How to Set Up a ProPresenter Computer for Church (Outputs)

If you’re building or rebuilding the computer that runs ProPresenter at your church, this one’s for you. I’ll walk through the hardware side: why I use a Mac Mini, how many outputs you really get out of it, when you need a DeckLink Duo 2, and how I feed audience screens, a stage screen for the band and lower thirds for the live stream all from one machine. This is the same setup we run across nine church locations.

Want the parts list first? Everything in this post is collected on my ProPresenter setup gear kit page.

Why I run ProPresenter on a Mac Mini

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I run ProPresenter off of Mac Minis at every one of our locations. My older installs are Mac Mini M2s, and my newer builds list a Mac Mini M4. Whichever one you buy, the thing that matters for a production computer is outputs, and that’s where people get surprised.

How many outputs does a Mac Mini give you?

Natively, you get two. There’s the HDMI port, and then you can use an adapter on a USB-C port to get one more HDMI. That’s it if you want outputs you can trust on a Sunday. Yes, there are third-party adapters and tricks out there, but in a production environment I want outputs that aren’t going to crash the computer, and that means two.

For the second output I use the Apple USB-C to HDMI adapter. There are cheaper adapters, but I’ve been burned way too many times by them. This one has been reliable every time.

Two outputs gets you a local monitor for the operator plus one projector or TV output. For some churches, that’s enough.

When you need a DeckLink Duo 2 and a Sonnet enclosure

Here’s what I actually need out of one ProPresenter machine:

• A local monitor for preview
• Lower thirds for the live stream, going into my video switcher
• An alpha key for those lower thirds, also into the switcher
• Full screen for the audience projectors or TVs
• A stage screen so the musicians can see chord charts and lyrics

That’s five outputs. Two native outputs won’t cut it, so every one of our Macs has a Blackmagic DeckLink Duo 2 card in a Sonnet Echo Express SE I enclosure. The DeckLink Duo 2 gives you four SDI outputs. It’s a PCI card, so it can’t plug directly into a Mac Mini. The Sonnet is a Thunderbolt enclosure (it plugs into the Mac’s USB-C/Thunderbolt port) for PCI cards: you mount the card inside, plug it into the Mac, and you get four SDI outputs on top of what the Mac already does. Sonnet makes several sizes, so make sure you get the full-height version.

In my current setup I actually only use the Mac Mini’s HDMI port, for the local monitor. The DeckLink handles the other four spots. It’s been rock solid, and it’s a fairly inexpensive way to run ProPresenter with this many outputs. Bonus: the DeckLink ports can be inputs too, so you could bring a camera into ProPresenter if you needed to.

The software side has one step people miss. You have to install Blackmagic’s Desktop Video software for the card to work at all. I walk through that and the ProPresenter screen setup in Setting Up DeckLink Duo 2 on a Mac for ProPresenter (blog version here).

SDI vs HDMI, and the converters that bridge them

The DeckLink speaks SDI. Your video switcher may take SDI directly, but a lot of TVs, projectors and monitors only take HDMI. That’s where converters come in.

I use Blackmagic Micro Converters for this, and I mean a lot of them: 100+ throughout our environment every week. There’s an SDI to HDMI version, an HDMI to SDI version, and a bi-directional one that does both. They work outside of a Blackmagic environment, and they carry audio too.

One more HDMI gotcha: newer Macs and Blackmagic ATEM switchers don’t always see each other directly. If you need a Mac’s HDMI straight into an ATEM, I’ve had success with a Decimator MD-HX in between. I covered that in this quick video.

Setting up the screens: audience, stage and live stream

Here’s how one of our Macs is routed:

• HDMI: local screen preview for the operator
• DeckLink SDI 1: lower third graphics
• DeckLink SDI 2: the alpha channel for keying those lower thirds over the live stream on our Blackmagic ATEM switcher
• DeckLink SDI 3: projector screen for the audience
• DeckLink SDI 4: stage display for the musicians on a TV

In ProPresenter that becomes three screens: a lower third and alpha screen, a projector screen and a stage screen. Three independent screens with four technical outputs. Then you use themes and looks so each screen gets its own version of the same slide: big lyrics over motion backgrounds for the room, small lyrics at the bottom for the stream, and lyrics with chord charts for the band. I show exactly how to build that in ProPresenter Multi-Screen Setup (blog).

Alpha key lower thirds into your switcher

For live stream lower thirds I use a fill source and a key source. That’s two separate outputs out of the computer, which is a big reason you need the DeckLink. The setup that matters:

1. In Desktop Video, set DeckLink port one’s connector to SDI 1 and SDI 2 tied together. You need this for an alpha key in ProPresenter.
2. Plug the fill into SDI 1 and the alpha key into SDI 2, and plug both into your video switcher as inputs.
3. In ProPresenter, match the resolution to whatever your switcher expects. Mine runs at 1080i 59.94.
4. Set the alpha key type to external. On my Blackmagic switcher I use pre-multiplied, and those settings may differ for your switcher.
5. In the ATEM software, use an upstream key with your fill and key sources. You only need one key.

Full walkthrough with the switcher side: Pro-Quality Lower Thirds with Alpha Key (blog).

Only have one output? You can still do lower thirds with a chroma key, a green background keyed out in the switcher. The limitation is you can’t use that color, or anything close to it, anywhere in your graphics. I show that in Chroma Key Lower Thirds with ProPresenter 7.

A few things I do on every church computer

• Non-admin accounts for volunteers. Our computers won’t let volunteers upgrade ProPresenter, and I turn update notifications off so it doesn’t try to push them.
• Ignore background colors. A safeguard so nobody accidentally drops in a background color that overrides everything else.
• Network enabled for the ProPresenter remote app and for Companion, so our Stream Decks can control ProPresenter. Here’s how: Stream Deck + Companion for ProPresenter.

Gear I use for this

• Mac Mini M4 (or the M2 many of my locations still run): the ProPresenter computer.
• Blackmagic DeckLink Duo 2: four SDI outputs, rock solid.
• Sonnet Echo Express SE I: the Thunderbolt enclosure that lets the Mac Mini use the DeckLink.
• Apple USB-C to HDMI adapter: the reliable way to get the Mac’s second output.
• Micro Converter SDI to HDMI, HDMI to SDI and bi-directional: getting SDI to TVs and back.
• Elgato Stream Deck 15 button: button control over ProPresenter through Companion.

All of it is in one place on the ProPresenter setup kit, and the rest of what I use is on my product recommendations page.

Got a question about your own setup? Ask me in the chat here on the site, or leave a comment below.