powerpoint projections

[jagardner1984]

When I do that though - I get the warning message "Turning the Screen Saver Off shortens the life of your screen" - which I also want to avoid.

 

I genuinely think they could make a lot of money taking the technology of say, an Epson projector, and making an "Entertainment" edition - that had none of the problems mentioned in this thread.

 

James

[computer]

its really only old monitors that have problems with no screensaver, or ones left on 24/7. yes, it may shorten the life, as it's on more, but TBH, if you turn off the screen when you turn off the projector/desk it'd be fine. think about the TV's at airports which are on 24/7 - sometimes you can see burnin on them, which would be the effect on it I would think, but it'd need to be on the same thing for ages for that to happen. most modern screens and TFTs don't really have an issue with this afaik...

[James]

So, The manafacturer of the software recomends you switch off screen savers.

 

The cost of a replacement 17" CRT is about £80

 

The cost of refunding a theatre full of tickets beccause the show was ruined because of a screensaver causing the show controll machine to crash?

 

Treat the screen as a consumable and budget to replace it every year or two.

 

If Lee sold their gell with warnings saying "Switching the lantern on shortens the life of the gell" would you stop switching lanterns on?

 

James

[jagardner1984]

its slightly more complicated than that, as I am using it on a laptop - so while I have turned off the screen saver, I turn down the brightness and turn off the display whenever I can - I have now worked out a way of having a black screen on my laptop, and still projecting onto the screen.

 

So everyone, including the laptop, is happy.

 

James

 

P.S. Still those pesky OSDs that won't switch off, though!!

[computer]

still, laptop is good as it has a 'built in ups' kinda thing, which has saved me before when we've had power blips or someone kicked the plug out, etc.

 

anyway, you can usually switch off a laptop screen by doing Fn + F5 (on mine, your may have a different one, but there is usuaully an icon of a screen in blue on a F key). this switches between LCD, LCD+VGA Out, VGA Out. but a laptop screen is TFT style anyway, so shouldn't really be affected. its mainly CRTs with burnin issues...

[jagardner1984]

That doesn't work I'm afraid - as I am on Mac, but will have a look in Powerpoint setup to get the command.

 

Just a quick point though, my local UGC has very badly burnt LCD screens in the box office - but then if does show the same thing for 12 hours a day!!

 

James

[Bobbsy]

The reason for screensavers is to avoid images "burning in" on a screen, something which CRT type monitors were particularly prone to when parts of the on-screen image stayed constant...for example the bar across the bottom of the Windows screen.

 

However, the average duration of a show in a theatre is neither here nor there when it comes to any burn in problem and, as has been pointed out, is far preferable to a messed up performance!

 

To put things in perspective, I've also turned off the screensaver function on the CRT screen of my DAW workstation at home (I don't want the saver popping up in the middle of recording a 10 minute track or something) and despite the machine generally being left switched on 24/7 for the past 4 years, there still no evidence of burn in.

 

Bob

[jagardner1984]

Does the burn effect vary at all with the quality of the monitor? Is the effect worse with cheap monitors?

[TomLyall]

If you're using a laptop, and your projecting using powerpoint or similar, could you get away with just a mouse (ps2 or usb etc) then you could close the laptop completely.

[jagardner1984]

that is a good idea - I have one of them, and hadn't actually thought of that.

 

I will try it next week

 

Cheers

 

James

[XavierBriche]

Hi,

 

I tried to run powerpoint as a simple sequencer tool for mpeg video projections for a theatre production recently. I thought it was a fab idea. It is easy to cue and it would avoid any mixing, switching or use of shutter flaps so that the audience couldn't see the desktop of my projection's laptop during the change of program/video. I ran into 3 problems:

 

- Because of the size of the files(mpeg) inserted into the powerpoint presentation they needed to be created on the same laptop as used for the video projection.

They are often bigger than the capacity of a CDR/RW used to transfer file beetween computers (although the issue is generaly solved if you burn your data on a DVD but you need a DVD burner).

 

- the size of the files to process in powerpoint requires a good computer with lots of RAM and a fast processor.

 

-Power point does not play the mpeg itself but uses the windows media player and that is where the problem starts... The problem is linked to having the right CODECS on your machine and that can be a huge headache. Basically when you playback your mpeg in power point (hit the space bar,arrow or the mouse button) if you get a blank/dark screen or the first frame and the playback ends, you have a codec problem. There are a few articles on this issue on the net. Try to google it. (If you can't find them I will dig them out for you).

 

- The best tool to playback movies, play with transparencies, screen split or still images for video projection is to my knowledge - Director. I have used it and it is much more powerful than powerpoint although it makes the job much more complicated for straightforward video projections.

 

Despite using PCs for video projection (I can afford anything else), I think that Macs are much easier and have the power to make complex video works easily but of course it is a debatable point of view. Be patient allow plenty of contingency time (I mean days) and start by simple things, you can always complicate them if they work.

 

Hope this helps

[Bobbsy]

Hi! Boring old traditional git here, but XavierBriche points out a number of the drawbacks I find using a computer for video playback. Macs can be better, but still not designed for the purpose.

 

Personally, I'd still burn any video content needed onto DVD (or VCD if you must) and use dedicated hardware for that. I'd also prepare any split screens or effects offline in advance and include them in the material I burn.

 

If I need to mix the above with a slide show, I might do THAT in Powerpoint or A.N. Other programme, and switch between the DVD and computer, either using a vision mixer or (where budgets are tight) on the projector input

 

Bob

[computer]

before, we've done it both ways as a mix of both.

 

often we use powerpoint projections for showing info and stuff, and then change over using a 'cheapish' vision mixer which is designed for home editing, etc to crossfade or snap between the two inputs, with the videos cued up on a dvd.

 

we also use dual screens often on the AV computer (with just receiving a load more money for the control here), we now have 4 15" TFTs in the box, (fat frog, 2x AV system and one for a general machine on the network or cubase, if needed).

 

The dual screens are setup so we have a primary display with powerpoint open, and the show is set to display on the second display, which is also sent out to the projector. This means we can see wwhats coming up next etc in powerpoint whilst still projecting. It actually allows you to edit upcoming slides as well while still projecting the current one.

 

HTH

[henny]

Hi

 

I work regurley with av systems based on a windows backend.

just a few do's and dont's when using windows in a live envroiment.

 

DO - keep windows upto date with any patches

 

DO NOT - Allow windows to manage this automaticley - has a habbit of reminding you mid show

 

DO NOT - Alllow any screensaves on any computer that has anyting to do with a show (at best remove all the .SCR files from the "/windows/" to prevent any one from seting up a screensaver

 

DO - Dissable all power saving features eg monitor off, hdd's off, standby and hybernate ect in windows and on the computers bios

 

Do - Use uptodate anti virus softwhere to keep the computer clean (AVG is free and V good)

 

DO NOT- allow your anti virus softwhere to run on startup (takes system resorces and theres the chance of it screeming about a virus mid show on a 7x12m screen "luckley this happend pre show")

 

Do - enshoure that any softwhere you dont need is at best deleated from the pc else not running when u do your show ALT+CTRL+DEL - then look at proccess its amaising the #### people have running on startup and they dont even know about it.

 

theres probely a lot more to add to this list but im 1/2 asleep at the mo . if I think of more I will post.

 

on another note , in reffrence to the powerpoint/video debate

 

I run a pc , timeline based av package called "watchout" from DATATON

 

it allows the displaying of all forms of media

video - (mpeg1/2/3/4,avi,quicktime,windows media, and more) - traprancy on the formats that allow it vire alpha channels

 

Grafics - any tif,jpg,wmf,gif,bmp,psd - (can work with raw photoshop files) and lots more

 

audio - wmv,mp2/3,quicktime and more in 5.1 or as many channels as you can get your pc to spew (did one show 12 audio channels out "6 stero translations"

 

live/external video sauces - our curent setup allows 2 simeltainous s-vid/comp

and 2 simeltainous hi res/or conponent sauces up to 1600x1200 at 30fps 1024x768 at 60fps

 

vnc -computer feeds , basiclay include whats on screen on any pc on the same network as the system

 

this system can drive a large number of displays the bigiest number ive herd of is 48 displays ours is curentley 3

 

the system is pc based using 1 pc as a controler running a timeline envroment this then controls a pc for each display over a lan

 

for any more info pleas e-mail

 

henny

[MikeR]

Is English your first language?

Theres other things I would say but Im wondering why.