[techtalk] Re: Multimedia, video, all simple stuff really...
- From: Sir Tim Seifert <sir_tim_seifert@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: techtalk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 03 Aug 2005 21:34:58 +0930
On Tue, 2005-08-02 at 23:17 +0000, greg.webb@xxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> Well, last year, we did all our presentations through PowerPoint and,
> whenever we wanted to run a video on the screen, we just switched the
> input on the projector to pick up the output from the camera (at the
> back of the hall and transmitting through one of the longest S-Video
> cables known to man). This has two problems:
I'm sure that I can beat your long cable with my three 50-metre camera
cable looms in the next room. ;-) The first job they got used on they
got mangled by idiot cable wranglers, though. The stupid fools wound
them around their arm, ruining them. They also knotted them up so I had
to untangle 150 metres of cable out in the street. Unfortunately I was
elsewhere in the building when they did that, or I'd have torn strips
off them as they started to look like they might have even thought of
doing that.
> 1: Whoever's up the front with the kids has been known before to skip
> slides, or to sing songs over and over again in such a way as to
> require us to go back, forwards, sideways etc through PowerPoint.
> Which really isn't up to it, being designed to do straightforward
> linear presentations.
Pity you can't use it like the old Amiga Scala program (of which the PC
version bears little resemblance). You could directly skip to
particular pages by typing in their page number, as well as the usual
forward/backward navigation, or automatic transitions. All you needed
was a little cheat sheet for the main page numbers sitting by the
keyboard.
> The laptop has multi-monitor support to let me have a switching screen
> on one and a video output on the other, I just want presentation
> software that picks that up. (Currently playing with OpenLP.org 0.994
> but it doesn't seem ideal - better than PPT though I think)
Have you tried OpenOffice.org's "Impress"? It's their take on Power
Point, though I don't know how they compare.
> 2: The sharper reader may have spotted that I mentioned we have a huge
> long lead for the camera but not the laptop - we don't have any
> choice. While they're coming in on different inputs, we need someone
> sitting by the projector to switch them because it has to be back
> projected due to the room so we can't use a remote control to switch
> inputs.
You probably can, in one way or another.
If you don't mind, you can modify the projector to give you remote
control (if it doesn't already have remote features). Or if it already
has limited remote control, you could use something to extend the range
(I've seen infrared remotes modified to take the IR LEDs out of the box,
with long wires from the box to the LEDs placed near the controlled
device, and there are dedicated IR repeaters). Or you could use a
remote controllable external switcher.
> What I _really_ want, therefore, is some software to take a DV
> camcorder (which we have, not a problem), plug it straight into the
> 1394 port on the laptop (available) and take a _live_ video feed and
> push that onto the (ideally full) screen.
Some cameras have the ability to be usable as web cameras through the
firewire port. You might have one that can do that. Chances are,
though, that it'll look a lot worse than a camera directly wired into a
projector.
> I really want to just be able to hit a button in the presentation
> software and have it switch to the camera feed but I'm aware that may
> just be pushing it too far.
Some of the old Amiga genlockers would have let you do that. :-\
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