Software Recommendations

[TupeloTechie]

I want to begin projecting background images for an improv comedy show. Images will include logos, pictures of the actors and their names (think baseball games,) and names of the games they play, and perhaps even short videos or animations. Due to the unpredictable manner of the show I can't just set stuff up as cues and press go. My plan is to get a midi keyboard and set up each key as a different image so I can bring up any image at any time with the press of a key. However I have no idea what software I would need to do this with. Any suggestions? or maybe a different approach?

[sk8rsdad]

G-Force from SoundSpectrum can be used for this purpose. It was developed as a screen saver program, but because it has a scripting language and the ability to link macros to computer keystrokes it works pretty well for popping up names, images, etc. You need to get permission from them to use it for commercial purposes. YMMV

[NickJones]

Check out MediaShout, ProPresenter & EasyWorship, all are around the $400 mark, but they let you see a control panel the audience does not see, do pop up lower thirds, play video.

Personally if I didn't have the budget I would set up a MS PowerPoint show, with all this, then run it in Presenter Mode.

Good Luck,
Nick

[TupeloTechie]

I'll have to look into g-force, media shout and the like are too expensive.

If I used powerpoint how would I be able to control the contents (un)order.

[sk8rsdad]

If I used powerpoint how would I be able to control the contents (un)order.

Type the number of the slide you want to jump to and press Enter. You would need to keep a list of slides around somewhere. I'm not sure how transitions will work but feel free to experiment.

[NickJones]

If you use PowerPoint in presenter mode as I mentioned, you are seeing this:

And all they see is what you choose, you get a pre-view of each slide on the left. Just click and in it comes.
Nick

[TupeloTechie]

Yes, but I can only view a few at a time on the left hand side. To me PowerPoint is not ideal, as I'm going to need fast recall of around 30 slides. There seems to be a lot of freeware VJ software out there. Does anyone have any experience with this type of software. It seems what I'm trying to do falls more under VJ style stuff than presentation style stuff.

[00AVD]

What about Screen Monkey? I think it does what you want.

[SHARYNF]

arkaos GrandVJ software specifically supports a Midi Keyboard interface
GrandVJ – Eight channels VJ software for real time HD video mixing
It is not cheap but ....

Sharyn