A Word About Resolutions

I wanted to touch on the topic of resolutions. Those of you on laptops will usually run your primary (laptop) screen at 1280X800 or close to it. Your options for screen one should typically be set at their highest, unless your screen goes to 1920X1200. Desktop users will probably want to run the primary monitor at 1024X768 or 1280X1024. It is recommended that your secondary monitor, your audience's display, should be at 800X600 or 1024X768.


The purpose of running the secondary monitor at these resolutions is to not overwhelm the video card. The higher the resolution the more work for the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit), which could lead to poor video playback and lag.

There are problems that could arise from resolutions that too low or high. If your primary is lower than 1924X768 your Cue Properties Box will not be fully visible and and you will not be able to see all of the buttons at the bottom of the window. If your secondary is set to high, the video may not load or it will play with jitters and pauses.

A note about widescreen: Widescreen primary and secondary displays are becoming more popular and affordable. A high resolution primary screen will give you more landscape to customize your control screen layout. Just be sure that if you are going to run the secondary in a widescreen format that you have a great video card.

So, check to make sure you have your resolutions set properly if you begin to have trouble and as always be sure that you have recent drivers for your video card.

This ain't your daddy's PowerPoint

Every day new users become frustrated trying to figure out how to get the MediaShout presentation up on the projection screen. So they make the call. The conversation usually goes like this, " I connected my laptop to the projector and then I hit the fn+F7 keys to get the picture on the projector." Those of you who are still using PowerPoint can rest assured that MediaShout can still play your PPT files but the setup for this is done differently.

PowerPoint is typically set up using the cloning feature usually activated using the fn+F? feature. This setup does not allow MediaShout to display separate images, one control screen, one display screen. MediaShout requires Extended Desktop mode so that the computer is sending out 2 separate outputs from the computer. This cannot be done by using a splitter to send one image to a monitor and another to the projector.

How to set up Extended Desktop mode:

Windows XP- Right Click on the desktop of you computer and choose Properties. From that menu choose Display Settings. There will be two boxes in the Windows Display Settings a 1 and a 2. Click on display 2 and check the box that says Extend my windows desktop onto this monitor.
Note: Be sure that your display resolution on monitor 2 is at least 800X600. Resolutions higher that 1024X768 could result in a lag if your video card cannot handle it.

Once these settings have been made click the OK button. Yous should now see the same desktop image without the icons.

Windows Vista - Right Click on the desktop and choose Personalize. Choose Display Settings and you will see the same window as in Windows XP.

Once the Extended Desktop mode has been set, Open MediaShout and your projector screen should go black and the control screen will be displayed on the primary monitor.

If your computer sends the primary screen to the projector you will need to set the laptop screen as the primary using your video card's control panel. These settings are usually found under the heading of Multiple Monitor Set Up.

So there you have it, now go Shout!!

Luminous Bible Book Backs from Defy Creative

Hot off the DVD burner is Defy Creative's new Luminous Bible Book Back videos for MediaShout 3.2.

These videos create a powerful impression while presenting scripture. These videos were designed for MediaShout's Bible Book Back feature so that selected scriptures automatically pull up the associated video with the matching Bible book title.
For example, select john 14:1-7 and the video background that is automatically set as the background has John in the animated text.

Here's the bonus you won't find with other Bible Book Back collections, Luminous comes with a blank looping video that allows you to add your own text for sermon notes or simply for transition from one scripture to another. With the blank Luminous video, transitions from one bible cue to another never look like the background restarts.

To add to the value, each DVD comes with a full set of Luminous videos in both WMV and MOV (h.264) formats. The WMV set is installed with Installshield into the Book Backs folder however the MOV files are available to copy and paste into the same location instead of the WMV's.

We use these every week in our services and have had very positive feedback.

Check them out today and pick up this great set of Luminous Bible Book Backs.