Best resolution for video

  • Thread starter Thread starter James
  • Start date Start date
J

James

I have some short video clips in a PowerPoint 2003 presentation. They do not
take up the whole of the slide and used to play fine on a relatively low
spec laptop (Acer 244) with no black boxes on the projector or laptop
screen, and no need to turn the laptop display off. The same presentation
now causes problems on a newer and higher spec laptop (Acer 5633).

Basically the page with the video clip opens fine on both laptop and
projector output, but when the image is clicked to make it run, the
projector image re-syncs for the different resolution of the video (640 *
480 - 85Hz) and shows the video full screen. Unfortunately the time taken to
re-sync means that half the clip is finished. Advancing the presentation
causes the projector re-sync to 1024 * 768 - 60 Hz.

If I blank the laptop screen it works without re-syncing, but I find the
laptop screen useful as it avoids me having to turn away from the audience
to look at the screen.

So is there a better resolution that I can save the video clips into to
avoid the problem - or something I can do within PowerPoint to force it to
keep the same resolution, would saving the video clips in a different format
help? Or is it just the way it is and I'll have to live with it? The clips
are currently in mpeg format.

Advice appreciated ... James
 
James not really much you can do. See below:
If I blank the laptop screen it works without re-syncing, but I find the
laptop screen useful as it avoids me having to turn away from the audience
to look at the screen.
Click to expand...

It appears that is how the manufacture and or the device driver has been set
up. The only alternative I can think of is to install a second video card
(PCMCIA) in the laptop.
 
Thanks Austin,

.... in fact a considerable amount of digging around found a parameter in the
NVIDIA driver settings that makes the remote screen attached to the laptop
VGA port show video full screen. So if a PowerPoint presentation has a video
clip it will cause a resync for resolution and speed when it is run.

Having stopped that happening everything is as I hoped for. Modern laptops
are getting too smart for themselves and it does not help that only a
rudimentary "instruction leaflet" is provided!

James
 
James said:
Thanks Austin,

... in fact a considerable amount of digging around found a parameter in
the NVIDIA driver settings that makes the remote screen attached to the
laptop VGA port show video full screen. So if a PowerPoint presentation
has a video clip it will cause a resync for resolution and speed when it
is run.
Click to expand...


Excellent! Any chance you might document where the setting is for other
users?


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia, PFCPro, PFCExpress
http://www.pfcmedia.com
 
Good idea Austin ... here goes:

Problem:
1. A PowerPoint presentation contains slides that have video clips on them.
It doesn't matter what version of PP.
2. When the presentation is run, the projector (or remote screen device)
displays the video in full screen mode and may as a result change sync
(which may blank or blue the screen while it does so).

Cause:
NVIDIA graphics drivers seem to have the idea that if you are playing a DVD
for instance on a laptop, then if you plug in another display device ... you
would like the video full screen on that secondary device.

Solution:
Turn off full screen display - sounds simple enough but modern laptops don't
come with much in the way of documentation!

Go to nView Desktop Manager
Select nView Properties
Zoom tab
Click on Full screen Video Zoom
Locate Full screen device and make sure it's on "disable"

This may only work when the secondary device is actually attached to the
laptop ...
The above resolved the issue on my Acer 5633 which has a NVidia GeForce
Go7300 graphics device

James
 
Good idea Austin ... here goes:
Click to expand...

Thanks, James. And Taj.

I've done a bit of editing and posted your info here:

Flashes, blue screen or blank screen when viewing slides with video clips on
external monitor or projector
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00859.htm

And Taj, have also added links between this and the other you suggested.
 
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