DVD Based Presentation

T

Terry Duncan

Good morning

I am wondering if anyone has had any luck converting, or image capturing, a
PowerPoint presentation onto a DVD which would be played over a DVD/TV
combination player.

If anyone has had any luck with this, and would be willing to share ideas or
point me in the direction of software, information, ????? I would be
grateful.

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

--
Regards
Terry E. Duncan

(e-mail address removed)
Tel 604-274-7178
Fax 604-274-6850
 
S

Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP

I notice that the Flash file you use to demonstrate the
Camtasia capture is quite jerky. Was the DVD the same?
I'm not criticizing, just wondered...
Click to expand...

You can select the frame rate when you convert to SWF; the lower the frame
rate, the smaller the resulting files. My guess is that TAJ kicked the
frame rate way down out of kindness to the narrowbanded. ;-)
 
A

Adam Crowley

I must say I've never been that impressed with the results of any of the
capture software I've tried, including Camtasia. I can't say I'm that
surprised, bearing in mind what must be the CPU load when both displaying
PowerPoint and capturing a full screen.
Even with a beast of a machine (Dual 2Ghz Athlon, 2Gb RAM, RAID array, 128Mb
VGA) running at 800x600 and with all the performance boosting suggestions
from TechSmith I've only ever achieved an unsatisfactory frame rate of
approx 15fps. I can only increase the frame rate by reducing the
resolution. Both options, in my opinion, are unsatisfactory when you
consider that the media is DVD and capable of much more...
Am I missing something?
FWIW I've used 2 methods to create DVDs that I've found more satisfactory
than my screen capture results:
1) connecting the S-video out from a laptop to a domestic DVD recorder (i.e.
one that records DVDs like a VCR). The DVD can then be taken to the PC,
ripped and authored as desired.
2) same process but capturing the video on another PC through an MPEG2
capture device, such as the the Win-TV PVR.
I'm not 100% happy with these processes either, as it involves conversion to
analogue video and back to digital, but the results have been far superior
to my efforts with capture software.
 
S

Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP

approx 15fps. I can only increase the frame rate by reducing the
resolution. Both options, in my opinion, are unsatisfactory when you
consider that the media is DVD and capable of much more...
Am I missing something?
Click to expand...

Lowered expectations? I've plenty of them if you need a few. ;-)
Seriously, I've just played with Camtasia a bit so far and it seems like
it's great for grabbing demos and such. Whether it'd work well for full
motion video, particularly at large screen sizes ... I defer to your
experience. That's a *much* tougher nut to crack.
 
A

Adam Crowley

Steve Rindsberg said:
Lowered expectations? I've plenty of them if you need a few. ;-)
Click to expand...

Hmmm...yes...me too
Seriously, I've just played with Camtasia a bit so far and it seems like
it's great for grabbing demos and such. Whether it'd work well for full
motion video, particularly at large screen sizes ... I defer to your
experience. That's a *much* tougher nut to crack.
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. Except for the bit about deferring to my..er..I
can't even type it...
I'd just like to hear if anyone's had any luck creating a movie file at even
close to DVD quality using Camtasia or similar.
By DVD quality I mean 720x576 (or 720x540 for you NTSC types) at 25 frames
per second.
Because I don't see the point otherwise - certainly not for my porpoises.
 
S

Sonia

Adam, have you tried Windows Media Encoder? Does a much better job than
Camtasia in my experience. But all software capture solutions have
disappointed me so far.
--
Sonia, MS PowerPoint MVP Team
http://www.soniacoleman.com
(Free Templates, Tutorials, PowerLink, PowerLink Plus,
and Autorun CD Project Creator Pro)
PowerPoint Live! - Featured Speaker
Tucson, AZ; October 12-15, 2003
 
A

Adam Crowley

Yes I did try it and I agree it is better...but still not good enough and
recompression hurts when it's converted to MPEG2.
At least for the time being I'll stick to analogue video capture as at least
it keeps animations intact and I prefer the quality. I'd love to keep it
digital though...
 
T

TAJ Simmons

Jim,

That's a valid point. I've re-grabbed the presentation trying various
techniques to improve the results.

I believe the end result is now much smoother.
View the original (to be removed shortly)
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/templates/powerpoint-to-flash-old.htm

View the improved
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/templates/powerpoint-to-flash.htm


Here's my findings.

-At first I thought that the jerkyness was a result of the conversion from
the AVI to flash....but the original grab was the same.

-If you look at the *new* step 9 on the Capturing part of this tutorial
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com/powerpoint-to-dvd.htm
You will see the little tweaks that improved the grab.

Namely
- Set Camtasia Recorder to "boost priority during capture"

- Set the frames per sec to 10 (I tried other settings, 5,10,12,15,20...but
I found 10fps gave the best results for me)

- Turn off the key frames every x (80) frames

- Also I viewed the slideshow once in powerpoint (as a pps file) before
capturing. To help with the caching.

- Lastly I tweaked the presentation itself slightly. I ungrouped the graphs,
so that they would benefit from powerpoint XP's font/graphic smoothing.

Then I tweaked "The End" slide...the text "the end" was set to just "Appear"
which could give the illusion of being "jerky"...It's now set to
"fade"...which is really pushing the "show and capture at the same time"
abilities of both camtasia and the PC.

- Everything else was kept the same...e.g. grabbed at 800x600x32bit color.

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

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

Jim Trent

-----Original Message-----
FWIW I've used 2 methods to create DVDs that I've found more satisfactory
than my screen capture results:
1) connecting the S-video out from a laptop to a domestic DVD recorder (i.e.
one that records DVDs like a VCR). The DVD can then be taken to the PC,
ripped and authored as desired.
2) same process but capturing the video on another PC through an MPEG2
capture device, such as the the Win-TV PVR.
I'm not 100% happy with these processes either, as it involves conversion to
analogue video and back to digital, but the results have been far superior
to my efforts with capture software.
Click to expand...

That's interesting. I'll give that a try as I too don't
rate Camtasia as a tool for DVD based on the evidence I've
seen so far.
 
J

Jim Trent

You're right it is smoother.
Still, 10 fps is siginficantly lower than 25 and I
wouldn't be happy with that for a DVD.
Any other thoughts?
 
S

Steve Rindsberg, PPTMVP

By DVD quality I mean 720x576 (or 720x540 for you NTSC types) at 25 frames
per second.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry, sir. You'll have to leave now.

We don't permit the use of "NTSC" and the Q word in the same sentence.

Come along quietly, please.
 
T

Terry Duncan

Just wanted to drop an epost to thank everyone for their insight and wisdom.
You have certainly removed the clouds and let the sun shine through.

I have access to a domestic DVD recorder and will try that. I will also try
Chris Darby's suggestion regarding DVDXpoint.

I will post my success - he says objectively - and my failures - he says
realistically - for all to add to their knowledge base.

Regards
Terry Duncan
 
T

Terry Duncan

Steve

Thought I should clarify regarding the video segments.

The segments I include are not full screen. They are AVI in window type
segments based on 320 x 240 clips made in Videowave.

Don't know if that makes a difference in the discussion, but I thought I
should toss this in.

Terry Duncan
 
A

Adam Crowley

Ah...I didn't even realise you had video clips in the presentation.
This is another reason why I personally would avoid Camtasia or similar as
it will recompress your video.
The Techsmith codec that comes with Camtasia is probably the best one to use
for computer based stuff, but will almost certainly damage any video
content.
 
A

Adam Crowley

Terry Duncan said:
Just wanted to drop an epost to thank everyone for their insight and wisdom.
You have certainly removed the clouds and let the sun shine through.

I have access to a domestic DVD recorder and will try that. I will also try
Chris Darby's suggestion regarding DVDXpoint.
Click to expand...

Good luck.
And I wish there were a demo of DVDXpoint as it seems to claim to do exactly
what's needed, i.e. render from PowerPoint rather than try to capture it
realtime.
 
A

Adam Crowley

If you reduce the resolution you'll be able to capture at a higher frame
rate.
Far from ideal, again, but useful for VCDs which are lower resolution than
DVD.
If you want to preserve the frame rate I believe the best option is video
capture.
Although I am very interested in DVDXpoint that Terry mentions.

P.S. one thing I think I should mention that we've managed to avoid so far
is that all of the suggestions here assume that your presentation is self
running, i.e. no manual cues...
 
T

TAJ Simmons

Adam,
P.S. one thing I think I should mention that we've managed to avoid so far
is that all of the suggestions here assume that your presentation is self
running, i.e. no manual cues...
Click to expand...

That's a big point....now if someone could come up with a system that
utilizes the DVD specs system of menus..and pauses etc....it should in
theory be possible to put powerpoint on a DVD truely interactive ;)
Far from ideal, again, but useful for VCDs which are lower resolution than
DVD.
Click to expand...
When I first started the Capture tutorial...I played with VCDs and SVCDs
capturing at 640x480


Cheers
TAJ
 

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