1)

ProPresenter runs exclusively on Apple's MacOS X - 10.4 (Tiger) and above. The system requirements are as follows:

• iMac (Intel or PowerPC G5), MacBook Pro, MacBook, Mac Pro, PowerMac G5. Will work on some G4's, but not guaranteed or supported.
• 1GB of RAM
• Dual video support - standard on PowerMac, PowerBook, and ALL Intel based Macs except for the Mac Mini (read information about G5 iMac, iBooks, and Mac mini below)
• Core Image-capable graphics card - Video card with a programmable GPU (All Intel Macs)

* iBooks and iMacs (G5, not Intel) are shipped from Apple with hardware that is capable of supporting two independent displays. However, Apple only enables 'mirroring' mode which means that when you connect one of these systems to an external display, it shows exactly what's on the internal display (like a mirror). Both ProPresenter and ProVideoPlayer require 'spanning' which is a configuration that allows for the desktop to be extended (or spanned) across a secondary display providing additional desktop space, not just mirroring it. If you have one of these older systems that can only mirror, there is a freely available hack that will enable spanning and works on most systems. It's called Screen Spanning Doctor and while we cannot guarantee it will work for you, we have found it to be quite reliable. Be aware that if you do choose to install it, you do so at your own risk. The enabler can be found here.

The Mac mini is NOT supported. While this device has enough horsepower to run ProPresenter, it has only one video out and dual video support is required to run ProPresenter (operator screen and an output screen). There are ways to work around this with a Dual or TripleHead2Go, but it is a hack and NOT recommended. Try it at your own risk, but we do not support this implementation.

2)

You can retrieve registration information for all your Renewed Vision software products by going to the link below. Enter the eMail address that was used to complete the purchase. We will find all products purchased using that eMail address and send all results to that eMail address. The same link is also found under the "Help" menu within ProPresenter.

• URL --> www.RenewedVision.com/support.php

If the email address has changed (i.e. that person and email no longer work for your organization), then you must call us to have it updated.

3)

This is likely a permissions issue with OS X. Follow these steps to correct the problem:

• Quit ProPresenter.
• Go to the root of your computer (your harddrive). Select: /Library/Application Support/Renewed Vision.
• Open the Renewed Vision folder and single click on the ProPresenter Folder. If there is no such folder, go back up a level and single click on the Renewed Vision folder. If there no Renewed Vision folder, you have a more significant permissions issue - call us to discuss.
• Select from the file menu: File -> Get Info.
At the bottom of the info panel is a section named: Sharing & Permissions. You may need to click on the arrow to expand this area. You will need to unlock the panel by clicking on the "lock" icon (in the bottom right corner) and enter your admin name and password.
• Change the permissions so "everyone" has Read & Write privileges. Be sure to click the "Apply to enclosed items" action (it's an action in Leopard vs. a button in Tiger) as pictured below:
  
  
  
• Also change the permissions on the Renewed Vision folder itself in the same manner.
• Launch ProPresenter and enter your unlock code again. It should save it without issue resolving the problem. You can test this by quitting and launching again.

4)

This is likely a permissions issue with OS X. Follow these steps to correct the problem:

• Quit ProPresenter.
• Go to the root of your computer (your harddrive). Select: /Library/Application Support/Renewed Vision.
• Open the Bibles folder and single click on the Bible which is causing problems.
• Select from the file menu: File -> Get Info.
At the bottom of the info panel is a section named: Sharing & Permissions. You may need to click on the arrow to expand this area. You will need to unlock the panel by clicking on the "lock" icon (in the bottom right corner) and enter your admin name and password.
• Change the permissions so "everyone" has Read & Write privileges.
• Also change the permissions on the Bible folder itself in the same manner.
• Launch ProPresenter and enter your unlock codes for each Bible.

5)

ProPresenter 3 works great with Leopard and is actually recommended as the latest version of Tiger (10.4.11) is subject to occasional anomalies that can't be determined. We recommend using the latest version of Leopard (v.10.5.2) and QuickTime (7.4.1) as they remedy a number of issues created by earlier versions.

BEFORE YOU UPDATE, it's good practice to back up your song library if for any reason you experience trouble opening your ProPresenter Library after upgrading. To do this, simply click on a song in the Library. From the EDIT file menu, click "Select All". Then from the FILE menu, click "Export Selected Presentations". This will create a file containing all of your presentations. Should you have a problem with Leopard, remove the file in your user folder: /Library/Application Support/Renewed Vision/ProPresenter/ProPresenter3.rvd (Move it to the trash). Should you need to restore, just double click on the "Export" file. This will restore your library. Note: You will have to recreate your playlists.

6)

Yes, switching between the two applications works great. ProPresenter's program screen (what the audience views) always remains active, even when you switch applications so your audience has no idea you've changed applications. When you start Keynote's presentation with secondary display active, then the Keynote screen just pops up right over the ProPresenter screen. When the Keynote presentation is finished, the ProPresenter screen is still there... the audience has no idea they are two separate applications. Works very well and is used regularly in this manner for retreats and off-site conferences. Be sure you have KeyNote set to present your slide show on the secondary display as shown below.
In order to be able to switch back and forth between ProPresenter and Keynote, be sure the following Preference is selected:
Similarly it works well with PowerPoint though PowerPoint does have a flaw that affects all programs. When running a, there is an element known as the Presenter Tool which shows the presenter some information on their internal screen (time remaining, next slide, etc.). If you have the Presenter Tools showing and switch to any other application, PowerPoint will inexplicable change your display settings to mirroring mode which can really mess things up. Again, this is a Microsoft issue with ALL applications on the Mac, not just ProPresenter or PVP. To prevent this, BE SURE to start up WITHOUT the Presenter Tools. You do this by "option"-clicking the start slide show button found in the lower left corner of PowerPoint.
Be sure you have PowerPoint set to present your slide show on the secondary display as shown below.
Last but not least, be sure you have ProPresenter's output window set so it won't override all other windows as shown below (UNCHECK "Display at Top Most Window Layer"). This feature eliminates the issue of a user accidently dragging a window onto your secondary display and having it appear to your audience. However, it will also override any other program window, such as PowerPoint or KeyNote, so it must be disabled to use these programs in conjunction with ProPresenter.

7)

ProPresenter, version 3.0 and higher, is a Universal binary and works great on all Intel Macs. ProPresenter 2 is not available as a Universal Binary since the the tools to do so remain unavailable. However, we have tested it with the Intel Macs and found it to work well (utilizing Rosetta), with no known issues. Therefore, we support all versions of ProPresenter on Macs with Intel processors.

8)

Click on the Add Playlist button at the bottom of the Playlist view to create a new Playlist. Drag and drop Presentations from the Library over to your new Playlist.

9)

Yes. And because you have complete access to your song database, you can add songs at any time without exiting the presentation.

10)

You have to switch. We recommend running Keynote or PowerPoint alongside ProPresenter. You can't import PowerPoint or Keynote slides into ProPresenter... but you really don't need this functionality. We encourage people to not make other programs do what PowerPoint or Keynote do, as translators that claim to read these files invariably have issues with displaying these slides. You can run Keynote or PowerPoint on the same machine as ProPresenter... the two work together beautifully. The ProPresenter window stays up all the time, so you can be in PowerPoint editing slides while ProPresenter is running (and the audience is none the wiser). When you start your PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, it will simply cut onto the screen that ProPresenter's window is on. Similarly, when you exit PowerPoint or Keynote, the ProPresenter screen becomes visible again.

A while ago, we experimented with implementing PowerPoint/Keynote support, but the truth of the matter is the file formats of these programs are proprietary, and while it can be reverse engineered and some translators are available, it's just not the smart way to do things (for ProPresenter or any other program).

Let ProPresenter be ProPresenter. Let Keynote be Keynote.

11)

Absolutely, what's more... if you want 'as good as tape' quality, you can stream the digital signal from the videos over the Firewire port to a DV to Analog converter box, allowing video to be seen in its native format without being 'processed' by a computer and a scan converter (which often desaturates the video depending on the quality of the scan converter). While generally unnecessary, those organizations looking for that extra little bit of quality can get through this method which is unavailable from any of our competitors.

12)

ProPresenter's Announcement function is made for this purpose and allows you to enter in nursery alerts without impacting any of your other song libraries, as well as show and hide the nursery call independently of the presently shown song slide. You cannot, however, show ProPresenter generated nursery alerts over Keynote or PowerPoint slides.

13)

Yes! In early November 2007, we released ProPresenter 3.2 which supports Scripture lookup. This can either be done on the fly, or in pre-programming as the program allows you to save Scripture verses just like songs.

14)

Not at all, and we do it all the time in the events that we work. See this FAQ for more information.

15)

Anything QuickTime recognizes is playable within ProPresenter (which includes DV, Sorenson, H.264, and more including uncompressed video). As of January 2006, the freely available Windows Media player plug-in from Flip4Mac will allow even your Windows Media files to play back within ProPresenter. The speed of your machine and the type of compression will dictate how smoothly the videos playback. Playing back MPEG 2 video requires the purchase and installation of the QuickTime MPEG-2 Playback Component from Apple.

16)

Smooth playback can be effected by the Codec (short for compressor/decompressor) used for compression and the Data Rate of the compression settings. Movie clips that you receive from a manufacture are set to the highest quality possible. Original files from various manufactures should be compressed for optimum playback for the target machine. We have found Sorenson 3 and DV produce a nice balance between high quality and high performance. For HD playback, you should use H.264 or PhotoJPEG (50% or middle quality) on faster systems (Core 2 Duo) as they are processor intensive and require the extra power (avoid these on slower/older systems). Uncompressed clips using PhotoJPEG at 100% will not play back well on any machine as this is raw, highest possible quality footage (i.e. Digital Juice Jumpbacks), so be sure you have recompressed them before trying. For the most reliable playback, use either the DV or Sorenson3 codecs. DV will be seen in the drop down codec list as either "DV - NTSC" or "DV/DVCPro - NTSC".

While MPEG1 clips that often come from download services (such as Barna, SermonSpice, WorshipFilms, Digital Hotcakes, MediaShout, etc.) will play, they are not reliable and will often not play smoothly. It's an old, GOP based codec that has been updated twice, first by MPEG2 and now MPEG4. Playing back MPEG2 videos require an additional $19 plug-in from Apple for QuickTime (due to licensing fees the MPEG association charges vendors which are passed onto the consumer). All our software is based on the QuickTime architecture, not WMA which runs AVIs. To get the desired playback out of old MPEG1 clips, we suggest either contacting the manufacturer you purchased your clips from and ask to download Quicktime versions (which most have) OR convert these clips into QuickTime movies using the above mentioned Codec(s). See FAQ below for instructions on doing so.

17)

Hold down the command key (the one with the apple on it), click to select a slide, and hit the delete key. You may also Right-Click (Control-Click) and select Delete Background.

18)

There are a number of tools available to convert MPEG files into QuickTime files. A great single movie or batch conversion utility called Compressor comes with the Final Cut Studio suite or there are numerous other 3rd party applications you can use (Cleaner 6, Squeeze 4, Flip4Mac, Compression Master, etc.). You can also try QTAmateur which is a free batch conversion utility from Michael Ash.

The easist method for conveting a DVD to a Quicktime movie would be to use either MPEG StreamClip or HandBrake.

We recommend using DV or H.264 compressors with these tools. The PhotoJPEG codec also works very well, just make sure you set it to MEDIUM quality as any higher settings have minimal benefit and can bog down your computer.

19)

One of the standard fonts that we were able to include in the previous version of ProPresenter was called Triplex (Bold) from www.Emigre.com. This is a very good looking font and was quite popular. We weren't able to include this as part of the new Pro, but you can also get it here.

20)

ProPresenter is used by some of the most well-respected and influential churches in the country and around the world. Our focus on high quality, stable and easy to use applications, over quickly crafted marketing bullet point features, defines the reputation we have earned.

Customers switching from other products to ProPresnter praise its ease of use and it's media handling. Video playback is better than most other competitors, and the interface is designed for volunteers. This advantage has only improved with ProPresenter 3, our latest release.

Specific features that Pro has beyond the ease of use, smooth video playback and stability are:

• Independently control backgrounds and and text slides... this enables you to have as many backgrounds within a song as you wish.
• Smooth video cross dissolves
• Video playback through SDI or Firewire outputs
• What You See is What You Get slide previews... the entire interface shows exactly what a slide will look like when made live so you can see text formatting/line returns and make changes before making a slide live
• Fully searchable song database
• QuickEdit feature allows you to edit or reformat slides while still clicking on other slides to make them live
• Dynamically generated count down timer

While we hope this helps, we encourage you to take a look at ProPresenter for yourself with the free demo available from the "Download" link above.

21)

First of all, all switchers work differently. You will want to consult with your switcher's manual to find exact instructions for adjusting the key settings.

While the act of "chroma" or "luminance" keying seems somewhat simple (you're just taking a color out of the video image), to get a good key is more complicated than this. The first step to achieve a good key is to make sure you have the hardest edges possible in your text and graphics. This means you should set the Text Shadow blur radius to 0 in the Preferences window and use keyable graphics that have hard edges (in the case of lower third graphics).

Once these settings are completed, you need to look at the threshold and edge settings for the key on your switcher. The threshold is specifying how much variance in the selected color you are allowing for the key... the higher the threshold, the lower the tolerance for other hues of the color to key. The edge option generally specifies how much of a blur you want around the keyed edge. There are no magical numbers or advice I can give you on these settings... you simply must go through a trial and error process with your particular switcher.

22)

No, ProPresenter is only Mac-based. We write software specifically for the Mac for two reasons: 1) the tools that are available to us as developers on the Mac are first rate and allow us to build quality features into our products far more easily than we could on the PC, and 2) the stability and security of the Mac platform make an exceptional foundation on which to build our tools.

We had the difficult choice to make a couple of years ago to write applications for both the Mac and the PC, or to pursue just the Mac-market. Ultimately, we want to make the best software possible for our customers. By focusing on what we believe to the best platform, we can add new features more quickly without being burdened with the task of developing for two different platforms.

If this would be your first Macintosh purchase, let us assure you that many have made the transition before you successfully and are now not only our biggest advocates, but huge advocates for the Mac as well. You'll find Macs integrate well into mixed-computer networks and ultimately provide a better user experience for you and your users. For more information, please give us a call.

23)

Still images in ProPresenter run within the QuickTime environment. This limits their resolution to either 2k (2,000x2,000) for MacBooks and Mac minis, and 4k for MacBook Pros, MacPros, and iMacs. So if you see a blank white image when you expected to see that nice picture from your 6mp camera, try sizing down the image to under 2k. You will not lose any noticeable resolution when displayed since your output is likely far less than these sizes and would be resized anyway during output (i.e. if your secondary output display / program screen is set to 1024x768, your 6mp, 2848x2136 image would be sized down to 1024x768 as it goes out the card). So ideally, just re-size the image to the same size as your output display resolution is set to (800x600 or whatever).

Also, since images display using the QuickTime engine, they must be using the RGB color space that the video world uses (not CMYK that the print industry uses).

24)

Yes! ProPresenter 3.2 released in early November included many free upgrades to our users, including DVD playback. You can set in and out points of the DVD clip you want to play in pre-production, and call the clip up on the fly during the service.

25)

To begin, install ProPresenter on the new system the same way it was done on the first by downloading the latest version from our site, dragging the application to the Applications Folder as instructed, and launch and enter your Unlock Code.

If you want each ProPresenter installation to remain consistent throughout your organization, it's best to choose one machine in particular to be the "Master" station that incorporates all changes. The best way to duplicate one complete installation of ProPresenter to another Mac begins with Media Management. We recommend placing all your media clips into one location and suggest using the "Movies" folder within your "Home" folder since every user has such a folder (like they do a "Pictures" folder and a "Music" folder). Feel free to sub-categorize it within your Movies folder by creating a folder called "ProPresenter Media" (whatever name you wish). Once you get into the habit of organizing all your media content into this folder and then adding that media to ProPresenter, you've won half the battle. ProPresenter stores only the paths to media, not the actual media itself. So when you want to recreate your ProPresenter installation on another Mac, you will start by copying this entire media folder into the respective location on the new Mac so all paths will resolve properly.

Next, you need to move the existing ProPresenter database file (and thumbnails) to it's corresponding location on the new Mac. Another easy way to locate these files is to have ProPresenter show it to you. With ProPresenter running, click on the File menu, hold down the Option key, and choose the "Reveal Data in Finder" item. The database file will appear in a Finder window (ProPresenter.rvd) along with your Thumbnails folder. Go up one level to the folder containing these items and copy this whole folder. Place it in the same respective location on the new system (~ Your User Folder/Library/Application Support/Renewed Vision/ProPresenter).

Once both steps have been completed, you will have created an exact duplicate of your Master system on the new computer.

26)

This answer varies with each release of QuickTime from Apple. Apple introduced a bug with the release of v.7.3 which we found, reported, and they have acknowledged and mostly fixed with the release of v.7.3.1 update. So be sure you are using this latest version.

Watch this FAQ for updates when a new version of QuickTime is released. We test new versions as soon as possible to let you know whether or not they are problematic.

27)

This can be determined by using either QuickTime Player or the latest version of the ProPresenter 3. Just launch one or the other and look in the respective "About" boxes under menu item with the name of the program ("QuickTime Player" or "ProPresenter").

28)

Protected videos from the iTunes store will NOT play in ProPresenter due to programming restrictions put in place by Apple. Until they change this policy and limitation, the videos can not be supported. However, protected music WILL play fine.