For those of you have not received an email from MediaShout, the Don Moen Company has acquired MediaComplete. The official press release can be found here. It is a very exciting time in the MediaComplete offices as they step into this new chapter. Don Moen, who has been a strong influence in contemporary worship for more than 25 years as a worship leader, songwriter and president of Integrity Music, has a clear vision for the future of MediaShout that is both innovative and inspiring. Kevin Weimer, the new President and CEO, is an experienced leader who brings fresh perspective backed by the resources of the recently formed Don Moen company. Todd Temple now takes the position as VP and will continue as the Chief Product Developer challenged to continue designing the most powerful and cutting edge multimedia presentation tools. To sum it all up, the next few months will prove to be very exciting as the company gains speed on a freshly paved road of industry leadership.
Category Archives: Tech Notes
Quicktime playback in MediaShout
MediaShout is capable of playing .mov h.264 and mpeg4 as long as the Quicktime alternative is installed. There have been many updates to the QTA but the one I prefer to use and send to clients is Version 1.81.
Ideally, installing one codec pack to cover all file types that are MediaShout friendly would be best. This is why I often recommend the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack found in the Instaling Codecs pdf that is sent out to every user needing codec related fixes. The pdf specifies selecting Profile #5 from the Select Components window of the installation. This is because Profile #5 includes the QTA all in one install. With the K-Lite Mega Codec pack properly installed you should be able to play video files with the extensions .avi .mpg (1&2) .wmv .mov h.264 .m4v .mp4.
Those of you who are creating content on a Mac or can render to an mov file with your editing software will find h.264 and the Sorensen 3 codec to be the best option for quality and playability in MediaShout, especially with the KLMC installed.
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 (Extended Desktop)
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!!
Codecs Codecs Codecs
What are codecs and why do they matter?
This is what the wise Wikipedia has to say about codecs.
“A codec is a device or program capable of performing encoding and decoding on a digital data stream or signal. The word codec may be a combination of any of the following: ‘Compressor-Decompressor‘, ‘Coder-Decoder‘, or ‘Compression/Decompression algorithm’.”
Remember as a kid those decoders you used to get in the boxes of cereal? That red film that you placed over the red picture that had a mystery message was the decoder.
When media files are created, codecs are used to compress the file into a specified format. When those files are read, the corresponding codec is then used to read, or open, the file. For instance, there are many mpeg 2 codecs that can be used to encode a video file. That same group of codecs may be used to open an mpeg2 file, however they may not decode it properly or entirely.
You may find that after installing a new video editing software or DVD encoder that your presentation software does not play media files properly. Just like those cereal box decoders, the red film may reveal a portion of the message but the green film will reveal the message in its entirety.If you have a file that seems to be improperly decoded you can install new codecs for your software to use so that it can read the entire file.
The following solution seems to solve many of the codec issues I have encountered. Originally this solution was designed to deal with the newest Cyberlink Power DVD software Dell and others were using at the end of ‘05 and beginning of ‘06. Here is the link used by MediaShout for solving codec related issues. www.mediashout.com/download/InstallingCodecs.pdf
The instructions have a link to the K-lite Mega Codec pack from www.codecs.com. This codec pack includes a quicktime alternative, and mp4
If you have updated your drivers and still not getting audio from a video file or DVD playback is poor or non-existent, try installing these new codecs to get better playback.
Still having problems? leave a questions in the comments.
Video Cards and Drivers -PT 3
So you have a laptop and the manufacturer has nothing to offer in the way of up-to-date video drivers, well here ya go. The two major video card manufacturers are NVIDIA and ATI and if you download the latest drivers from them you will most likely get a message saying there is no compatible hardware installed for their drivers. We turn now to MODIFIED drivers. there are several programmers out there that will take the original driver from ATI or NVIDIA and modify the driver giving it the ability to install on a laptop. So before we go any farther- DISCLAIMER: use these modified drivers at your own risk. I have installed modified drivers on some systems that did not like the new drivers and thus resulted in a safe-boot system restore. For example, DO NOT install on a Mac computer using Boot Camp! (can ya tell I’ve tried?) Having said that, this is what I recommend. First, those of you who are using older ATI Radeon video cards, you can usually find success installing Omega drivers from Omegadrivers.net. For ATI Radeon cards 9550 and below I suggest using the Omega drivers 6.5 and for the 9600 and higher the Omega Drivers 7.4. For those of you with NVIDIA video cards I would recommend LaptopVideo2go for the latest video drivers. Be sure to read the QuickStart Guide first so that you understand how to install the drivers.
I have used both of these websites and have had great success. These modified drivers can help keep your laptop relevant far beyond the updates provided by your laptop manufacturer. I encourage you to educate yourself before installing these drivers so that you understand how they are modified and why they work. Each of these sites has an excellent description of these details so I will not duplicate that information here.
For you Intel Graphics chip owners, try getting the latest from Intel directly. I have not yet located a modifier of Intel drivers.
If you have any additional questions shoot me an email.
Video Cards and Drivers -PT 2
So how can you find out if your drivers need to be updated? Fortunately there is an easy way get all the necessary information First, go to Start then Run in Windows XP. For Vista type the Start key and the letter R at the same time. Type dxdiag into the run command line and click OK. If you get a Yes or No pop-up window just click Yes. Once the DirectX Diagnostic Tools window opens you will see several tabs across the top. The System tab will give you information about your PC’s Processor and System RAM. On the Display or Display 1 tab you will fine the Name of the video card and the approximate total memory in the left column. In the right column you will find the DATE of the driver that is currently installed. The date of the driver is important because it tells us what release of DirectX 9 the video card is operating under.
Example: If the date of the video driver is 5/13/06 and the software is using DirectX 9 instructions released in February of 07, then the Video card is not going to be able to process all the information.
So how can you update the drivers for your video card? For desktop PC’s you simply need to go the the home page of the Video Card manufacturer’s web site. It will most likely be NVIDIA or ATI if you have a dual head VGA card.
Video Cards and Drivers - PT 1
One of the first things you will learn after investing in a high-end presentation software is that the video card really matters. Gamers already know this, unfortunately most serious computer gamers are not the ones using the presentation software. MediaShout has higher requirements then most PC games. MediaShout uses a Microsoft language called DirectX 9 to render all video within the application which includes video files, DVD playback and live video feeds. Microsoft updates this language every other month and releases new updates to accommodate the ever-changing demands of the gaming industry. The MediaShout programmers occasionally make changes to the instructions used for rendering when they learn the new features and controls that can increase the quality and stability of video playback within the application. The drawback to these changes in programming is the need for users to update the drivers for their video card.
Updating drivers is typically not a problem, however laptops usually require the owner to get driver updates from the manufacturer’s website. Dell, HP, Gateway, Acer, Asus, Cyberpower, Toshiba, Sony, IBM all limit driver updates to the ones they provide. My old HP laptop was unable to install drivers from ATI because of an INF file. This INF file is the limiting factor in the drivers install files. I am assuming that the manufacturers want more control over to keep the GPU from overheating. We will address modified drivers in the next post.
With the latest update to MediaShout version 3.2, many users are finding that video files will no longer play. This is simply because the current installed drivers do not understand the new DirectX 9 instructions. There is a language barrier between the software and the video card. The 3.2 update and the full version both contain the full DirectX 9 from Feruary ‘07. So if your drivers are dated before this, you may have poor or no video playback. The next blog will explain how to find out what the date of your drivers are and how to update them if necessary. Until then….