Need Help - Video Download & Sync issues

We use quite a bit of multi-media in the collaborative process & from past mistakes "we" (pastor, worship leader & tech dir[me]) have a rigid pattern of who does what/when. Prevents duping errors, overlap etc...

We are still having serious issues with download & sync speeds. Start of our process begins Monday(ish) with pastor duplicating previous weeks (of a month) presentation & typing in the new date. Our welcome loops & other items are a large content & remain the same for month. He begins work on his Ppoint sermon etc.etc.. Often he will put in an offeretory time video &/or countdown video that support his sermon. Later in week I open same file, delete all previous weeks song files & enter 4 new. Often using the "Recently Used" tab. If pastor had not done so, I then add a countdown & offertory video. On Saturday our Worship Leader double checks the songs, sets the lyrics in order he chooses. This works great for us. <Note - all this prep work is done on 3 separate PCs>

BIG issue - apparently every video(incl song backgrounds) in use must up & download to each separate PC before any further work can be done. Then all over again when we open Proclaim in the "booth" for Sun AM sound checks & Praise practice. We have all been through multi-hour frustrations waiting for Proclaim to up/download & sync. I now go to the church on Sat afternoons to open Proclaim ahead of time & this has not helped at all. And if 1 of the 70+mb updates pops up, you might as well just leave that PC running for 1/2 day for all the mish mash to complete.

Last Week - pastor did his normal work & on this week he added both a countdown & offertory video. Thursday I log on via home laptop to enter the weeks 4 songs, update welcome info etc... It took me 3 & 1/2 hours just to get all this done! Done ie...the Red dot w/ white outer circle to cycle & tell me all of the 6 videos (2-pastor, 4-song bkgnds) had cycled through. Friday night I get a text from WL. He had to change 1 song & it had taken him "forever", So Saturday afternoon I logon expecting to deal with his 1 background...it takes me another 4 hours to get the same(previous) 5 videos + 1 new to go through their whole cycle. All these hours go nowhere but I figure we should at least be safe for the next morning. Nope! 8:45am Boot up PC & open Proclaim for 9am practice & the whole blasted red dot routine starts again. 45 minutes of Praise practice lost. We did get 15 mins w/ lyrics of 1st song when background cycled & was able to throw those lyrics up. There weren't any smiles. Fortunately this time it only took a little over an hour for all to finish. btw- all pc/laptops involved are Win7, less than 2 yo & DSL speed. This 1 week was extreme, but the download issue is not.

My pastor & WL love(d) Proclaim in concept & principle. We understood it was early stage, we were more or less beta testers. No manuals or direct help. But this has turned our entire work schedule & relationship into a nightmare. Not to overstate but the nail biting frustration of pastor trying to prep sermon...come to thee point I avoid my pastor & WL.

This post has been long to fully describe issue. I am hoping you can give me some input on something we can correct in what we do...anything. Couple weeks ago I copy/pasted the post about your server upgrades to email pastor & WL after previous weeks headaches. That backfired. This week I am using stills for my song backs & running countdown via #2 laptop & switcher. Offertory will be a song no video. Being flamed by pastor for having to dumb down a service....

Bill Garner

Tech Dir

FBC Port A,Tx

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Scott Alexander

BIG issue - apparently every video(incl song backgrounds) in use must up & download to each separate PC before any further work can be done.

You should be able to use Proclaim while content is being downloaded in the background. There are two different download pipelines

Sync - sync (indicated by spinning arrows in upper right corner) includes the presentation structure and user edited content (text, customizations, etc.). Sync is very fast (especially with our recent server upgrade). The data payload is very small so even on a slow connection it should complete quickly.
Media download - (indicated by red dot in upper right corner) presentations include references to different media elements (e.g. audio, video, images). These are downloaded from Amazon S3 storage by a separate thread.

Once you have finished the initial sync (happens automatically at app startup) you should be free to collaborate with other user's changes. Generic placeholder backgrounds are used in place of the downloading media. If your internet connection is slow and it takes a while to download the actual media that shouldn't be an issue. Sunday morning however, you will need to wait for all the downloads to complete in order to be able to present the full presentation.

What type of internet connection do you have? Cable, DSL?

Once a piece of media has been downloaded it will be stored locally and reused on that machine, without downloading again. One way to mitigate a slow connection would be to limit the usage of new large media elements, unless you have time to wait for the download.

And if 1 of the 70+mb updates pops up, you might as well just leave that PC running for 1/2 day for all the mish mash to complete.

We're in a bug fixing phase and have been shipping updates weekly. These updates are optional so you should feel free to skip them if you don't want to wait for the download. We are investigating improvements in our installer technology, reducing the update size being a top priority.

Bill Garner

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/480696#Comment_480696

Thank you for the quick reply.

Most of what you told me I had picked up on over time. In this instance, skip the syncing. It can be annoying but not deadly.

Looks like the points we liked the most are also what are "killing" us. Collaboration & use of graphics We use, from beginning to end, 4 separate PCs; pastor's office, my laptop, WL laptop, booth/presentation PC. In that order actually. We created an issue re; file renaming & overlapping so we stick to only 1 person doing the initial (weekly) start & name, then myself & WL each do our thing in order. Pastor is the only full time so Proclaim allows WL & I to get work done without having to wait for when we can get up to the church & in the booth.

So when pastor added the 2 videos (ea about 5 mins in length) I came along & added the 4 video loops, Worship Leader deleted then added a loop... That weeks update was 70.2mb. This is the time for us to do our Proclaim work so we have been ok'ing the updates. Partly also to keep whatevering might happen that the bug fix is for. We all have DSL speed & Win7 PCs. What I was not clear on was that all of the video data needed to fully download to each "workstation" as we went. That is an issue I will have to think through. Sounds as if I need to call a meeting & we tamp down the heavy use of video media pastor likes (switch it to stills?) Or hold off on adding backgrounds to the songs & a countdown until I make a 1/2 day out of it every Saturday to go to the "booth" PC & get it done. That, plus puts me back facing the Media Shout debate that my WL wants so badly.

Well, these are al things for me to consider. All that is understood..but not sure what else was working against because doesn't seem to explain the 3-4 hour log jams we were having.

One thing you said tho; "you should be free to collaborate with other user's changes. Generic placeholder backgrounds are used in place of the downloading media. If your internet connection is slow and it takes a while to download the actual media that shouldn't be an issue." Once we opened Proclaim & the download process started, we were completely blocked out from using the songs that were waiting for their backgrounds to load. In the frames was displayed a spinning circle & no lyrics. Killed our practice that Sun morn.

But you just raised a huge ? for me; if all that content downloads & stores locally, then why can't I access that data in any reasonable way? I have multiple files of beautiful worship loops that I have been uploading 1 by 1 at times other than service prep. I started this because when I ran some files (mainly .mov) they would display pixelated etc.. But once uploaded, that was corrected. So, in essence I now have 2 copies of the same video file located on my PCs?? Not to mention slow scrolling thru My Content?

Scott Alexander

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/480709#Comment_480709

One thing you said tho; "you should be free to collaborate with other user's changes. Generic placeholder backgrounds are used in place of the downloading media. If your internet connection is slow and it takes a while to download the actual media that shouldn't be an issue." Once we opened Proclaim & the download process started, we were completely blocked out from using the songs that were waiting for their backgrounds to load. In the frames was displayed a spinning circle & no lyrics. Killed our practice that Sun morn.

Unfortunately I mislead you. I was thinking about how the app handles media which fails to download. If you were to start Proclaim, wait for the initial sync at startup, then unplug your network cable - all new (non cached) media would fail to download and the slides would be rendered using the placeholder backgrounds. Then you could plug your network cable back in and click the red dot to retry failed downloads.

Clearly this is an elaborate and impractical workaround. We don't expect downloads to take that long so we don't do the work of automatically rendering the slide on a default placeholder background until we absolutely have to.

It would be helpful to see a log file from one of the hour plus download sessions.

Mac:

/Users/[username]/(~Library)/Application Support/Proclaim/Logging/
The Library folder might be hidden. If so, hit CMD+Shift+G and enter "~/library" into the box.

Windows:

XP - %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\Proclaim Log Files\
Vista/Win7 - %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\Proclaim Log Files\

if all that content downloads & stores locally, then why can't I access that data in any reasonable way? I have multiple files of beautiful worship loops that I have been uploading 1 by 1 at times other than service prep.

Proclaim isn't designed to provide access to the local cache. Only the items used by the current presentation will be downloaded. They may be purged at unexpected (to the user) times. Additionally, the files may be encryptedds.

If you could post your logs and the results of an internet speed test (speedtest.net) that would be great.

Bill Garner

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/480779#Comment_480779

Be more than happy to get the log file and speed test for you. I'll get it off my laptop. I suffered the longest delays & majority of video graphics are my responsibility. It's late Saturday & I'm focused on tomorrow's service. i will post that info for you Sun pm or Monday

I have been thinking of changing our procedure a bit. When pastor starts a new presentation, have him delete the 4 song files & backgrounds. Plus countdown, offertory,,,any other video file, then sync. If he has a video file to add, do that & complete upload. From there when I add the new songs I will do so using a stock, single color background. Then my WL can check that the songs are correct, set the order he wants verses displayed, change order of songs etc. On Friday night or Saturday I will go in and add the motion backgrounds to songs, countdown, whatever other video file is needed using the "booth" PC. Making the up/download process 1 time on 1 PC. The PC the presentation will run from.