Question on multiple monitor support. Which Mac?

Hello All,

So I'm maybe moving up in my need for more Mac knowledge.

I pastor a church and right now we use a windows pc running a program called SongShowPlus. The pc has a video card with two video outs on it. One to the monitor, and one to the projector.

I'm looking at changing programs so that we can swap our one pc to a Mac. The program is ProPresenter.

This program I believe was built from the ground up specifically for Mac.

This program has some wonderful features. One of the main ones is to be able to use "Stage Display" in which the text for songs can be sent to a TV with VGA or whatever input to the stage to eliminate the need for music stands and such.

So here is the question. I would need to be able to see an image on the computer screen itself, project an image (this is NOT a mirroring of the screen and is a totally separate image) to a projector, but then also send yet another separate image to the stage display.

So it is appearing that I may need to have the capability for 3 separate video out.

I have NO IDEA how to do this on a Mac. Which Mac do I look at? Is the iMac capable of this? The Mac mini? Would I have to go with the Mac Pro?

Any advice would be wonderful! Thank you all.

Steve

Here are a couple articles (an older article, 2007...and a somewhat newer one) that may help explain the basics:

How to Connect Multiple Monitors to Your Mac | Macinstruct
Set Up Multiple Monitors - Wired How-To Wiki

Here are some solutions for multiple external monitors connected to one Mac:

Matrox Graphics - Solutions - Mac
TUAW review: ViDock Gfx multi-monitor solution for MacBook Pro | TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog
Multiple Monitor Solutions For The MacBook Pro

These solutions may not be "cheap"...but they're a heck of a lot cheaper than purchasing a $3000 Mac Pro (and extra video cards) to be able to run 2, 3, 4 or more monitors simultaneously.

- Nick

Pastor Steve:

I'm looking at changing programs so that we can swap our one pc to a Mac. The program is ProPresenter.

Click to expand...

Not trying to discourage you.... but is this practical? ProPresenter will cost you at a minimum $399.99 for a single license, not to mention the additional cost of hardware to switch from using the PC to a Mac.

chscag said:

Pastor Steve:



Not trying to discourage you.... but is this practical? ProPresenter will cost you at a minimum $399.99 for a single license, not to mention the additional cost of hardware to switch from using the PC to a Mac.

Click to expand...

Great question and one I have grappled with recently.

There are a couple of reasons for the change.

1) The software we are using is fairly antiquated and the renewal fee yearly is getting fairly costly. So changing programs was on the list of things to do anyway.

2) Getting the "Site" license from PP enables people on both windows and Mac to work together. So someone can work on one part of the presentation while another works on something else and it doesn't matter what platform they are using. As of now, our SSP software requires all sorts of special plug ins just to even SHOW Apple media. It doesn't run on a Mac at all.


Those are just a few of the reasons why we were looking to change.

Have you looked at Harmony?