ProPresenter is a powerful presentation software widely used in churches, houses of worship, and live events for its robust functionality and flexibility. A key aspect of its power lies in its ability to precisely control what appears on different screens – from the main audience display to confidence monitors, announcement slides, and even dedicated lyric screens. Understanding how to change and optimize your ProPresenter output display is crucial for delivering seamless and impactful presentations. This detailed guide will walk you through the essential steps and considerations for effectively managing your ProPresenter output.
Understanding ProPresenter’s Output Architecture
Before diving into the specifics of changing output displays, it’s important to grasp how ProPresenter manages screens. ProPresenter utilizes a system of “Outputs” or “Screens” that can be independently configured. Each output can be assigned a specific display device connected to your computer, and then further customized with specific content and layouts. This allows for a high degree of control over what each audience segment or technical operator sees.
The Role of the Screen Configuration Panel
The heart of ProPresenter’s output management lies within its Screen Configuration panel. This is where you assign physical displays to logical ProPresenter outputs and define the properties of each. Accessing this panel is typically done through the ProPresenter menu, usually found under “Screens” or “Preferences.”
Assigning Physical Displays to ProPresenter Outputs
When you first connect a new display to your computer, ProPresenter will usually recognize it. The Screen Configuration panel allows you to then assign this physical display to a specific ProPresenter output. For instance, you might have an “Audience Output” that you want to send to your main projector, a “Stage Display Output” for your worship team, and an “Announcement Screen Output” for a lobby display.
The process generally involves:
1. Opening the Screen Configuration panel.
2. Identifying the available physical displays connected to your computer.
3. Selecting a ProPresenter output (e.g., Audience, Stage Display, Alpha Keyer, etc.).
4. Assigning the desired physical display to that ProPresenter output.
It’s vital to ensure your computer’s operating system is correctly set up for multiple displays. This typically involves extending your desktop rather than mirroring it, allowing each ProPresenter output to occupy its own distinct screen space.
Customizing Content for Each Output
Once your physical displays are assigned to ProPresenter outputs, the real customization begins. This involves tailoring the content and appearance of what is shown on each screen. ProPresenter offers extensive tools for this, allowing for different layouts, information overlays, and styling for each output.
The Stage Display: A Musician’s Best Friend
The Stage Display is a critical component for worship teams, musicians, and speakers. It’s designed to provide them with essential information without distracting the main audience. Common elements on a Stage Display include:
- Current Song and Next Song: This allows musicians to prepare for the upcoming song and know where they are in the setlist.
- Current Verse/Section: For songs with complex structures, knowing the current lyrical section is invaluable.
- Timers: For spoken word messages or sermons, timers can be discreetly displayed.
- Notes and Cues: Specific instructions or reminders can be added for each slide.
- Countdown Clocks: For transitions or specific segments, countdowns can be helpful.
To customize the Stage Display, you’ll typically:
1. Select the Stage Display output in the Screen Configuration panel.
2. Open the Stage Display editor or settings.
3. Choose which elements to display and how they should be arranged.
4. Customize the font size, color, and overall appearance for optimal readability in a stage environment.
ProPresenter allows you to create multiple Stage Display configurations, which can be useful if different teams or individuals have varying needs. You can then switch between these configurations as needed.
Audience Output: The Primary Viewing Experience
The Audience Output is what the majority of your audience will see. This is where your primary lyrics, presentation slides, videos, and graphics are displayed. Customization here focuses on:
- Visual Aesthetics: Ensuring a consistent brand or theme, appropriate fonts, colors, and backgrounds that enhance readability and impact.
- Content Overlays: Deciding whether to show song titles, scripture references, announcements, or other auxiliary information alongside the main content.
- Video Playback: Configuring how videos are displayed, including aspect ratios and scaling.
- Live Video Integration: Setting up how live camera feeds or other video sources are incorporated.
The flexibility in ProPresenter means you can have different visual themes or templates for various types of content. For example, your worship songs might have a different look and feel than your sermon slides or announcement loops.
Announcement Screens: Targeted Information Delivery
Announcement screens, often placed in lobbies or secondary viewing areas, are ideal for delivering information that may not be essential for the main audience but is important for newcomers or those in different parts of the venue. Content for announcement screens can include:
- Welcome messages
- Upcoming events
- Service times
- Social media handles
- Contact information
The key to effective announcement screens is to ensure the content is clear, concise, and easily digestible. You can create specific presentation flows or playlists for these screens that run independently of the main service.
Alpha Keyer Output: Professional Graphics Integration
For advanced users, ProPresenter offers an Alpha Keyer output. This specialized output is designed to send graphics with transparent backgrounds to external switchers or video mixers. This is commonly used for:
- Lower thirds: Displaying names, titles, or scripture references that overlay live video feeds.
- Brand logos: Adding a transparent logo to video content.
- Full-screen graphics with transparency: Overlaying complex visual elements onto live video.
Configuring the Alpha Keyer output involves ensuring your external video hardware supports alpha channel keying and that ProPresenter is set to output the correct signal. This often requires specific cable connections (e.g., SDI with alpha channel support) and configurations within your video mixer.
Advanced Output Configurations and Best Practices
Beyond the basic setup, ProPresenter offers several advanced features and best practices to optimize your output displays.
Multiple Audience Outputs
In some scenarios, you might need to send different content to different audience screens simultaneously. For example, you might want one screen to display lyrics while another shows a sermon outline. ProPresenter allows you to create and configure multiple “Audience” type outputs, each assignable to a separate physical display. This requires careful planning and sufficient graphics processing power on your computer.
Using Different Templates for Different Outputs
ProPresenter’s templating system is incredibly powerful for maintaining consistency and allowing for distinct looks across various outputs. You can create a library of templates and assign specific templates to different outputs. This means your Stage Display can have a minimalist, information-dense template, while your Audience Output uses a more visually appealing and branded template.
Managing Screen Resolution and Aspect Ratio
It’s crucial to ensure that the resolution and aspect ratio of your ProPresenter outputs match the capabilities and intended display of your physical screens. Incorrect settings can lead to stretched, pixelated, or improperly cropped content. Always check the native resolution of your projector or display and configure ProPresenter accordingly.
The Importance of a Robust Graphics Card
Driving multiple high-resolution displays, especially with video playback and complex graphics, demands a capable graphics card. Insufficient graphics power can lead to dropped frames, stuttering playback, and overall poor performance, impacting the quality of your output.
Testing and Previewing Your Output
Thorough testing is paramount. Before every event or service, take the time to preview each output from the perspective of the intended audience or operator.
- Audience View: Does the content look clear and legible from various seating positions? Are there any visual distractions?
- Stage Display View: Is the information easy for musicians and speakers to read and understand? Are the cues clear?
- Alpha Keyer View: Does the keyed graphic appear correctly over the live video feed in your switcher?
ProPresenter’s built-in preview features are invaluable for this process. You can often see what each output is displaying directly within the ProPresenter interface without needing to look at the physical screens themselves.
Troubleshooting Common Output Issues
Even with careful planning, you might encounter issues. Here are some common problems and their solutions:
-
Display Not Showing Up:
- Ensure the display is properly connected via cable and powered on.
- Check your computer’s display settings to confirm the display is detected and enabled.
- Restart ProPresenter or your computer.
- Verify that your graphics drivers are up to date.
-
Content Cropped or Stretched:
- In Screen Configuration, ensure the resolution and aspect ratio settings for the output match your physical display.
- Check the scaling options within ProPresenter for the specific content being displayed.
-
Performance Issues (Lagging, Dropped Frames):
- Close unnecessary applications running on your computer.
- Lower the resolution or quality settings for certain outputs if possible.
- Check your computer’s hardware specifications to ensure they meet ProPresenter’s recommended requirements.
- Consider upgrading your graphics card if performance remains an issue.
-
Alpha Keyer Not Working:
- Confirm that your video mixer or switcher supports alpha channel keying.
- Ensure you are using the correct connection type (e.g., SDI with alpha).
- Verify that the Alpha Keyer output in ProPresenter is correctly configured to send an alpha channel signal.
By understanding ProPresenter’s output architecture, mastering the Screen Configuration panel, and diligently customizing each display, you can elevate your presentations from good to exceptional. The ability to precisely control what your audience and your team see is a hallmark of professional event production, and ProPresenter provides the tools to achieve just that.
What are the fundamental ways to customize ProPresenter output?
ProPresenter offers a rich set of tools for display customization, primarily through the “Outputs” and “Screens” sections of the software. You can define different physical displays as distinct “Outputs,” each capable of receiving different types of content. Within each Output, you can configure a “Screen” to determine its resolution, orientation, and aspect ratio, ensuring it accurately matches your physical hardware. This allows for granular control over what appears on each connected monitor.
Beyond basic resolution and orientation, ProPresenter enables extensive customization of the visual layout. This includes layering different types of content like slides, media, lyrics, and live video, and controlling their position, size, and blending modes. Furthermore, you can create custom “Layouts” within a Screen configuration, allowing you to arrange and resize elements dynamically for specific presentation needs, such as a split-screen view with lyrics on one side and a background video on the other.
How can I manage multiple displays with different resolutions and orientations?
ProPresenter’s output system is designed to handle complex multi-display setups. Each physical display connected to your computer is recognized as an “Output.” You can assign a unique “Screen” configuration to each Output, specifying its resolution, refresh rate, and orientation (landscape or portrait). This means you can have one projector displaying in landscape at 1920×1080 and another monitor showing lyrics in portrait at 1080×1920, all managed independently within ProPresenter.
When configuring your Screens, it’s crucial to match the ProPresenter settings precisely to the capabilities of your display hardware and how it’s connected. This ensures a clean, artifact-free signal. You can also create “Stage Displays,” which are specifically designed for presenters, offering them custom views of upcoming slides, notes, or timers, separate from the main audience screens. These Stage Displays also leverage the flexible Screen configuration system.
What are “Screens” and how do they relate to physical displays?
In ProPresenter, a “Screen” is essentially a virtual canvas that you define to represent a specific output destination. It’s where you determine the resolution, aspect ratio, and orientation of the content that will be sent to a physical display. You can have multiple Screens configured, and each Screen is then assigned to a specific “Output,” which corresponds to a physical monitor or projector connected to your computer.
The relationship is straightforward: an Output is the physical connection and signal path, while a Screen is the logical definition of how content should be formatted and presented on that specific Output. By creating and configuring Screens, you tell ProPresenter what kind of visual space it’s working with for each of your physical displays, enabling precise control over the final visual appearance.
How do I create and apply custom layouts for my outputs?
Custom layouts in ProPresenter are created within the Screen configuration. After defining your Screen’s resolution and orientation, you can access the “Layouts” tab. Here, you can add new layouts and then visually arrange and resize various content elements such as lyrics, media placeholders, text boxes, and live video feeds. You can save these custom arrangements as distinct named layouts.
Once a layout is created and saved, you can apply it to your presentation on a per-slide basis or as the default layout for a specific Screen. This allows for dynamic visual presentation, where you might use a wide layout for a sermon with a large background image, and then switch to a more compact layout for a song that displays lyrics prominently in the center. The ability to create and switch between layouts provides immense flexibility in how your content is presented.
What are the benefits of using custom branding elements in my output?
Incorporating custom branding elements such as logos, lower thirds, and specific color schemes enhances the professional look and consistent identity of your presentations. ProPresenter allows you to import and place these elements directly onto your output screens, ensuring that your brand is visible and recognizable throughout the service or event. This reinforces your organization’s identity and creates a more polished and cohesive visual experience for your audience.
Beyond just static logos, you can animate these branding elements, use them as overlays on video, or even integrate them into specific slide templates. This level of customization ensures that your output isn’t just functional but also visually appealing and aligned with your established brand guidelines, contributing significantly to the overall professionalism and impact of your visual content.
How can I integrate live video feeds into my ProPresenter output?
ProPresenter provides robust support for integrating live video feeds from various sources, including cameras, capture cards, and network streams. Within the “Media” browser, you can add these live video inputs as distinct media sources. These sources can then be treated like any other media item, allowing you to drag and drop them onto your slides or directly onto a Screen.
Once a live video feed is added, you can control its playback, apply color correction, resize it, and position it anywhere on your output screens using the custom layout tools. You can also use Alpha Channel output from your video source to seamlessly key graphics and text over the live video, creating professional-looking picture-in-picture or overlay effects.
What is the difference between a “Screen” and a “Stage Display”?
A “Screen” in ProPresenter is configured to control what the audience sees on a main display, projector, or video wall. It defines the resolution, aspect ratio, and orientation of the visual output for public consumption. Screens are where your primary presentation content, including slides, media, and lyrics, is displayed to viewers.
Conversely, a “Stage Display” is specifically designed for presenters, worship leaders, or technical operators. It provides a separate, customized view that does not appear on the main audience screens. Stage Displays can show information such as the current slide, upcoming slides, timers, cues, or notes, allowing the presenter to stay informed and synchronized without distracting the audience. Both Screens and Stage Displays are managed through the same output configuration interface but serve distinct purposes in the presentation workflow.