Mister Nifty

We use EasyWorship. At first, it was pretty buggy, but they’ve seemed to have worked out the kinks with the last update. It’s nice because we have several individual (worship leader, pastor, & myself) who all have to load their own files into the schedule on any particular week. It’s fairly quick and easy to do.

We use MediaShout. It does everything we need. It works well and runs smoothly. There is a bit of a learning curve, but not too bad. I have not had the opportunity to review competing programs much… but I do like MediaShout and have no problem recommending it. Whether it is the best or not I do not know.

Easy Worship, sho NUFF EASY! I love the ease of training new folks to run the projection software in no time. It handles media and ppt with ease, and you can back up your songs in case of a problem.

We have used both Easy Worship and Media Shout. At the end of the day, we tend to say that Easy Worship is an oxymoron. Media Shout has better served our needs.

After considerable research we settled on Easy Worship. The simplicity was more important to us than the additional options available with Media Shout. Those who operate the projection team like the program. The only problem we have is some occasional quirkiness when going from songs to our announcements which are put together with Powerpoint. I hope the kinks are gone shortly.

Our church used SongShow Plus for several years. I found the interface to be very simple to use and learn even without instruction. If you had good enough hardware it did some great effects. But, without the hardware, it did well without the 3D stuff.
My problem with it is that it was quirky and buggy. It would sometime crash on me it the middle of a presentation, it had problems losing focus of the active (modal) window which forced you to kill the program to regain control.
Media Shout has been wonderful. A little more time was needed to get rolling, but well worth it. Media Shout has the ability to split long verses across multiple slides (something I could never figure out in SSP); you can still fire events even if another window is open; and you can cue a DVD or video file to start and end just where you want it. No switching projector video sources! I have only found one trivial quirk. Our church is growing, I just need my software to work. …And it does!

I have used Song Show Plus for several years and after evaluating many alternatives, have found it to be a very good program. It incorporates many of the “professional” features found in separate systems which specialize in certain areas (media feeds, presentations, etc.), providing users an integrated solution.

Of course no system is perfect and SSP has had some minor (mostly annoying) problems in the past, but I’ve found it to be a nice blend of features and most of the annoying quirks appear to have been addressed in the latest release. There is a slight learning curve for advanced operation, but for simple use - I’ve trained people the same evening of a service and had successful operation (in terms of media).

SSP is a bit more expensive than some of the other programs available, but in my mind - you still get what you pay for; in this case a quality, professional presentation of multiple sources of information. Several of the other companies have come out with newer versions (as has Song Show with version 7) so I encourage readers to evaluate many programs before making a selection. Song Show Plus is definitely a strong contender in my opinion though.

Excellent site and resource material Brian! This is a goldmine for small churches with proportionate media budgets. Thank you.

Well, we have used both Easy Worship and Media Shout. Let me first review each individually.

First, Easy Worship. As the title says (and most previous comments) it is easy. Very nice text formatting is my favorite part. You could literally learn how to run it in 10 minutes. However, along with the word “easy” comes the word “limited”. It does great with everything it supports; it just doesn’t support a whole lot. My main issue is with the service scheduling, it does not have a whole lot of flexibility.

Now on to Media Shout. Media Shout is very powerful. It has many features and supports nearly all media types. Media shout is not extremely easy to use. It’s strengths are flexibility and compatibility. You can customize almost every aspect of your presentation with Media Shout. You can do a lot with Media Shout; just don’t think you are going to learn this program in an hour.

I believe your decision should come down to this question; “how good and dedicate are your presenters”? If you have talented and dedicated presenters go with Media Shout. It will do everything you need and then some. If however, you have questions about your presenters dedication or talent, save yourself a lot of headaches and get Easy Worship.

One tip on Media Shout, pay close attention to their templates. All your service schedules should be based on a template. Figure that out and you have most of your battle won.

My church uses SSP, my only problem with it is our pastor uses alot of PPT and will flip back and forth between PPT and scriptures. Well we tried loading our PPT into SSP and that worked but if you click on a scripture you have to start the PPT all over again. Can anyone help, is this a doable option or not?