Posts Tagged ‘video backgrounds’
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.
The long awaited release of ProPresenter 4 is finally here.
Now before I touch on the new features keep in mind that ProPresenter has been around for 10 years. This is a very mature worship presentation software and highly admired in the large worship center communities around the world.
You can get a bundle deal from various worship resource sites including Worship Media Pro. They are offering all of their backgrounds (Motion, still etc) with your purchase for free. Here is the bundle offer link.
Here is a glimpse at ProPresenter’s new features.
1. Enhanced Interface – Movie controls and audio bins help keep your media organized.
2. Multiple Libraries – Create libraries for sermons, songs, video, music etc.
3. Web View – Queue web sites for presentation
4. Library Sync – Sync libraries over a network
5. Countdowns and Alerts
6. Custom Templates
7. Presentation Layers – Overlay live feed, text and motion video to a projector.
8. Import PowerPoint – Directly into the application verses the old manual process.
9. Stage Display – Use a simple USB video adapter
10. Presentation Views – See all slides in your schedule to know what is coming up next.
MUCH MORE!
Don’t forget about all the core features that has made ProPresenter so popular for over 10 years. Text over motion (now HD), Video Jockey (Mini-movie playback), Bible Engine, and more.
Are you looking for a Mac OS X based worship presentation software? If so here is the only worship software I would recommend. ProPresenter (Currently ProPresenter 3) is a powerful presentation software built for the worship community who will not part with their prized Macs.
Since it is built on a very reliable platform the software is flawless in operation and plays stunning HD mini-movies and motion loop backgrounds.
The interface is like other presentation software with a smooth flow of scheduling, queuing and ‘go live’.
If you want to get more details of the features and take advantage of bundled backgrounds check out Worship Media Pro’s website for a ProPresenter bundle here.
Please let know your personal experience with ProPresenter and how you use it.
Blessings,
Tony
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.).
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.
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