3/4/2007 12:45:38 PM

Hello everyone,
I'm the multimedia director for Evangel Family Worship Center. We have been using Sunday Plus for about 3 years but I'm not satisfied with its performance. I installed SSP 5.5 this morning and am pretty impressed so far. I do have a couple of questions however. How do I make sermon notes (I usually use the text editor in SP) and how do I place text (song lyrics, sermon notes over video)? If these are fairly simple and effective I think it will seal the deal on switching to SSP as opposed to Media Shout.
Thanks ever so much.
Peace, love, and blessings,
Brandon Bogle

3/4/2007 4:14:43 PM

Welcome aboard!

First off, make sure and get the current 7.0, not the older 5.5.

Use slide show builder for your sermon notes. Select view, slided shows and then New, slide show. You can use outline builder or just build it manually. If you upgrade to 7.0, there are built in tutorials on various subjects. There's also online classes that cost money. But you can negotiate some classes into the purchase, depending on what level of service you buy.

To add backgrounds and such, add the song (or whichever) to a program. Then right click on the item in the program and select Edit Display Properties. You should see several tabs, including background color, background image and motion background.

In the motion background, you will find all the background visualizations that are build into SSP. Most are very adjustable to get the effect you want. At the bottom of the visualization list is "Video File" Select that and you can choose a background video loop. It' easiest to get to the loops if you copy them into SSP's Video folder.

If you grab the version 7, you will also see tabs at the top of the motion background for Basic and Advanced settings. If you switch over to advanced, you can adjust things like transparency for the video and the background graphic will show through the motion background (visualization or loop).

IF you get the v7, it will have the user manual included. Until then you can see the online user manual here. It was written for 5.5, but it being updated for v7 as it evolves.

Let us know if you have other questions.

3/4/2007 10:08:12 PM

Thank you very much. I will try that. I actually used SSP tonight at church for the pastor notes. I just used the quick slide (I think that's what it's called) and did it on the fly (needless to say that was interesting). We still had to use Sunday+ for our worship songs since I didn't have time to put them into SSP. I showed some of the features to the three volunteers and the pastor and their were impressed with what it can do (even though I am so ignorant of how to use it to its full potential). If I can get these to work, we'll probably go ahead and get it soon. One of the biggest assets is being able to change video backgrounds in real time. This should save me about $6,500 by not having to by the Edirol presenter. This is a big plus. Please respond with anything that I should know about SSP (good or bad) that I should take into consideration or look forward to using in implementing SSP. I really appreciate any information. Thanks much.
Peace, love, and blessings,
B

3/4/2007 10:29:44 PM

BTW, how do I make a video clip loop?

3/5/2007 1:29:21 AM

You need to set it as the motion background.

There are 2 ways to do this.

1. Globally. this sets the default motion background that will be used for everything that does not have its own proerties set. To do this Press F11 or click on the icon top center of screen.

2 Individual properties. To set the individual properties for an item you have added to your program, just right click on that item in the program, and select either display proerties or set video file for background or something similar to that..

I am guessing that you are running the videos from the video files whick is why they wont loop. you can also use the background improv module (V7).

welcome abord and if y6ou have any question please ask away..

Rod

3/5/2007 4:58:38 AM

The only way to get a clip to loop is to use it as a background of a blank slide.

But then you won't get sound.

3/5/2007 7:25:49 AM

Muchas gracias!
B

3/5/2007 8:53:04 AM

3finger - Welcome to SongShow Plus.  I am sure you will find that it will exceed you expectations...

Regarding the video looping... 
There is actually a way to loop any video without setting it as a background.

Simply insert the video of your choice into the program then right click on the video and select "Edit video playback settings" from the menu.  Once in the playback settings, simply click the "loop" check box in the lower left corner and click on the set button to save settings and close. 

Now your video will loop continuously until you advance to the next program item.

3/5/2007 9:01:23 AM

Wow. Thanks George.

I guess I've never looked in the lower left corner before. 

3/5/2007 10:56:46 PM

That's a handy feature for looping videos including sound!!

A stroke of Genius

3/6/2007 6:08:11 PM

If you have a video that you would like to use, but it has an abrupt change at the loop, you can use a vidoe editing program to resolve it.

Insert the video twice and make the second one run in reverse (a mirror copy of 1). That way it both begins and ends at the beginning. The only drawback to this is if running the video backwards would be a noticable distraction. You can also split the video in half, put part 2 in front of part 1, and then do a smooth transition between the two. This makes it loop at what would be the middle of the unedited video.