Power Point

Hey Jeff (and Jeff)! Jeff B, you're pretty much spot on with your recommendation and info. Let us know if you need more ideas!

Hey John. I certainly hear you and am all too familiar with those "day of" type requests. Have you seen first hand the behavior of some of the other platforms with their native Powerpoint integration? I have some experience with a few myself and can attest that in most cases it's the same or worse than what we currently have in MediaShout. MediaShout itself had a direct integration of Powerpoint for playback up through Version 6, but about a year after launch of Version 6, Microsoft introduced big changes that made it very intermittent and unreliable on when and IF it would still work to playback Powerpoints that way. It would cause odd display issues, crashing of the program, and sometimes just would show a black screen. This was for MediaShout and there were similar issues on many other software options that used that form of integration as well. The problem was that those elements of Powerpoint that we used to rely on are simply no longer there. With the move to Office 365 and more cloud-based integration, the components that put Powerpoint in the playing field with other software able to control it are just no longer a priority for Microsoft. After trying for literally years to come up with a way to do it, we had to adapt to this change and begin offering other options to reliably get Powerpoints in--such as the convert to JPEG option, or the import option that brings the Powerpoint in with the ability to edit, although it's not always perfect and can require some tweaking. So for ideal situations, we'd advise first to create the content IN MediaShout 7 as a full-service presentation software, eliminating the need for Powerpoint (especially with the new editor feeling much like Powerpoint itself, with the benefits of MediaShout, and features like sermon builder for pastors to quickly build their sermon slides and get them to the media team), or two, import the Powerpoints and then tweak from there if you can get the slides in advance, or three-- if you are forced to take the last minute route when someone walks in with a Powerpoint, then that would be the time you have Powerpoint open behind MediaShout, and simply minimize MediaShout and/or press F2 to toggle the MediaShout output to off, during the presentation of the Powerpoint. Then when you're done, go back to MediaShout and press F2 to go live with it again.

Hey Roger! There are some things that we're still implementing in V7, but the largest part of what you need should be there. Either way, it's not a bad thing that you already own and can begin getting familiar with V7, because your V6 still works alongside it. We are rolling out the more advanced features onto the core product very very quickly. We just added the "scenario plugin" for easy timed advance and looping on cues a couple weeks ago for instance. Let me know if there's a specific feature or two that you're waiting on and I'll get you a status and also put in a word to see if we can priortize it.

Yes, you can certainly activate version 7 and use version 6 as long as you want. You can even open them at the same time, side by side on the same computer. The only caveat is, once you activate version 7, it "trades up" your license, so all NEW computers will need to be activated with version 7 and not 6. But 6 will continue to run as long as you want on any existing computers it's installed on. And we are flexible, so if you were to have a problem and need to get 6 back running, we have some wiggle room to help you there as well.

Sure thing. Just keep me posted if you need anything. We just released another update by the way, 7.1.3, so make sure and download that on the download page when you do begin to use it more.