numberwrong Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Why do you get jerky powerpoint animations and video playback on projection? I've seen it with powerpoint, keynote, embedded video and video played from a media player. it's normally worse/most noticeable during fast panning or animations moving left to right. Is it that graphics cards in laptops just aren't up to it? this has happened on a show with spyder, Christie HD projectors and a new top spec mac book pro 17" - All super pro kit plus that laptop probably has a better graphics card then a lot of desktops! None of the video and graphics tecs I've worked with have given a decent explanation Any ideas???Ta Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossmck Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Is it that graphics cards in laptops just aren't up to it? this has happened on a show with spyder, Christie HD projectors and a new top spec mac book pro 17" - All super pro kit plus that laptop probably has a better graphics card then a lot of desktops! The new MacBook Pros have switchable graphics cards and sometimes, from my experience, the Mac doesn't always pick the right one ;) Within system preferences "Energy Saver" control panel there is a checkbox for "Automatic graphics switching" ensure this is UNCHECKED and I'd also make sure "Put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible" is also disabled. Save changes and reboot... might solve the problem, might not, but it's worth a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pjrails Posted January 26, 2012 Share Posted January 26, 2012 Hi Where are you pulling the PPT or video from? The HD or a pen dive or network. If from the HD drive it maybe a RAM or speed problem, if from a pen drive or network then move the files to the HD and see if that works better.If no change then please send as much info as you can about the laptop and connections.Just a thought as well did you have other programmes running or Virus software, could try turning things off you do not need to be running when in a presentation senario. PJ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
numberwrong Posted January 27, 2012 Author Share Posted January 27, 2012 I'm not talking about a specific show or problem here I've just seen this a lot. I knew about the Macbook pro graphics options but never knew you had to re-boot as well! If I have my arm twisted in to doing graphics I would never play video from a pendrive, I would normally run that days presentations and videos from the desktop and I suppose all the graphic tecs I've worked with do the same? The thing that prompted this post was the show I was on yesterday. Laptops were new Dell precisions (don't know the specs but they are less than a year old and I think they had i5 processers) and they had a panasonic projector (dont know which one but probably around the 6 - 10k mark ). The graphics guy obviously knew his stuff and had been doing this for years. Animations in the PPT were jerky and so was some of the VT of which some was embedded and some run from VLC. This was nothing major graphics wise and all the kit was 'Pro'. Even if the laptops were not top spec surely a machine bought in 2011 should be able to make a few boxes move across the screen smoothly in a powerpoint presentation??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrew Edwards Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 IIRC there is something in the settings to allocate more resources to the presentation viewer in PPT itself (sorry, do not have time to check). I have always regarded running a presentation within PPT (with F5 for example) as a preview anyway. I always publish my presentations (when forced to use PPT) and run them in the resulting standalone player. Along with removing the need for all the office bloat from running and using up resources regardless of age of machine, you also remove the compatibility issue of turning up at a venue with a presentation in a later PPT version than they have on their systems. This does not however explain your VLC issues, unless PPT/office was hogging resources at the same time. Another thought is that embedded video in PPT is being scaled on the fly and in my experience is not the best at doing that. I'm not sure if publishing the presentation optimises the video or not though. Have you tried Screen Monkey? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbuckley Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 My old thinkpad never drove the secondary output as well as it drove the integrated LCD, in particular PPT transitions were nothing like as smooth, and I found out just recently the reason is that the hardware acceleration only took place on the primary monitor, but allegedly, that is no longer the case...? On some systems you apparently need to indicate which output needs the hardware aceleration. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossmck Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 If you're using a Mac anyway have you considered importing the PPT into Keynote, it does tend to be a bit smoother ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjadingle Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Are you using the projector in Clone mode or Extended desktop? My take on it (may be completely wrong...) is if you're in Clone the card is animating it twice, once for your screen and once for your projector. If you try putting your system into Extended mode (Can only speak for Windows - Display settings, choose the second monitor (big box with "2" in it) and check "Extend my desktop onto this monitor" and Apply - or in Win7 press Windows key + P) then run your presentation in Presenter view (Slide Show -> Set up show -> "Multiple Monitors" - Check "Show Presenter view" and select your projector as the one to view show on) it may help? I ran our classroom PPT's like this, embedded videos ran fine. Plus looks a bit more professional than your audience seeing your USB key root drive and the PowerPoint main window! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleepytom Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Computers are not actually very good at playing video. Projecting computer output at large sizes simply makes it easier to see the errors that exist in nearly all computer playback situations, people don't notice so much when they are watching youtube on a laptop, the stuttery frame rate and the jitter on pans is still there, but the smaller image size makes it less noticeable. People (clients especially) are much more likely to see the errors on a big expensive screen, especially if they paid a load of money to have the film made, and thus are actually watching out for errors. There is still a place for DDRs and the like really, something like a Doremi that actually outputs real interlaced video on SDI will look a hell of a lot better than a Macbook Pro, which at best is deinterlacing the file to display on its progressive output (often doing a quite messy 50i to 60p thing too as people never seem to bother to switch their outputs to 50hz even when going into a PAL ecosystem). Laptops are cheap and convenient, but they are not very good at playing video! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete McCrea Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 The 50/60Hz issue is one of the quickest ways to help get things running better. It's not hard to do either ensure all sources ad switcher etc are all set to 50hz instead of any other refresh rate, but some TFT's can be a bit picky about 50hz resolutions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badweasel Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 I agree completely with Pete, panning video or horizontal movement in ppt can reveal a 50/60Hz mismatch. The problem is compounded by the fact that most projectors refresh at 60Hz, so even if you set your system at 50Hz the projector may still let you down. Also it can be difficult to set computer sources to output at 50Hz. I often set Spyder to 50Hz to ensure that live camera is jerk free (insert joke here) as it is often far more noticeable and I have ran Spyder at 25Hz with some success in reducing jerkiness of videos. I agree with rossmck, Keynote is smoother than Powerpoint although Powerpoint 2010 is a great improvement on previous versions. Note that once you've blown up an image from a 17" laptop display to a 20m wide screen, any artifacts are far more obvious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonkiDonki Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 Another thing which causes a significant slowdown in PPT is using presenter view. if you are using presenter view and some of the effects and transitions are jerky; disable presenter view for a very pronounced boost in performance. Just have a separate backup PC to preview the slides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleepytom Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 I find PPT works better if you disable its output. It's also best to avoid doing builds or transitions as they are always going wrong. The best thing is to print your slides to 35mm and use an Extapro..(have a backup slide projector to preview on) More seriously I get it when office people use PPT as it is"what they have", but why any of us have to touch it is quite beyond me. Get keynote, it works a bazillion times better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DonkiDonki Posted February 2, 2012 Share Posted February 2, 2012 That's like a breakdown mechanic refusing to repair your Ford as he prefers Audi... You don't always get a choice of software; especially if you are running someone else's presentation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleepytom Posted February 3, 2012 Share Posted February 3, 2012 No it's like a breakdown mechanic recommending you buy an Audi rather then a less reliable Ford. PPT is not a very good software, yes we all have to suffer it when running presentations designed by someone else. But we do not have to use it when we build presentations ourselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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