Zionworx

Hi All
I have been using 'Zionworks' for quite awhile now with great success, but now I am being asked to show small video clips or music tracks during services, has anyone managed to sucsesfully do this integrating external software with ZionWorks please?.
Thanks for any help given.

Ray

Thats not possible with Zionworx, however you could use for example vlc player which has dual monitor support. I've never done that, but it shouldnt be too difficult.
But if you want to make video clips a regular part of the services you might want to consider buying a commercial worship software that has all these features.

Hi Lex
Thanks for your reply, I will try VLC and see how I get on.

We can't afford a commercial program that does it all, and am thankfull to Christian and the team for Zionworks I only wish I had the knowledge to offer
some help to them with the development of this software but alas my talents don't stretch to programing.

Anyway thanks again for you help.

Cheers
Ray Goodwin

Search these forums for VLC - you will find step by step instructions on a few different posts.

Thanks Brian
Good Suggestion.

Regards
Ray

You only need to use vlc if you want to display words/lyrics/bible verses in zionworx over a video clip.
If all you need to do is show a video clip, then you can use windows media player which is likely installed already on the pc, real alternative media player, vlc, DivX. All can be freely downloaded from the net.

And if you have a DVD drive in the computer that would have come with some software. PowerDVD is the one that we use.

There are different versions of the software, and we have found that we cannot upgrade PowerDVD to the latest version as the latest version has one window - shows the video and player controls. The older version we have that came with the DVD drive has two windows - the video window which we drag to the projection display and double-click to go full screen, and the controls window which remains on the first monitor - now we can start, pause and stop the video as we like without moving the mouse onto the second screen.

Edited on Sunday 15th February:-

It is possible to play video or audio using powerpoint, and then integrate into the Zionworx play list.

Either

you can play video / audio supported by powerpoint itself

or

you can play almost any other video format using macros and an external player such as Media Player Classic Home Cinema.

Using the 2nd method it is possible to also use Zionworx to launch a powerpoint that plays some audio (music), and then press F4 to move onto the next item in the Zionworx playlist that contains lyrics that go with the music. I don't think this will work with the 1st Method because pressing F4 would end the powerpoint slideshow.

I can give more details of any or all of htese options if anyone's interested. Possibly I could upload some example powerpoint presentations for video / audio presentation if I'm allowed.

Another trick if you can is to embed the video file in a powerpoint (google it, there are heaps of tutorials for this) and then load the powerpoint up in Zionworx - we did this on Sunday and it worked perfectly - no need to switch out to another player etc.

oo00_Mr_K_00oo wrote:Another trick if you can is to embed the video file in a powerpoint (google it, there are heaps of tutorials for this) and then load the powerpoint up in Zionworx - we did this on Sunday and it worked perfectly - no need to switch out to another player etc.

Yeah that's what I meant by my first option.

I actually use the second option most option - powerpoint macros because

it allows me to play all video and audio format not supported by powerpoint by using VideoLAN (VLC)

it allows the next zionworx playlist item to be cued by pressing F10 and F4

it allow text to be displayed over the video as part of the powerpoint - something you can't do with embedded video

it allows text to be displayed over the video as part of the next song in the zionworx playlist

once its setup, its quick to use - copy the last powerpoint video and change the filename of the video within the macro

Jonathan Hills wrote:You only need to use vlc if you want to display words/lyrics/bible verses in zionworx over a video clip.
If all you need to do is show a video clip, then you can use windows media player which is likely installed already on the pc, real alternative media player, vlc, DivX. All can be freely downloaded from the net.

I'm kinda new here and am not aware of how one could use vlc to display lyrics and bible verses in ZW over a video clip

could some one please help me out with this

Thank you
- Derick

The vlc thread just below (or above) answers this
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=739#p3244

It mentions using version 0.86. I did upgrade to 0.9.6 but I could not get it to work, so had to revert back(A search on a vlc forum suggested there were others who had several issues with the latest version).

I have it working with latest version of VLC 0.99 - and going on the comments in the other topic am not the only one having success with this version

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=739&p=3846&hilit=vlc#p3846

I had a few issues looping video and with moving from one to the next blanking the screen and then redrawing the window.

Having moved to VLC 1.0.0 beta this problem has been resolved

This is the only issue I have left with VLC at the minute - when you loop the same video it closes and then re-opens the window. For a service last week we had to create a 30 minute long movie from a 13 second clip to prevent this. Not a task I want to do for all small snippets our clergy have purchased!

Otherwise VLC is certainly the best thing out there for what we need - plays any audio and video format thrown at it, displays webcam streams, second screen support now seems to be resolved, also the conversion for different formats and the ability to stream live signal (we use the audio line into the laptop from our PA mixing desk and can stream the service over wireless to the church hall for the creche to be able to listen to the service!!). Be nice if this was alll integrated into Zionworx at some point

Peter F, where is the VLC 1.0.0 beta version - I can't find it anywhere? Can only find either a nightly build (very risky to me!) or 0.9.9

Paul