Over the years presentation software like EasyWorship has helped churches connect more with their congregation by displaying song lyrics and scripture verses with cool graphic backgrounds, announcement loops, videos, and even sermon notes. As technology evolves, the door is opening wider for the church to be able to reach more people and do more things with a computer and a piece of software like EasyWorship.
I already mentioned some of the basic features of most presentation programs, but I would like to highlight some of the pro features that have been added to EasyWorship recently that just might blow your socks off.
NDI – NDI (Network Device Interface) allows you to connect compatible devices to EasyWorship using IP to be able to share video and audio. 
With EasyWorship, you can use NDI to send the EasyWorship output to another computer or device on the network (wired or wireless), or capture a signal as a Feed in EasyWorship to display live from another compatible device like a smartphone, tablet or computer.
Read this article for more information about implementing NDI with EasyWorship.
Visit to this website for more information specifically about NDI.
Alpha Channel Broadcast Signal – Alpha Channel is basically a mask. It determines how an object’s pixel colors are going to blend with pixel colors from another object when the two are overlaid. In EasyWorship, when placing text (e.g., lyrics) or a transparent PNG (e.g., church logo) on top of a motion background or live feed, alpha channel is the best way to generate clean, professional edges around the text–especially important for IMAG, live stream or HD broadcast.
EasyWorship’s alpha channel support was designed for those who have a video mixer that uses alpha key to overlay text and graphics on a video source. Alpha channel keying provides the best quality for text and graphic overlays.
With the correct required hardware, setup is not too difficult. For complete setup instructions for the Broadcast Alpha Channel read this article and this article.
MIDI Control – MIDI, or Musical Instrument Digital Interface, is a protocol developed in the 1980’s which allows electronic instruments and other digital musical tools to communicate with each other. MIDI is a series of messages that can be sent to EasyWorship and are interpreted into specific commands like “Go Live,” “Next Slide,” “Logo on,” “Black on,” and many more. A MIDI instrument that can be used to send these messages can be a piece of hardware or part of a software environment like Ableton Live. These devices and software have to be on the same wifi or local area network as the computer running EasyWorship.
You can use an external piece of hardware (like a midi keyboard or iPad) to send MIDI controls to EasyWorship or you can use software (like Ableton Live) to send MIDI controls to EasyWorship.
For complete instructions on setting up MIDI for hardware or software, read this article.
Alpha Channel Videos – Alpha channel videos are videos with transparency. Pro-res and WebM videos support transparency to allow for layering on top of other content. For example, using a transparent video with a lower third fill and mask, you can layer this on top of a presentation, scripture or song with other content showing through the transparency.
This is still a fairly new technology and there aren’t many alpha channel videos out there yet, but they are soon to take off.
Message Alerts / Countdown Timers / Tokens – Having a clock on the screen or showing a countdown timer to the start of the service can be created using a Message Alert. Create simple alerts with just text or use Tokens and create an alert template to show a clock, a countdown/count-up timer or countdown to a specific time.
See this article for more information on Tokens.
Mobile Remote App – I’m adding this one not because it’s really a pro feature but because it makes the operator look like a pro user. Simply download and install the free remote app on your phone or tablet and control the EasyWorship schedule from anywhere within the Wi-Fi network range. It is a simple setup and keeps you from being stuck in front of the A/V computer during the service.
There are many other features that round out EasyWorship and make it one of (if not ‘the’) best and easiest to use presentation software programs built for churches. And as I mentioned before, as technology keeps evolving, there will be many more new and exciting features to come in the future.
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