Archive for category Presentation IT
MacBook Pro: Black screen or ‘snow’ over DVI into switchers
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Presentation IT on February 21, 2010
Recently, it seems, an update to Apple computers with a DisplayPort or Mini DisplayPort interface (that’s MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, Imac, and Mac Pro machines) has caused HDCP to activate whenever the devices are connected to an HDCP compatible device.
What this means, for example, is that if you connect a MacBook Pro to a D/A (splitter) that supports HDCP, the copy protection standard will activate. Which is fine – as long as everything else in the chain also supports HDCP. In many cases, devices after the D/A will include things like Barco Encore or ScreenPRO II devices – which do not support HDCP – and will therefore see sync, but a black screen, or sometimes a ‘snow’ effect (a result of the raw encrypted signal).
I you connect a Mac using a DisplayPort to DVI adaptor to a device that does not support HDCP – for instance, directly into the background input of a ScreenPRO II, or into an ImagePRO HD, HDCP will not activate from the Mac, and the signal will flow through correctly.
HDCP is designed to prevent piracy – if you wish to play back a Blu-ray disc or copy-protected movie, the player (or computer) that it is connected to must support HDCP, and each display device connected to the player (or computer) must either also support HDCP, or be disabled. This is inherent to the HDCP (and DisplayPort) specification, and cannot be circumvented under license. HOWEVER, as Apple has done – they can prevent Blu-ray or copy-protected movies from playing back when non-compliant hardware is connected, but still allow that hardware to display other content (for example, a Keynote presentation).
At this stage, the Apple hardware is a little too smart for its own good – choosing to activate or disable HDCP depending on the first device connected to the Mac being either HDCP compliant or not. What we really need is a work-around to disable HDCP support on demand, which will mean we can connect it to an HDCP compliant D/A (or a unit like the Barco DCS-200), and still support other equipment further down-stream which is not HDCP compliant – in exchange for disabling playback of Blu-ray discs or copy-protected movies (which is typically fine for AV applications).
Work-around: For the time being, a slightly expensive work-around is to connect the Mac to an ImagePRO HD, and then take either/or both the DVI out, and DVI loop-out ports to connect to other equipment (HDCP compliant or not).
If anyone comes across a ‘hack’ for OS X or new Apple hardware that will disable HDCP support for the sake of connecting to AV equipment (and also maintains legitimacy by disabling Blu-ray and copy-protected movie playback), we’d all be grateful if you could leave a comment here or let us know so we can spread the word!
Augmented reality in events
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Online presentations, Presentation IT on July 29, 2009
There are some great examples of augmented reality concepts out there right now – basically interactions between physical actions (e.g. touch, sight, or sound), and virtual responses – for instance, I could point my iPhone at a building, and using the in-built camera, an application could recognise the building, and draw segments over the top, labelling all of the occupants.
This is the sort of stuff we’ve been seeing in high-tech movie scenes since the late 90’s, but it’s finally becoming realistic at a consumer level thanks to devices such as the iPhone which have built in GPS, camera, accelerometer, and magnetometer (so they know where you are, what you’re looking at, from what direction, etc)…
What this means is that we’re starting to see really functional crossovers between real, physical environments, and virtual ones.
I can’t wait to see this start to emerge in the event space.
This could include things like cameras in a venue that automatically recognise known audience members, and greet them on screen by name, or it could extend to allowing the presenter to show a physical document on screen via a camera, and then ‘touch’ a word in the document to ‘hotlink’ it to a PowerPoint presentation or video.
There are a lot of opportunities to showcase the technologies in events which will ‘wow’ the audiences, but I think we will start to see some real, functional purposes starting to emerge over the next few years.
For now, here are a couple of good examples of what’s possible outside the event world -
petitinvention blog: Future of Internet Search
‘petitinvention‘ discusses a concept towards the ‘future of mobile search’ on their blog – these graphics are great concept renders of what is now possible with a device like the iPhone…
BMW UK – Print out a special square and move it around your desk in front of your web-cam to control a BMW Z4 on your computer screen. GE Money has build something similar, sending the visual ‘key’ to clients by mail as marketing collateral – an interesting way to compel customers to visit their website.
Display output bug in Windows 7 RC
Posted by Steve Wylie in Presentation IT on June 5, 2009
I came across an interesting bug in Windows 7 RC this week, where a laptop running Win7 was being used for a live software demo. The laptop had been connected to a data projector in extended desktop mode, and worked fine. However, the laptop was then disconnected, moved to another location, and connected to a new projector.
At the new location, the vision switcher in line would acknowledge that the source was connected and syncing at the correct resolution, but could only see a black/blank screen. In Windows 7′s display settings dialog box, if you pressed ‘Identify Displays’, the system would show “1″ and “2″ number overlays next to each other on the laptop’s local monitor.
It seemed that Windows 7 had confused itself, and thought that both outputs were in fact showing on the one monitor. Confused? So was I. A restart resolved the issue, and I haven’t had time to try replicating it again. Hopefully these bugs will be ironed out before RTM.
Windows 7 Identify Displays Bug
Windows 7 display settings
Posted by Steve Wylie in Presentation IT on January 23, 2009
Microsoft has updated the display settings dialog box in Windows 7. It was previously passed on from Windows 95 through to Vista with little significant change. But the new version has a couple of tricks in store.
ATI Catalyst Control Center on Windows 7
To start with, I wasn’t able to install ATI Catalyst Control Center on my test machine with Windows 7 Beta Build 7000, because the graphics card, an ATI Radeon 7000 series, was too old. However, running the ATI installation software in compatibility mode worked successfully.
Windows 7: Screen Resolution
Another handy feature is the ability to choose to clone, extend, or disable a display from the ‘Multiple displays’ drop-down box, or by pressing Windows Key 
+ P (the shortcut key will only control two displays and is designed to help connect a projector).
Windows 7: Apply changes
Finally, Microsoft has addressed a long standing bug – in previous versions of Windows, you could enable extended desktop on a monitor, and choose a resolution, but when you clicked ‘Apply’, the new resolution would revert back to the default and you would need to choose it again. Now, once you choose to enable a currently disabled display, you are forced to press ‘Apply’ before you can start changing its settings.
New Display Projection function in Windows 7
Posted by Steve Wylie in Presentation IT on January 22, 2009
Finally, Microsoft has changed the way Windows detects and handles external monitors and display devices (including projectors).
In Windows 7, you will be able to press the Windows Key + P (or type ‘displayswitch’ in the ‘Start’ menu and press enter) in order to bring up a menu which includes the ability to display:
• only on the local monitor;
• only on the external monitor;
• have the same content on both the local and external; or
• have separate content on both (ideal for using PowerPoint Presenter View)
Windows 7: Display Projection
Configure presentation settings with Windows Mobility Center
Posted by Steve Wylie in Presentation IT on January 22, 2009
There are a number of changes you should make to your computer before your use it to give a presentation. These include changing your desktop wallpaper to something impersonal and inoffensive, disabling your screen-saver and power saving settings, and ensuring that your volume is either up (if you have sounds in your presentation) or down (to avoid any incidental sound effects from disrupting you). You’ll also want to disable pop-up notifications from Windows and third-party software.
As I’ve previously written, the best way to contain all of these settings is to either have a dedicated computer for presentations, or to create a separate user profile just for presentation settings.
However, Windows Vista and Windows 7 make configuring presentation settings easier.
Press the Windows Key + X, or type ‘Mobility’ from the start menu (and press enter) to launch the Windows Mobility Center.
Windows Mobility Center
From here, if you have not already done so, you can choose ‘Connect Display’ in order for your computer to detect an attached monitor, plasma screen, projector, or television, and configure it for use.
Once you have set up your display device, from the Windows Mobility Center, select ‘Turn On’ under the ‘Presentation Settings’ section in order to have Windows automatically change some of those all-important options as discussed above.
Presentation Settings
Use Windows Media Encoder to capture the Windows desktop
Posted by Steve Wylie in Online presentations, Presentation IT, Speaker support content, Video and motion graphics on December 7, 2008
Microsoft’s free Windows Media Encoder is capable of recording the Windows desktop or a specific application, which you can then use to demo an application, website, or process in a visual format – often known as screencasting.
A popular commercial software package, Camtasia, also performs this function, however Windows Media Encoder does a good job, at no cost.
You can download Windows Media Encoder from Microsoft’s website at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx.
Once installed, start Windows Media Encoder and choose ‘Capture Screen’. This will launch a wizard which will guide you through the process of choosing your capture settings, including the quality of the file you want to create, and the source to capture – the entire desktop, or a specific application window.
Windows Media Encoder, New Session
If you want more control over the quality and file format settings, you can select not to start the capture at the end of the wizard, which will allow you to customise the configuration further before capturing.
Note that Windows Media Encoder will only capture the screen to Windows Media Video format – which is fine if you want to upload it to the Internet, but you may need to convert it to another format if you need to later edit the capture, or incorporate with another video.
Matrox TripleHead2Go as a background source for Barco Encore
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Presentation IT on November 2, 2008
Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital
Barco makes this process a little easier with the options in its ‘Widescreen’ configuration menu (Output Setup). When using a triple-head display card or device, such as the Matrox TripleHead2Go, choose the background format as ‘Edge-butted’, and choose to centre the background content – while you’re there, ensure Data Doubling is ‘Enabled’ to make sure that the PIP content matches across the blend regions.
The Matrox TripleHead2Go makes a suitable unscaled DVI background source for Encore with a couple of considerations:
1. The TripleHead2Go is designed primarily for extending the desktop of a computer across multiple monitors, and as such, isn’t best suited to running heavy graphics and video – you will find that the stress that the unit places on your display computer’s graphics card will make it near impossible to display fluid transitions in Keynote or PowerPoint, or play back full resolution video.
2. When designing content, ensure you leave adequate space to the left and right of your content to compensate for the blend overlap (i.e. if you have 2x 1920×1080 projectors on a 3.333:1 screen, your total pixel space will not be 3840×1080, but rather 3600×1080). In PowerPoint or Keynote this is easy – just choose a slide format in 3.333:1 ratio (or a resolution of 3600×1080 in Keynote) and when you run the presentation, both PowerPoint and Keynote will automatically pillarbox the left and right of the output to compensate.
3. The Matrox TripleHead2Go does not yet support the common projection resolution of SXGA+ (1400×1050) out of the box. While it may be possible to ‘hack’ the TripleHead2Go device to support this resolution using a tool like PowerStrip, I’ve never tried it, and wouldn’t suggest that it’s worth relying on (if anyone has achieved this please feel free to comment!).
4. There are a maximum of 3 outputs using this device – and only 2 outputs if you’re using a high resolution such as 1920×1080 – so keep this in mind if you have larger edge-blending requirements. For true scalability, you would be better off using a system like AVStumpfl Wings or Dataton Watchout, both systems would run video and transitions a lot more fluidly, and would provide a much greater capacity to scale.
Barco Encore Preset Manager
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Presentation IT on November 2, 2008
Preset Manager is a program which Barco don’t make a huge fuss about, but anyone who operates more than the most basic of shows, especially using the Encore SC console, will appreciate the ability to save, edit, and recall all of their presets, colour-code and name those presets, and insert presets in a timed, or manually triggered cue list – functionality that you can’t yet get with Encore out of the box.
You can run Preset Manager on a Mac or PC connected to your Encore network.
Barco Encore Preset Manager
Configure your laptop for a presentation
Posted by Steve Wylie in Presentation IT, Speaker support content on March 23, 2006
If you’re giving a presentation and you don’t have the option of using a “show machine” provided by your AV company or the event organisers, then there are a few things you should do to prepare your laptop for use in a production environment.
Disable everything
Most people use their laptop for e-mail, instant messaging, downloading files, syncing their mobile phone and PDA, watching movies, playing games, speech recognition, and so on – all of these activities require software, much of which loads itself, or its helper applications into memory so that it can run in the background, launch more quickly, or provide notices and messages without manual interaction. Not only do all of these things take up valuable memory, CPU power, and hard disk access, but they also run the risk of popping up during your presentation and distracting you and your audience.Disable power management and screen savers
The last thing you want to have in the middle of your keynote speech is a screensaver with your family photos popping up over the top of your PowerPoint slides. You should run through and make sure all the screen savers and “lock computer” (or password protect) options are disabled, and that your system is set to “never” stand by, or turn off its screen or hard disks.
Prepare well for video
Playing video files embedded into a PowerPoint presentation isn’t ever smooth sailing. For starters, it requires a powerful computer to load and play the embedded object on demand – you will usually notice a significant delay that can worry or bore your audience.
What’s more, most laptop graphics cards aren’t capable of displaying the video on both the external display (your data projector or similar) and your laptop’s screen – so don’t be surprised if either you, or your audience aren’t able to see the video.
If you do choose to embed video into your presentation, make sure you inform the event organisers if they will need to provide sound output for your laptop, and then disable all your system sounds to prevent interruptions during the show.
Check your versions
If you create your presentation on a different computer to the one you intend to play it from, make sure you test it on the “show computer” – don’t just assume it will work – often there will be different versions of PowerPoint, different screen resolutions or graphics cards, different fonts, and various other factors that can prevent your show machine from displaying the presentation as intended.Run off hard diskA USB drive, floppy disk, or CD-ROM will not be the most reliable or the fastest option – PowerPoint will load up each slide as it’s advanced to, rather than preloading them – which means if your presentation isn’t stored on the hard disk, you could notice a delay in the time it takes to pull up a slide – particularly one with video or photos embedded. What’s more, a hard disk is more reliable than removable mediums – it’s possible you have a scratched CD, demagnetized floppy disk, or that you bump the USB drive and knock it out of the port.
Profile it
If you want to keep all of your normal settings intact, but still want a successful presentation, consider creating a separate user profile on your laptop for presentations, – which can be set up with the ideal settings for a presentation, but will not affect things like your screen saver and start-up programs for normal use.