I wanted to share the latest piece of gear that I have picked up for our church. Last week, I bought an AppleTV. This is a tiny little box that hooks directly to a TV or projector via a HDMI cable. It allows you to stream media from an iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer, and it is simple to setup and use. Here are a few things we plan on using it for.

1. DIgital Signage - This is a great device to run digital signage. I needed something to run a TV that we can place in the front window of our church. You can either stream photos from a flickr account or send a movie file to the device. I made a presentation using Apple Keynote using both slides, animations, and videos, and then exported the presentation as a quicktime movie file. I added the movie file to an iTunes playlist, and then just set the Apple TV to loop the playlist. It’s a simple, quick, and inexpensive way to run digital signage without an additional computer.
2. Movies – AppleTV supports iTunes movie rentals, Hulu, and Netflix, all straight from the device for your next youth or children’s movie night.
3. Music - If you have iTunes Match, your entire music library is available from the cloud. If you have computers on the same network, you can access all of their music using Home Sharing. You could also stream music from your iOS device using Pandora or Spotify.
4. Small Group Videos – We have a subscription to Rightnow Media, and with the AppleTV, we can play all of our small group videos directly from an iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer and use Airplay to wirelessly send video to the TV or Projector.
5. Games and Live Video – The AppleTV gives you the ability to mirror the display on your iPod, iPhone, or iPad. So imagine an Angry Birds tournament shown on the big screen, or even switch to the camera app and show live video on the screen from your iPhone. You could show your YouVersion or Glo app on the screen and let students or adults follow along as you read the Bible. And you now have a digital whiteboard that can be shown straight from an iPad screen.

All of this is for under $100. You can even pick up a refurbished model from Apple for under $90. For that amount of money, this is a good investment for any church. After using it for a few days, I plan on getting one for home as well. It really works great. Click the picture below for more info on how the AppleTV works.

If you use video clips during church, you’ll want to take advantage of this offer from WorshipHouseMedia. Each year, they offer some of their best stuff for free during Christmas. You’ll want to check the site to see what they make available each day. You have to get it on that day, but it’s worth your time and effort. Check it out at www.worshiphousemedia.com/twelvedays

I’ve been trying to sync all my music across computers, iPods, iPads, and phones over the last few days. I’ve also been using the three major cloud music players; Google Music, Amazon Cloud Player, and iTunes Match. Cloud music players allow you to store your music on someone else’s server, so you can access your music from anywhere. All you need is an internet connection. Google, Amazon, and Apple all have their own solutions, and each have their advantages and disadvantages. I just wanted to share with you what I’ve learned and experienced.

Google Music

Google Music allows you to store up to 20,000 songs on Google’s servers for free. They have a program that runs in the background on your home computer and uploads all of your music. This obviously takes a while, but once your music is uploaded, you can access it from any web browser or from your android phone.  The Google Play Music app on your android is a decent music app that gives you access to all your uploaded music from your phone.  Plus it automatically makes all of your music purchases from the Google Play store automatically available on Google Music.  Here are my thoughts

• Your music is uploaded automatically. Everything is really simple and you don’t even know it’s running in the background
• Unfortunately, they make it really hard to download the music from the player. It’s possible, but it’s not intuitive
• The Android app is really lacking in features. I like DoubleTwist much better
• You can share music through Google+, but I still don’t know anyone that is heavily using Google+
• This is my least favorite of the three and the least polished

Amazon Cloud Player

The Amazon Cloud Player gives you immediate access to your music that has been purchased through the Amazon mp3 store. I’ve been using the Amazon store for a long time, so I was excited when they came out with their service. They usually have the cheapest price on new music, and they offer the music in the mp3 format which works on all devices. They have both an iPhone app and an Android app, and you can also access the music from the web. Here are my thoughts.

• This is the best app for cross platform compatibility. It works great on iPods, iPads, Androids, and computers
• They offer 5Gig of music storage for free and you can purchase higher storage plans
• I like how the Android app combines the store and player into the same app.
• It’s easy to download your music onto your devices

iTunes Match

I just subscribed to this service a couple of weeks ago when Jennifer bought her iPhone. It works great with Apple products, and I think it is well worth the $24.99 yearly price. itunes will scan your music collection and “match” any of your songs that they offer and make them available from the cloud. You get a higher quality version and you have immediate access to your music from your apple device or computer. Here are my thoughts

• If you have an iPhone, this is the best way to go. It works great
• You can use iTunes Match on up to 10 devices, so it may be a little limiting if you have a big family
• It only works on iOS 5 and higher. That means if you have an old iPod touch (1st or 2nd generation) you can’t use this with it
• You can upload up to 25,000 of your own songs to the service. This is great for the more obscure stuff that they don’t have available in iTunes
• The biggest drawback is that they don’t offer an android app. This would make this service perfect and would bring Apple added money, but don’t expect it to ever happen.

My Conclusion

iTunes Match is the slickest of the three options, but you are locked in to Apple devices for mobile access. Amazon is best for compatibility. And I’m not really sure where Google fits in. It seems like an afterthought and isn’t as functional as it could be. For me, I’ll keep using all three so I can be sure to have my tunes available wherever I’m at.  Also, while these services offer you offline access, you still need a backup. Don’t think that these will replace your backup plan. It’s not easy to get your music back out. In the end, try them out and pick out the one that works best for you.

I’ll let you in on one of my secrets to finding deals on cables, A/V accessories, and computer stuff. Check out monoprice.com.  I’ve ordered a bunch from them lately, and I have been very impressed with both the quality and cost of the products they sell. When you check out their prices for cables, you will be blown away if you are used to ordering from other online retailers. Their prices are really cheaper.

I also order a lot from Amazon and Newegg, but if Monoprice has the item, they are almost always cheaper. I recently bought a 100′ VGA cable for $31 and a nice projector mount for $26. Check out their site and see what they have to offer. They also offer good quality XLR cables and adapters.

Here’s a quick way to build up your library of sermon illustration videos. Check out the Christmas special from WorshipHouse Media. They are offering twelve free videos, so you’ll have to check their site to find out which days they are available. WorshipHouse Media is one of the more popular online stores for videos, so be sure to see what they are offering.

I stumbled on this web service and I think it has a lot of promise for churches and youth ministries. The next time you are working on a video intro for a sermon series or a quick youtube video, check out Flixpress.com.  This would also work for short photo galleries or digital signage. You can upload your text and images, and they will incorporate them into cool 3D animations. The cost is under $5, and you get really good looking results.  Check out the video below and then go to their website and look through the samples. They also have several free templates for you to try out.

If you are needing images for your bulletin, website, or video screens, there are a number of places you find them on the internet. Please don’t use cheesy clipart!!! Clipart was really never in style, so please refrain from using what you will find in Microsoft Office or Publisher. Here are some of the sites I frequently use. Sometimes you can find great images for free, but occasionally you will need to purchase the graphics you need.

Free Stock Photos

• Stock.xchang - Good site, but not a lot of church specific images
• CreationSwap – Great Christian content
• StockVault

Paid Services

(there are a lot of stock photography sites out there, these are just the ones that I have used)

• iStockPhotos - This is the one I use the most because of their incredible selection.
• PhotoXpress
• BigStockPhoto
• VectorStock
• PhotoMission
• PhotoDune

Google Images and Flickr

One word of caution: Just because you can find a great image using Google Image search or Flickr photo search, doesn’t mean that you can use it for your church. If in doubt, be sure and request permission from the content creator or find an image that uses creative commons licensing. 

• for Flickr, you can use the advanced image search, and click search only creative commons licensed content
• for Google Images, use the advanced image search and click search only images labeled for reuse

If you’re looking for some great resources in church media, then check out only144.com. They have almost $1200 of church videos, images, and graphics available at a cost of less than $100. The only catch, it’s only good for 144 hours. Here’s what they have to say

WHAT YOU GET

You will receive a 5-disc data DVD set with all the files, over 15 gigabytes! Each disc is neatly organized according to producer and includes worship videos, loops, countdowns, graphics, announcement slides, PowerPoint games, sermon videos, sermon series plans, and so much more.

WHY IT’S A GREAT DEAL

The stars have literally lined up! Thirteen of the best worship media producers in the country have pitched in to bless the socks off of churches with this deal. Worship media can be expensive, and this is a great opportunity to get enough media to last your church many years to come. Maybe your church needs some good worship loops, or countdowns, or some great sermon illustration videos. Whatever you need to spruce things up…BAM! It’s in this collection. There hasn’t been a deal offered like this ever before, so don’t miss it. It only lasts 144 hours.