LiveWorship.com

Dan Snodgrass · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Atlanta

Here are my primary feature requests:

- Multi-screen output (ideally 3 outboard screens)
- A way to take advantage of OS X's built-in picture playing screensaver engine. The screensaver will take images from the iPhoto library and output them to as many screens as the user has connected. While this is very nice, there is no control over efx, slide timing, etc. However, the stock zoom/dissolve effect is second to none and since they are part of the OS, run VERY smoothly.
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Marty · LiveWorship Team Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 57

You would like to be able to send the same image to three seperate screens?

Dan Snodgrass · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Atlanta

By "multi-screen" I mean the ability to route different images to different screens.

Imagine for a moment, that you have three side-by-side screens each with their own projector and source feed. The left projector shows the left third of a panoramic image, the center shows the center third along with the song lyrics, and the right projector shows the right third of the panorama.

Other times one might want a panoramic image across the three screens but the lyrics on the left screen.

Other times maybe the lyrics are on the left and right on black backgrounds with the center having an image.
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Marty · LiveWorship Team Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 57

Ok, that would be a big change in our User Interface to accomadate that sort of feature. We have looked at custom screen resolutions that would allow you to present over multiple screens with one image.... say 3 screens that look like one big screen. I met a guy that is doing backdrop images on 3 screens in a church that requested a similar feature. He showed me pictures....it looked awesome! He was using special software, and then writing patches for it to make it work the way he wanted... I could see where user interface could be tricky....but could be very cool.

Marty · LiveWorship Team Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 57

I looked at your website....i think it was you i talked too......I am now searching for the business card you gave me....lol....

Dan Snodgrass · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Atlanta

Hi Marty,

I think that I was that guy Smile

We have had several customers curious as to how to do multi-screen presentations and, while our images are designed for such an environment, there are only a couple of ways of actually driving the projectors in an efficient manner. More and more churches are considering or have already purchased multi-projector set-ups but must spend tens of thousands of dollars on scalers (such as those sold by Analogue Way or FSL) in order to drive the projectors. Wouldn't it be better to use a single Mac G5 to drive the projectors and have Live worship handle the driving of the video cards directly?

I recognize that it would require a change to the interface of live worship but maybe not. Maybe there could be a way to do the background image sequencing in a secondary interface and leave the primary interface the way it is.

Let's say that you built an engine to drive multiple screens (using quartz composer or the OS X screen saver engine for example). Once there was a way for the software to actually address multiple screens then the manner in which the interface worked could be as simple as calling the run-time for the preproduced sequence of backgrounds. The text side of the equation could be exactly what you are doing now with the addition of a radio button for the operator to tell the software where to direct the text screen output.
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Marty · LiveWorship Team Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 57

Dan,

Great stuff! I forwarded your website to my pastor..he loves images like yours.....and so do I. Who knows..maybe an order will follow! Was great to talk to you in Nashville! Any chance of you being back in Nashville for the Youth Workers convention? They do alot of 3 screen work at these events during worship! They use Edirol presenters to send send images to all 3 screens. A Anyway, I could see where we could implement something along those lines down the road...create an extended desktop to a second monitor to handle the UI and then present to monitors 3, 4, and 5. I will throw this out at a meeting and watch our programmers have a heart attack....lol. But it would create lots of great discussion! I will keep you posted!

Dan Snodgrass · Joined: 26 Oct 2005 Posts: 4 Location: Atlanta

Marty,

No plans to go to the YW conference but who knows. The Edirol methodology is a dead end, in my estimation as it is impractical for most churches. A software based solution working driven from a single powerful G5 is much more affordable and easy to set up.

Be sure to ask your programmers about the OS X screensaver engine. I would love to see an front end programmed to take advantage of it. It automatically senses the number of monitors you are running and sends a different image to each one. Of course, there is no software control over length of dissolves and such but it is essentially the iPhoto slide show but sent to multiple screens.

Thanks for the kind word about our product. Maybe we'll see it included in Live Worship sometime!
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THE ART IS BACK.
http://www.awakeimages.com

Marty · LiveWorship Team Joined: 03 Oct 2005 Posts: 57

Will do! We can talk about that too!

Marty