Why A Mac in Church?

[chaselivingston]

I'm sorry, I think I did misunderstand what you said. And what I mean by normal is the way the average church would use the software/hardware. I'm not saying Mac is the only way to go, but I am saying that I believe with everything that is available currently, and disregarding the price factor, it is the best way to go.

[Stuart]

and disregarding the price factor, it is the best way to go.

If we all had that luxury eh?

Wanders off to dream perchance to buy.....

[chaselivingston]

I agree with you wholeheartedly there. That's why at my church, we're going to end up with EasyWorship, at least for now. That's not to say that if we have the money in the future, that we won't switch to a Mac.

[bradcarter]

Well, I didn't think I had much to contribute to this discussion, but I suppose I have a little bit. I haven't had any experience with EasyWorship, however, I do with Mac's ProPresenter. They now have a brand new iMac at my home church (which is a different church that I'm attending) and it is 10 times easier to run a slide show for a worship service that Microsoft Power Point, to me at least. On ProPresenter, you can make a "playlist" of slide shows so you don't have to open multiple windows for each song's slide show, sermon slide show, etc. This is a HUGE plus for the Mac for me. Last week I ran sound and slide show for a local high school's FCA and used my PC with Microsoft Powerpoint and it was a pain in the butt compared to what I was used to running power point on. If Microsoft upgraded Power Point to be as easy to use as ProPresenter, then it would be a different story. Overall, it's just much easier to use a Mac for slide show purposes (along with most everything else, as I have figured out). However, I am a PC user as of now for the simple reason of cost.

[dmeyer]

We use EasyWorship and will probably continue to do so, but that's not going to discourage me from purchasing a Mac when the time comes to replace the production computer. For the short term, we'll use Boot Camp. You might say that's a waste of expensive hardware, but when EasyWorship is available for Mac (yes, I know it'll probably be a couple of years, and it'll be a while until we replace that computer anyway), we'll be ready. Besides, it's no waste of hardware...but that's another argument (I'm talking warranty and support, not specifications).

Just having a Mac isn't going to make me run out and get ProPresenter, though. If it was given to us, I'm still not sure we'd use it. Why? The office. Various members of our staff work on this or that part of the service throughout the week, and if we were using ProPresenter, they'd have to have Macs too. Not that that's a bad thing, but the fact is, they don't all have Macs and if I was a bettin' man I'd say they won't for a while, if ever.

Another point to be made for EasyWorship is that when it's available for Mac OS, it will be completely platform independent. That means the office can make a schedule on their PCs and we shouldn't have any trouble using it come Sunday morning with the Mac. That helps with Mac deployment, too. If you're wanting to move your office to Mac but can't do it all at one time, EasyWorship doesn't (won't) care.

[chaselivingston]

That's a very valid argument. I can completely understand why you wouldn't want to switch to ProPresenter when so many people collaborate on the weekly presentation schedule. In my case, that wouldn't be a problem, usually I'm to only one to build it.

[jimwalton]

I think if I had a Mac, I would jump to ProPresenter.

Isn't using EasyWorship on a Mac kind of like putting a Chevy 350 short block into your F-150?

[chaselivingston]

Isn't using EasyWorship on a Mac kind of like putting a Chevy 350 short block into your F-150?

If I'm correct, Daniel is a Ford guy, so this will probably create some tension, haha.

[Stuart]

If Microsoft upgraded Power Point to be as easy to use as ProPresenter, then it would be a different story.

PP isn't the whole story though.

OK, if you're a church just using PP then you're asking for trouble. However, our software (I forget it's name but it isn't one of the major popular ones) utilises a database for the songs (also connects to the CCLI) and it's own control system for presenting, etc but it will take any PP show or slide and seamlessly integrate it to te esoftware so that it effectively appears as a part of the slideshow software.

The reality being you get the best of both worlds - leave those whom love PP (my wife for one) to it and just slot it in as and when.

I'll try to remember to checkout the name this Sunday.

[dmeyer]

Jim, Jim, Jim, you're looking for small block. What are you, a geek?

But to answer your question...I'm not sure. That's why I'd like to look more into the differences. If the feature set is similar but it's just a different way to do things, is it really worth it? If I was the only person involved with words, I'd say it probably would be. However, we have Sunday morning volunteers, which are somewhat technically inclined but generally nowhere near the geeks we are, plus the staff which is antitechnical and doesn't generally take kindly to changing things for fun. (I'm not criticizing your criticism, Jim, just thinking out loud.)