Top 6 Benefits of Video Projection Software for Churches

Churches are investing more heavily in video today than ever before since the pandemic has moved so much online. Some churches already have full-featured projection software, but others are still using general presentation solutions like PowerPoint.

However, PowerPoint and Keynote can struggle with simple embedded videos, let alone anything more complicated like pulling in a remote speaker from Zoom over NDI, or scaling a video to look good when it’s quickly loaded in.

The solution: moving to a broader or more fully-featured worship projection software solution.

These are the top 6 benefits of implementing video projection software for churches. If any of these sound like problems you’re currently having, we’d love for you to see for yourself exactly how ProPresenter 7 solves each of these challenges.

1. Worship Projection Software Makes Video Look Better

When churches rely on open-source tools, they limit themselves in terms of what they can do. It doesn’t look good when you’re dragging VLC onto the projector, to fullscreen it and press play.

With a quality solution for video projection software for churches, you can create truly immersive, seamless presentations that incorporate video and don’t require gymnastics from your AV team or showing off an ugly video app UI.

And when your chosen worship projection software is a wide-ranging, pro-grade solution like ProPresenter, you can embed video of all types into presentations themselves. You’ll never have to exit a show to start a video again.

2. Reliably Play Videos of Nearly Any File Format

When you choose a high-quality church services software solution that includes its own video playback engine, you can reliably play videos of nearly any video file format. Mp4, mov, ProRes, HAP, and much more, all without issue. No need to download additional codecs, and hope they’re not a virus.

You may have clearly defined protocols for videos you produce in-house — like always using the same media libraries that offer content in established formats. But you never know what a guest speaker or even a pastoral team member might throw at you with little to no warning.

ProPresenter supports a wide range of video files, allowing you to display video content from a wide range of sources seamlessly.

3. More Flexibility in How Your Video Gets Displayed

As churches grow more proficient in their AV presentations, they tend to want to do more with video than play it full-screen on the big screen. Many churches today want to use looped motions behind lyrics, for example. And sometimes, even a full-screen featured video still needs help: you might want to play the video in the background and place foreground content over the top of it or pause it so the speaker can emphasize a point.

Look for a solution that lets you drag and drop content — including video files — onto your presentation slides, and that supports any of the use cases described here (background, foreground, looped, and so on).

4. Gain Other Powerful Church-Centric Features

General market video projection software can do much of what we’ve described so far, but it misses the mark on other features and functions that churches and houses of worship rely on weekly.

When you choose a professional-grade solution that was built with the needs of churches in mind, you gain numerous other powerful church-centric features. These elements will save you time and countless headaches every single worship service, and they add to the value of moving to a better video projection software solution.

Doubles as Scripture Projection Software

Most churches regularly display Scripture passages as a comprehension aid. Pasting these into PowerPoint or another general market tool is time-consuming and leads to human errors.

Most church-oriented video projection software also doubles as Bible projection software. ProPresenter has 125 Bible translations across 36 different languages. Pull in one translation, or two or three, for side-by-side study or multilingual services.

Quickly Import Songs

Similarly, when you choose a product built for churches, you’ll usually gain the ability to automatically import songs from popular databases like CCLI SongSelect or MultiTracks.com. Best of all, ProPresenter (along with a few other church-oriented solutions) automatically pulls accurate and compliant copyright information for every song, so you stay legal without any extra work.

Planning Center Online Integration

Many churches use Planning Center Online to plan and organize their liturgy or service order. Choosing a solution like ProPresenter that integrates naturally with Planning Center Online lets the worship leader plan a set from home, and import it into ProPresenter with a couple of clicks.

5. Pro-Grade Projection Software Includes Multi-Screen Support

As churches grow larger and more logistically complex, so do their audio/visual needs.

The average church isn’t particularly large. One big screen at the front of the sanctuary may be sufficient for most situations in a small church. But would the speaker benefit from a stage screen even in a smaller setting? Many platform presenters use this kind of screen to see sermon notes, clocks, countdown timers, and more.

And on-stage musicians can also benefit from Stage Screens: whether it’s song lyrics, chord charts, or messages from the tech team, additional screens can help services run more smoothly.

Then, as we move up into medium and larger congregations all the way up to megachurches and multi-site, the complexity of AV needs skyrockets.

Within a single church of 500+, you might need a lot more:

• Main auditorium big screen
• Stage screens for speaker/pastor
• Another set of stage view monitors for worship musicians
• A live stream feed
• A lobby feed
• An announcements kiosk
• Video feeds running to other rooms (overflow, nursery, and so on)

Some of these applications can certainly use the same feed as what’s showing up on the big screen. But most churches doing video in this way need the ability to customize what shows up where:

• The livestream needs lower thirds formatted differently.
• The main screen might not include video of the speaker or stage.
• The lobby kiosk stays cycling through announcements the whole service.

This is where a broader presentation and worship projection software solution shines compared to less robust tools: multi-screen, multi-view support.

ProPresenter’s unique architecture lets you build content out in seven distinct layers within one ProPresenter show. Then, as you set up your outputs, you can customize every element: within one show or file, you can create the many output configurations that you need.

6. App-Based Remote Control

Last, as you look for a solution that meets your needs, look for one that offers cross-platform, remote control apps. Some people prefer presentation remotes (clickers), app-based remote controls let you manage or run a presentation from anywhere in your facility on the same WiFi.

Even better, ProPresenter’s remote control apps run on a local Wi-Fi network with the host computer — meaning that you can still run a show remotely even if the church internet connection gets severed.

What About the Competition?

By now we hope you can see that ProPresenter 7 is a professional-grade solution within the category of video projection software for churches. Plus it does so much more beyond just video playback. It’s a full-service presentation, live streaming, and video projection application that’s powerful enough for the largest churches, yet simple enough to learn for the smallest congregations.

But what about the competition?

The Other Options

A few other options are designed for church, including Faithlife’s Proclaim, Worship Extreme Presenter (now known as WorshipTools Presenter) and EasyWorship.

But this post is already long enough, so we won’t outline the differences here.

Instead, if you’re curious about these or the top general market solutions, see our guides on the differences between other common worship presentation software solutions and Renewed Vision’s professional-grade presentation and projection software.

• WorshipTools (Presenter) vs ProPresenter Comparison Guide
• Proclaim vs ProPresenter Comparison Guide.
• PowerPoint vs ProPresenter Comparison Guide
• Keynote vs ProPresenter Comparison Guide
• Prezi vs ProPresenter Comparison Guide
• EasyWorship vs ProPresenter Comparison Guide

Ready to move to the best video projection software available for churches today? Start your unrestricted two-week trial of ProPresenter today!