on show performance

  • Thread starter Thread starter David Bartosik - MS MVP
  • Start date Start date
D

David Bartosik - MS MVP

I've recently been having to do presentations (using 2003). In my
presentations I'll use soundtracks, avi's, and plenty of animation and
transitions.

I've been really shocked at the degree of difference a show can have in it's
performance from one PC to another PC.

A display of the show can be totally different than what I intended.

I'm interested in having some feedback on what your experience has been and
how you've managed it.
 
Hi David,
Welcome to another MVP over here.

PPT does not have any timeline control over animations etc. So the
real only good suggestion is to develop on the exact same machine you
are going to show on. Not a good answer in many cases which then lead
you to simplifying your animations etc.

Only other way would be a VBA solution which may or may not work any
better.

Brian Reilly, PowerPoint MVP
 
Hey David,

While you are in the neighborhood, could I pick your brains?

Is there a way, in Publisher ( I have version 2000) to texture an object
(with an image of text) and tilt it back along the z axis? Here is the
reason ...

One of our posters is looking to create the 'Star Wars' style reducing text
crawl. This can be done via VBA, but is slow and jerky. It can also be
done with simultaneous animations in the newer versions of PowerPoint. My
thought is that it would be a whole lot smoother, it I could texture text
onto an object (rectangle) change the orientation (tilt it back) and then
just have it reduce in size while being displayed on the slide.

Thanks in advance for your help.


By the way, yes, I agree. The difference in the quality and duration of
shows vary far too much from machine to machine, version to version, and
even from one run to the next. I have requested (wish list) the ability to
create a hard time vs. show sync (mostly as it pertains to music
accompaniment).

B
 
David,

The desktop resolution can make a big difference to playback time
As can "hardware acceleration"
As can different graphics cards
As can the content inside a presentation
+ a zillion other variables

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com
 
David,

You have obviously found the problem, maybe I can offer a solution of sorts.
I target what I consider to be an "average" machine. I have an older PIII
machine for my testing of presentations that will be distributed to other
machines.

I develop the presentations on a much faster machine, and then start adding
time to transitions, animations, etc. until they play pretty much the
same(?) on both machines. Yeah, it's a pain...

Austin Myers
MS Powerpoint MVP Team
 
Hello David,

PowerPoint doesn't currently support the kind of timing/synchronization
that you may be looking for. For media we can only synchronize the
beginning of the sound to another event. We can't control the beginning of
other events based on how many seconds of a media file has been played. The
feature for this degree of timing control is just not built into the
product. This is mostly because two completely different architectures are
used. For multimedia playback we use system API calls (PowerPoint has very
little control over what happens after the media has begun to play) while
animations and transitions are controlled using PowerPoint's built in
procedures.

So, for example, if you want to sychronize animations and transitions with
something other than just the beginning of media playback (on same slide or
over multiple slides), you will get inconsistent results from system to
system or even on the same system (depending on what data is still cached
in virtual memory).

If some kind of more deterministic, system independent, multimedia
synchronization with animations and transitions is important to you (or
anyone else reading this message) for Microsoft to consider for some future
version of PowerPoint (or if it's not possible, perhaps features within
PowerPoint to help you avoid trying to sychronize something that we can't
guarantee will always be synchronized), so you don't have to resort to
exporting to other formats (movies, shockwave flash, etc.), which would
result is some loss of formatting and/or fidelity, don't forget to send
your feedback to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also WHY it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions)

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
 
yup that's what I'm finding out. having to either tote my machine or tweak a
show after seeing it on another machine. only bad thing is it makes it hard
to consider providing the show to others since you don't have a clue what
they will actually see on their machine.
 
no, Pub isn't a graphics editor, I've done textures like that with PhotoDraw
but I can't think off hand how PhotoDraw could tilt it. The new DIP 9 is
more powerful than PhotoDraw, you might post at pictureit newsgroup and
inquire if they think they could do that with DIP 9.
 
yeap. my BIG wish is that PP had an option to export as a media file, even
if it was wmz, so that the creator would know that everybody viewed it the
same way.
I've been trying Camtasia Studio but have not been successful, it can't
capture the animations faithfully.
 
The real value of this product would be if it exported a show to a media
format, Windows Media format seems the obvious choice ;-)
The feature to package the show to a CD-ROM is great. But the beauty of it
quickly fades when you know that if you give a copy of your show to 10
different people that each of them will view it differently.

--
David Bartosik - Microsoft MVP
Visit www.davidbartosik.com
for Publisher and Web Design
Tips and How-to's.

"John Langhans [MSFT]" said:
Hello David,

PowerPoint doesn't currently support the kind of timing/synchronization
that you may be looking for. For media we can only synchronize the
beginning of the sound to another event. We can't control the beginning of
other events based on how many seconds of a media file has been played. The
feature for this degree of timing control is just not built into the
product. This is mostly because two completely different architectures are
used. For multimedia playback we use system API calls (PowerPoint has very
little control over what happens after the media has begun to play) while
animations and transitions are controlled using PowerPoint's built in
procedures.

So, for example, if you want to sychronize animations and transitions with
something other than just the beginning of media playback (on same slide or
over multiple slides), you will get inconsistent results from system to
system or even on the same system (depending on what data is still cached
in virtual memory).

If some kind of more deterministic, system independent, multimedia
synchronization with animations and transitions is important to you (or
anyone else reading this message) for Microsoft to consider for some future
version of PowerPoint (or if it's not possible, perhaps features within
PowerPoint to help you avoid trying to sychronize something that we can't
guarantee will always be synchronized), so you don't have to resort to
exporting to other formats (movies, shockwave flash, etc.), which would
result is some loss of formatting and/or fidelity, don't forget to send
your feedback to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also WHY it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions)

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
Click to expand...
 
[CRITICAL UPDATE - If you are using Office 2003, you should install this
update as soon as possible. From PowerPoint, choose "Help -> Check for
Updates".]

Hello David,

PowerPoint for Windows (all versions) does not have the built in ability to
save presentations as video files.

Of course, there are potentially many different reasons why customers have
the desire or need to convert presentations to video files even if they
lose the full fidelity of a PowerPoint slide show and we need you help to
understand which of those are most important.

If the ability save presentations as movies, directly from within
PowerPoint, is important to you (or anyone else reading this message), OR
if there are specific features of PowerPoint slide show that you would like
to see (which would mitigate the need to save presentations as video
files), don't forget to send your feedback to Microsoft at:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

As with all product suggestions, it's important that you not just state
your wish but also WHY it is important to you that your product suggestion
be implemented by Microsoft. Microsoft receives thousands of product
suggestions every day and we read each one but, in any given product
development cycle, there are only sufficient resources to address the ones
that are most important to our customers so take the extra time to state
your case as clearly and completely as possible.

IMPORTANT: Each submission should be a single suggestion (not a list of
suggestions)

In the meantime, a couple of free Microsoft downloads for capturing
(recording) a slide show to a video file are:

1) Microsoft Windows Media 9 encoder

and if you are using PowerPoint 2002 or 2003...

2) Microsoft Producer 2003 for PowerPoint (use it's screen capture
capability during a PowerPoint slide show).

John Langhans
Microsoft Corporation
Supportability Program Manager
Microsoft Office PowerPoint for Windows
Microsoft Office Picture Manager for Windows

For FAQ's, highlights and top issues, visit the Microsoft PowerPoint
support center at: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=ppt
Search the Microsoft Knowledge Base at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?pr=kbhowto

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
Use of any included script samples are subject to the terms specified at
http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.htm
 
In the meantime, a couple of free Microsoft downloads for capturing
(recording) a slide show to a video file are:

1) Microsoft Windows Media 9 encoder

and if you are using PowerPoint 2002 or 2003...

2) Microsoft Producer 2003 for PowerPoint (use it's screen capture
capability during a PowerPoint slide show).
Click to expand...


yeap got them both, tried them both.
I haven't found a screen capture solution viable, they fail to capture
animation faithfully. At least in my cases it's been actually pretty crappy
at it.
And Producer wraps a show in it's own interface, which I don't want.
 
it can't capture the animations faithfully.

What machine are you using it on?
What resolution and color depth?
Anything else running at the same time?

Cheers
TAJ
 
not for me. I am struggling with the same problem and have toned down my presentation. Like you, I test on a PIII (1.2GH). Do to hardware problems I was forced to take one in to work for minor mods and to my horror found that on superlative machines the problem is skewed the other way. I can't afford the best but some of my friends can and it turns out that the presentations come off pretty poorly.
 
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