The media bin in Present

The media bin is the strip along the bottom of Present that holds your pictures, videos, colour backgrounds and live camera inputs. Click a tile to put it on the screens as the background, or drag it onto a slide to make it that slide's background.

Where to find it

Go to Present. The bin is under the slide grid, headed Media. If you only see the word Media, click the chevron beside it to open the bin ("Show media bin"). Drag the divider above it to make it taller. The bin stays open in every workspace (Edit, Themes, Stage Layouts, Overlays).

Add pictures and videos from your computer

1. Go to Present.
2. In the media bin, click + ("Add image / video") and pick files. Or drag files from your computer onto the bin.
3. Each file appears as a tile. Pictures, and videos up to 250 MB, are uploaded to your church's media library, so they work on every computer.

A video over 250 MB stays on this computer only. Present says "is over the 250 MB cloud limit - kept on this machine only", and other computers will see it as missing.

Add media from the church library

1. Go to Present.
2. In the media bin, click the books button ("Add from the church media library").
3. In Add from the church library, on the Media tab, type in Filter media… to narrow the list.
4. Click a picture or video to add it to the bin. Items already in Present show In Present. Stock items come from the WorshipMetrics stock library.

The church library is the same one you manage in Plan > Media.

Show a picture or video

1. Go to Present.
2. Click a tile. It goes on the screens straight away as the background, behind the slide's words, and lifts black.
3. To stop a video, click Stop in the play bar under the Audience monitor, or click the lit Background layer button.

To give one slide a background, drag the tile onto that slide in the grid. To take it off, right-click the slide and choose Remove background.

Organise the bin into folders

1. Go to Present.
2. Click the folder button ("New media folder"). A folder named "New Folder" appears.
3. Click the folder again (or press F2) to rename it.
4. Right-click a tile, and under Move to pick the folder. Media at the top of the folder list shows everything.
5. Right-click a folder for Rename… or Delete folder. Deleting a folder keeps its media; the files move back to Media.

To work on several tiles at once, Ctrl-click (Cmd-click on a Mac) or Shift-click them, or drag a box around them on an empty part of the bin. The bin shows how many are selected. Delete, Move to, Scale and At the end then act on all of them.

Set how a picture fills the screen and what a video does at the end

1. Go to Present.
2. Right-click a tile in the media bin.
3. Point to Scale and pick Scale to fill (the default; fills the screen and crops the edges), Scale to fit (shows the whole picture), Stretch to fill or Scale + blur.
4. For a video, point to At the end and pick Loop, Fade to black or Hold last frame.

Use the media inspector

1. Go to Present.
2. Right-click a tile and choose Inspector…. The inspector opens in the right panel.
3. Its tabs are:
   • Info — type, size, length, file format and whether it plays here (Playback).
   • Video (or Image) — Scale, Flip, Crop %, and for a video At the end, Trim (s), Picture fade (s) and Play rate.
   • Audio — Play audio on or off and the level.
   • Macros — actions to run When the clip starts and When the clip ends.
4. Click the X at the top of the inspector to close it.

Other right-click choices on a tile: Rename…, Duplicate and Delete. A file kept only on this computer also offers Re-import / replace file…, which swaps the file behind every slide that uses it.

Add a live camera or capture card

1. Go to Present.
2. In the media bin, click the camera button ("Add a live video input (capture card / camera)").
3. In Add a live video input, pick a device under Capture devices, or in Tech Manager under NDI sources.
4. The input appears as a tile in the bin. Click it, or drag it onto a slide, like any other media. (Inputs you pick from the Live video layer button land in the Inputs folder.)
5. If the input should use a different device on this computer, right-click it and choose Change device….

Troubleshooting

These marks appear in the top-left corner of a tile. Point at a mark to read its message.

A tile has a red triangle: "File missing — right-click to re-import"

The file is not on this computer and has no saved copy. Right-click the tile and choose Re-import (file missing)…, then pick the original file. To see every missing file, open Settings > Storage and click Show them beside Missing media; click Show all media to go back.

A video tile has an amber triangle: "Can't play here"

Nothing on this computer can play that file type. Convert the video to MP4 (H.264) and import it again.

A tile says "Needs conversion" or shows an hourglass, "Converting…"

This computer can't decode the file as it is. The most reliable fix is the same: convert it to MP4 (H.264) and import it again.

A tile has an amber triangle: "File is damaged"

The file could not be decoded. Import it again from the original.

A video tile has a speaker with a slash

Its sound is off. Right-click it, choose Inspector…, open Audio and turn on Play audio.

A camera tile has an amber triangle

The input can't be shown on this computer: it is unplugged, another app is using it, camera access is not allowed in the browser, or it is plugged into a different computer. A browser can only show cameras on its own computer, and NDI inputs only work in Tech Manager. If the message says to choose a device, right-click the tile and choose Change device….

A banner says some media files "live only in this browser's storage"

Some older files were never uploaded. Click Upload to library so they work on every computer.

Good to know

• The bin's Media is Present's own collection. Plan > Media is the church's whole media library, which you can pull from at any time.
• Settings > Storage explains where your media is kept and how much space Present may use on this computer.