MediaShout Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
You can do most things under the one computer. No multiple machines or feeds required. This is very useful for a mobile church setup. It also comes with multiple features that you often have to pay extra for with other products such as loads of Bible versions, Songs and Hymnals. MediaShout also has first grade tech support that quickly respond to issues encountered. MediaShout has been faithfully serving our church and multiple ministries for over 15 years. Our church was one of the first users of this product in Australia.

Cons
Text editing is probably the weakest point, which we sometimes have to rely on PPT instead for better formatting, but MediaShout is overall a very strong and all rounded product.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Very easy to add lyrics to the presentation, integrated nicely with other products most churches probably use anyways.

Cons
I am currently using version 6 and version 4.5. I am sticking with 4.5 for now because I can't find a good way to use my keyboard on version 6. In version 4.5 you can use the arrow keys to navigate the cues without firing them, then hit enter on the one you want to fire to the presentation. Maybe I just don't know how to use the newer software, but it feels a lot harder to control since I'm using my mouse a lot more. (on my laptop I want to stay away from the trackpad as much as possible!) You can go through (sort of) the cues with your arrow keys but enter isn't the way to fire the cues, and I have a lot of volunteers that help me out with running media, so I want things to be as simple as possible but also flexible enough to skip cues if need be, so telling them to just press spacebar isn't always the best way to do it either. There's also some overall clunky things in the newer version with editing songs and text cues and how it reformats when you try to repaginate things to your liking. It looks like a nice try, there's just enough finnicky things about it to keep me tied to the older, slower 4.5 version for now.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
After all of my critical critiques of MS7 early releases I thought I would follow-up with a review of the latest release. I almost had to start from scratch, relearning how to build cues and formatting pages. But, I was able to build this weeks service in MS7 and it ran without any issues/aborts (unexpected shutdowns). I did not use any of my old MS7 scripts but started with a "new" script and built the entire script from scratch. I also imported a MS6 Announcement script into MS7 and did not experience any issues. The "new" MS7 announcement script ran using script control which it imported from the MS6 script. This release has fixed the unexpected shutdown issue that we were having with the early releases. Another PRO is the support staff at Media Shout. They bend over backwards to help you solve issues or help you learn how to use the product.

Cons
Their early release of the product. There were several features that would give you a comment that this feature would be coming in a future release. With the early releases the software would shutdown in the middle of our church service. To date this version of MS7 seems to be stable.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
We have been customers for upwards of 10 years. The program worked with dual monitors.

Cons
We have purchased several upgrades - one because they forced us to. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. A few months ago we showed up for service as usual and our program said we were using a trial version. It started the 30 day countdown. Eventually we dig out the registration codes for the product we had purchased and it would not accept the code. We tried multiple times but it would never go through. We contacted tech support and eventually they just told us the company that managed the licenses for them no longer was. We asked what we could do to fix the problem. The answer? Pay $400 to get a new version. WHAT?!? We purchase a product with the express understanding they are going to deliver on that product. Instead, because they made an unfortunate decision to do business with the wrong company, it was going to cost US -the customer- $400. No product discount, no alternate license or work around. Just a response that would mean they succeeded at doing this to us TWICE. I’m not happy nor would I recommend this product. It does the job. There were things we liked and didn’t like but because of the investment we had, we stayed. No longer. We still haven’t replaced our program. We will be very diligent in reading reviews so we can get a company that is: 1) available with tech support without charging an additional fee and 2) stands behind the service they offer

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 0/10

Pros
So far, I can't really say that there are a lot of pros to this release.

Cons
MediaShout has always had lots of potential, but issues are many. MS7 was rebuilt from the ground up and is marketed as being more stable than other versions. This is simply not true. I upgraded over a month ago and it crashes or locks up weekly. It is also marketed as "powerful presentations made easy." There is nothing easy about this program. It is powerful, if you are willing to go through multiple steps to get your presentations the way you want them. MS7 is missing many of the features that were found in previous releases. In reworking the software, they have made many changes that practical usage very difficult and time consuming.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 3/10