runs better. I won’t go THAT far, but it’s far from being a piece of software that doesn’t work at all…as some claim.

In fact, I’ve heard (but haven’t confirmed) that it was written from the ground up for Windows. That makes sense because MacOS has some features that ProPresenter uses that aren’t present in windows. That’s why the midi module and some of the text editing options aren’t present.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we see some of those in Pro7, although I have no inside knowledge.

It comes down to getting the right system, especially the video card, and going from there.

Myth two:
It’s RV’s fault that ProPresenter doesn’t work when I upgrade my OS immediately.
Wow, did I ever hear this one when high Sierra was released in October. Big companies like Adobe and Microsoft had issues with it, but somehow little bitty Renewed Vision could have known what the gold master of High Sierra would have, while they were launching Pro Video Player three, by the way, and could have had it ready, tested, and let it go when High Sierra shipped.

A similar idea to this is that Renewed Vision made Pro5 quit working with High Sierra. The last build of ProPresenter 5 was released may 8th, 2015. It clearly says on RenewedVision.com that it’s only compatible up to 10.10 (Yosemite). So, while it might have worked in 10.11 (El Capitan) or 10.12 (Sierra), it may not have, too.

So, no. They didn’t somehow predict the future of MacOS over two years before High Sierra was announced and write Pro5 to quit working because of a feature in it.

Myth 3:
You can fix any problem by reinstalling.
Basically every Sunday I see churches asking in a panic for help when something breaks. Without exception, the first piece of advice I hear others give is to “download and reinstall ProPresenter”.

While that does work sometime, it only works in one specific instance, if the ProPresenter download files have gotten corrupt. It doesn’t work if the problem is 3rd party software or hardware, corrupted user files, or something in the OS.

Myth 4:
ProPresenter uses a Triple head to go and or another module to use the stage display.
This is another common one. People want to use the stage display and then ask “do I need the multiscreen module for stage display” or “I got a Matrox triple head to go and I can’t get it to work with my stage display.”

The first thing you should know is that the Stage display is built into every version of ProPresenter since, I think, Pro3…maybe Pro4. So you don’t need an additional module. It’s just there.

Secondly, the way the triple head to go and dual head to go work is by tricking the computer into thinking that the connected display is wider and then they split that wide display into two or three monitor outputs.

Since ProPresenter needs a dedicated output, the triple head to go doesn’t work.

Often newer computers have a total of three outputs, so they’ll work without additional hardware, but if they don’t, just use a USB video card. The one I use is sold by amazon for about $30 and works on both Mac and PC. My affiliate link is T-D-M dot f y I slash u s b video and that will take you there and help out the show, while costing you no extra money.

Myth 5:
You should send your cameras into ProPresenter and use it as a switcher.

I addressed this in an earlier tutorial. The best I was able to get was between six and eight frames of latency. Doing that, the person on the screen starts to look like a dubbed foreign-language version of themselves.

Sure, it might be fine for a single song by a children’s choir once or twice a year, but using it for the entire service all the time is going to get really old and really annoying really fast.

So, the next time someone shares one of these myths, I hope you’ll share this video to help them know what’s really going on. You can find it at T D M dot f y i slash 5 pro6 myths

If you liked this tutorial, go ahead and subscribe and hit the bell icon on YouTube to make sure you hear about all my videos when they come out.

if you’d like to take one of my ProPresenter mini courses…for free, go to T D M dot f y I slash pro the number 6 mini (m I n i) and sign up for the mini course of your choice for free.

Until next time, this is Paul Alan Clifford from TrinityDigitalMedia.com and ChurchTechU.com, go out and change eternity.