Presentation timer for Mac OS X
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Speaker support content on May 30, 2009
Apimac Timer Interface
Apimac makes a great presentation timer for Mac. It’s freeware, and supports displaying the current time, count-down, or a stop-watch. The timer has a great, simple full-screen mode which looks excellent for presenter fold-back or confidence monitors. Tip: press the space bar in full-screen mode to start or pause the timer.
Use Twitter in PowerPoint
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Speaker support content on May 30, 2009
A new service called Poll Everywhere allows you to set up interaction with your audience via Twitter. Your audience can participate in surveys or ask questions via Twitter, and results can be included in real-time in your PowerPoint presentation. Poll Everywhere is free for up to 15 participants, then has a subscription model depending on the number of audience members you require.
Another interesting presentation service that uses Twitter to interact with your audience is Visible Tweets, which is a free web-based service that displays tweets from a specific user, or with a specific tag using stylish Flash transitions… would look very neat on LCD displays around a conference venue.
Visible Tweets using 'Rotation' effect
Haptic control of PowerPoint (Wii remote, 3D cameras, touch gestures)
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems, Speaker support content on May 25, 2009
I think the PowerPoint 2007 add-on, pptPlex really resembles one of the future shapes that live presentation content will take. It’s even more interesting to look at some of the R&D the development team have been doing with interactivity.
The pptPlex team has posted about experiments interacting with pptPlex using a 3D camera and a Wii controller – this really ‘haptic’ approach to presentations is so natural and surely represents the goal for a progression from the standard remote slide advance button and laser pointer.
They’ve most recently been testing pptPlex in combination with the touch-screen capabilities of Windows 7. If used in combination with a multitouch display or touch-sensitive projection screen sensors, this will be really exciting stuff for live presentations.
Touch screen demo (via pptPlex Website)
‘Zoom’ into content areas in presentations
Posted by Steve Wylie in Speaker support content on May 10, 2009
A new trend seems to be forming with the increase in typical computing power and the demand for ‘something different’ compared with static slides.
The idea of taking one ‘slide’ (or canvas), and inserting a whole load of content in different areas, linked together with visual elements, and then ‘zooming in’ to the content you’re talking about is a really cool way to give some visual meaning to your presentation.
pptPlex Demo Zoomed out
pptPlex zoomed into a slide
pptPlex zoomed into details
There are a few ways of achieving the effect – online presentation software ‘Prezi’ offers both free and paid services, which allow you to build presentations incorporating all the usual elements – text, graphics, and video.
There’s also a PowerPoint 2007 add-in called pptPlex which was originally designed with multitouch interfaces in mind – this idea is going to be big in a few years when multitouch becomes accessible for projection screens.
And finally, if you’re savvy with Flash or Director, or even something like Silverlight, you should easily be able to create a similar effect without the need for third-party software.
Links:
pptPlex Add-on for PowerPoint 2007
DVI image spikes, peaks, artifacts
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems on April 4, 2009
One issue you might come across with DVI signal is the occasional/momentary presence of lines or flashes of light color (in my experience often a light green, purple, or blue). The flashes often only appear for a second or less, and may, if you look closely, recur at the same point in a video roll or at the same slide in a presentation, every time its on screen.
DVI image spikes, a rough representation
I can reasonably confidently put the issues I’ve experienced down to being a bandwidth issue and/or being related to electrical/electromagnetic interference between source and projector/display.
I’ve come across two methods for decreasing the occurrence of these issues:
1. Lower the brightness at the source: This will, in turn, lower the ‘output levels’ from the source, and will require less bandwidth (and is less likely to hit ‘peak levels’) once the signal gets to the projector. There are other ways to lower the output levels or prevent peaking, but this is a cheap and nasty way and it’s a good trick to know if you’re limited on resources.
2. Use a DVI signal regenerator/equalizer in line between the source (vision mixer/switcher) and projector. Something like a DVI Gear DVI Detective should, in theory, do the trick. Although there are so many of these devices out there and often it’s difficult to determine what each device actually does beyond simply joining two cables together. You should look for a device that’s specifically designed to reduce or eliminate electrical interference.
Most of the issues of this type that I’ve experienced have been while using Barco/Folsom mixers and switchers, often with Apple MacBook Pro or Mac Pro machines via DVI (although I’ve seen it with HDCAM sources connected via HD-SDI), and running DVI-D over fibre-optic cable to a projector (Christie, Projectiondesign, Barco). I’ve seen the issue at 1400×1050, 1920×1080, and 1920×1200.
If anyone else has other ideas or ways to address the issue please feel free to comment!
Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital not outputting correct signal
Posted by Steve Wylie in Live vision systems on March 18, 2009
Matrox TripleHead2Go
The TripleHead2Go should be connected to your computer using a DVI-I Dual-link cable to ensure the signal has enough bandwidth to carry such high resolutions as 3x 1680×1050 (5040×1050 from the computer).
Set image transparency in PowerPoint 2007
Posted by Steve Wylie in Speaker support content on February 26, 2009
In PowerPoint 2003, if you clicked on an image, a toolbar would appear, on which there was a button labelled ‘Set Transparent Color’. This option allows you to click on a solid colour within the image, and that colour is made transparent.
This is especially useful for images with a white-background, which you want to insert into a presentation that uses a coloured, gradient, or image background.
In PowerPoint 2007, the same feature exists, but it’s a little difficult to find.
Click once on an image in your presentation to select it. A new toolbar will become available on the ribbon called ‘Format’. Select the ‘Format’ toolbar and click on ‘Recolor’. At the end of the ‘recolor’ menu, you will see the ‘Set transparent colour…’ option.
PowerPoint 2007: Set transparent color
PowerPoint 2007 Design Tip: Glossy Effect
Posted by Steve Wylie in Speaker support content on January 29, 2009
Office 2007 includes some handy preset image effects – select a picture, click on the ‘Format’ tab which appears on the top ribbon bar, and choose a preset ‘look’. You can also customise a range of parameters including a drop shadow, reflection, border, rotation, opacity, colour, and so on.
Here’s a neat way to use these new image effects to create a glossy 3D look for objects in PowerPoint.
1. Create a gradient background with a solid dark colour at the top, and a lighter gradient below the centre – I have used a 4 step gradient to do this:
Gradient Background
2. Insert an image, and a text box, and align the base of each object on the same plane, just below the centre – it’s easiest to align the objects using a drawing guide:
Insert Objects
3. Select the image, and from the ‘Format’ tab in the ribbon bar, choose ‘Reflected Rounded Rectangle’, which should be the 5th preset look in the menu:
Image Effects: Reflected Rounded Rectangle
4. Select the text box, and choose ‘Half Reflection, touching’ from the ‘Text Effects’ menu in the ‘Format’ tab:
Text Effect: Half Reflection, touching
5. Your finished slide should look something like this:
Glossy 3D Slide Example
6. You can create ‘depth of field’ effects by making objects smaller, and moving them upwards, closer to the vertical centre – using a darker shade of colour for text objects also helps to add to the ‘depth of field’ effect:
PowerPoint 3D Depth of Field Text Effect
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