Bellerophon
28th Apr 2003, 03:41
Would anyone knowledgeable about MS Powerpoint presentations care to offer any advice or opinions on the following problem?
Over the years Bellerophon has given many lectures regarding his job. These used to involve 35mm colour slides, a slide projector and a loud voice, but increasingly in recent years, laptops, digital slide projectors, wireless remote controls, laser pointers and radio microphones have become the expected standard.
Initially the change to laptop presentations went smoothly. A Toshiba Satellite 1800-712 laptop was bought, with a 1.1Ghz Intel Celeron processor, 512Mb SDRAM, 20Gb HDD and a XGA Trident Video Accelerator, which, according to the salesman, was ample power to run Powerpoint presentations.
All the 35mmm slides were digitised, some new ones created within Powerpoint, the wireless remote was mastered, and the first few lectures went well.
Then a Flight Engineer helpfully pointed out that Powerpoint slides could also contain video clips, demonstrated one of his lecture presentations - which contained several interesting video clips - and suggested that Bellerophon follow suit and incorporate the clips in his lectures.
Brilliant, thought Bellerophon, nothing holds an audience’s attention better than a good bit of video. Several video clips were duly inserted into the lecture, practice runs at home went flawlessly, and the new show was premiered at a lecture at a midlands museum over Easter.
Said museum has its own modern lecture theatre, fully equipped and with a resident technician, who connected everything up and the dress rehearsal went flawlessly.
Audience enters, show starts, and all is going well until about half way through when the laptop freezes completely. Bellerophon takes questions from the audience whilst resident technician rushes down, re-boots laptop, etc., etc.
Technician quickly gets laptop working, but not before one of the audience, a museum trustee who just happens to be the Professor of Physics at the local University, has had some sport at Bellerophon’s expense by asking him to explain exactly how and why shock waves occur!
Finally the show restarts, but the video clips are jerky in places, and the presentation struggles throughout the remainder of the lecture.
Several of the audience remark how entertained they were by the lecture, but not quite along the lines that Bellerophon would have wished!
During the post-mortem nothing untoward is found, but sadly the problem repeats itself at the next day’s lecture.
The technician opines that the laptop processor, whilst up to running Powerpoint slides, may not be up to running Powerpoint video.
So, has anyone else experienced this problem?
Could it be lack of processor power?
Could it be lack of memory?
Could the video card inadequate?
Could the number of screens (3) being projected onto have any effect?
All help gratefully received!
Regards
Bellerophon
Over the years Bellerophon has given many lectures regarding his job. These used to involve 35mm colour slides, a slide projector and a loud voice, but increasingly in recent years, laptops, digital slide projectors, wireless remote controls, laser pointers and radio microphones have become the expected standard.
Initially the change to laptop presentations went smoothly. A Toshiba Satellite 1800-712 laptop was bought, with a 1.1Ghz Intel Celeron processor, 512Mb SDRAM, 20Gb HDD and a XGA Trident Video Accelerator, which, according to the salesman, was ample power to run Powerpoint presentations.
All the 35mmm slides were digitised, some new ones created within Powerpoint, the wireless remote was mastered, and the first few lectures went well.
Then a Flight Engineer helpfully pointed out that Powerpoint slides could also contain video clips, demonstrated one of his lecture presentations - which contained several interesting video clips - and suggested that Bellerophon follow suit and incorporate the clips in his lectures.
Brilliant, thought Bellerophon, nothing holds an audience’s attention better than a good bit of video. Several video clips were duly inserted into the lecture, practice runs at home went flawlessly, and the new show was premiered at a lecture at a midlands museum over Easter.
Said museum has its own modern lecture theatre, fully equipped and with a resident technician, who connected everything up and the dress rehearsal went flawlessly.
Audience enters, show starts, and all is going well until about half way through when the laptop freezes completely. Bellerophon takes questions from the audience whilst resident technician rushes down, re-boots laptop, etc., etc.
Technician quickly gets laptop working, but not before one of the audience, a museum trustee who just happens to be the Professor of Physics at the local University, has had some sport at Bellerophon’s expense by asking him to explain exactly how and why shock waves occur!
Finally the show restarts, but the video clips are jerky in places, and the presentation struggles throughout the remainder of the lecture.
Several of the audience remark how entertained they were by the lecture, but not quite along the lines that Bellerophon would have wished!
During the post-mortem nothing untoward is found, but sadly the problem repeats itself at the next day’s lecture.
The technician opines that the laptop processor, whilst up to running Powerpoint slides, may not be up to running Powerpoint video.
So, has anyone else experienced this problem?
Could it be lack of processor power?
Could it be lack of memory?
Could the video card inadequate?
Could the number of screens (3) being projected onto have any effect?
All help gratefully received!
Regards
Bellerophon