DAW and PowerPoint

Max Arwood

unread,

Apr 12, 2008, 10:22:21 PM4/12/08

to

I will be doing more powerpoint this year at church. I want to put it on my
DAW, but I don't want stuff running in the background. Does powerpoint have
background task that load into your computer? Any other problems that I
might have with it on my daw?

Thanks,
Max Arwood

Sue Morton

unread,

Apr 12, 2008, 10:51:10 PM4/12/08

to

No background or other memory resident processes. It's a resource hog but
only when you run it!

I do some Powerpoint for my employer and for church. The biggest problem
I've had with it is automated timings. For church I do slides that sync
with songs played external to the presentation (e.g. I have the powerpoint
operator start the show after the first bar or a count-in).

I can get the timings down solid at home, then take the ppt to the church PC
and the timings will run differently. Way differently, cumulative many
seconds slow or fast over the entire show. At my employer's I've rehearsed
timings on dozens of "identical" PCs using the same version of Powerpoint,
and they all run differently.

The free Powerpoint Viewer, on the other hand, has been completely
consistent in timings, from machine to machine, independent of cpu, ram,
disk, etc It may run differently than the regular powerpoint it was
developed on, but the Viewer will run it the same way every time on every
machine. The PPT Viewer, however, does not have the option to extend to
second desktop/monitor so is very hard to use for worship or even important
presentations at work.

I end up developing the powerpoint at home, then taking it to church on an
evening when the Sanctuary is not in use, and rehersing the timings with the
music over and ovre until they run the way I want them to, on the church PC.

I did trial a few programs that convert powerpoint to video, which should
make the whole timing sync thing foolproof. However, I had various troubles
with these and so never invested in one.
--
Sue Morton

R. Lamar Duffy

unread,

Apr 12, 2008, 11:18:48 PM4/12/08

to

Ditto on Sue's PowerPoint comments. It seems like every different computer,
every different version, every different installation of the same version,
etc, behaves a little differently. And that doesn't even get into having
the right fonts loaded, & if you want to try to make it play multimedia
files. But it won't mess up your DAW.

I have an aerospace engineer friend, who I once told I was "trying to show
PowerPoint who is boss."

A day later he Emailed back: "PowerPoint KNOWS who's boss."

Cheers,

Lamar

Max Arwood

unread,

Apr 12, 2008, 11:23:56 PM4/12/08

to

Thanks Sue! I have used Vegas to do the timed words to songs thing. It works
great. All you have to do is to drop the wave to an empty track, then add a
video track. You just type the words like you would in PP into tese little
text blocks. The frames "word blocks" are easy to move. You can quite easily
align them to the visual bumps of the audio track. I then export them to
WMV. The WMV's load into power point easily. When you move the imported
video slide the music starts and the words are timed as you put them. To me
it is a little tricky because you need the words on the screen in time so
that the projector can project, the eye can see, the brain can think, and
the mouth and vocal cords can make the sounds. Tricky trick timing for sure!
I can't imaging how long it would take to do the timing in Power point!

Thanks again,
Max Arwood

"Sue Morton" <867-...@domain.invalid> wrote in message
news:yyeMj.412$ix6...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net...

Max Arwood

unread,

Apr 12, 2008, 11:25:34 PM4/12/08

to

LOL. Thanks Lamar!
Max Arwood

"R. Lamar Duffy" <rldmd...@bellsouth.net> wrote in message
news:ZXeMj.32300$dT.2...@bignews1.bellsouth.net...

Steve Karl

unread,

Apr 13, 2008, 1:16:18 AM4/13/08

to

"Sue Morton" <867-...@domain.invalid> wrote in message news:yyeMj.412$ix6...@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net...

> No background or other memory resident processes. It's a resource hog but only when you run it!
>
> I do some Powerpoint for my employer and for church. The biggest problem I've had with it is automated timings. For church I do
> slides that sync with songs played external to the presentation (e.g. I have the powerpoint operator start the show after the
> first bar or a count-in).
>
> I can get the timings down solid at home, then take the ppt to the church PC and the timings will run differently. Way
> differently, cumulative many seconds slow or fast over the entire show. At my employer's I've rehearsed timings on dozens of
> "identical" PCs using the same version of Powerpoint, and they all run differently.
>
> The free Powerpoint Viewer, on the other hand, has been completely consistent in timings, from machine to machine, independent of
> cpu, ram, disk, etc It may run differently than the regular powerpoint it was developed on, but the Viewer will run it the same
> way every time on every machine. The PPT Viewer, however, does not have the option to extend to second desktop/monitor so is very
> hard to use for worship or even important presentations at work.
>
> I end up developing the powerpoint at home, then taking it to church on an evening when the Sanctuary is not in use, and rehersing
> the timings with the music over and ovre until they run the way I want them to, on the church PC.
>
> I did trial a few programs that convert powerpoint to video, which should make the whole timing sync thing foolproof. However, I
> had various troubles with these and so never invested in one.
>

I think if you need perfect sync then Sony Vegas would be the way to go,
not to do the conversion, but to do the slide show from the beginning.

Steve

Sue Morton

unread,

Apr 13, 2008, 6:56:10 AM4/13/08

to

Thanks Max and Steve. In my case I don't have words, just photos/graphics,
and embedded short video clips, using the cheezy PPT effects :-) (Max I
believe you're thinking of presenting the words in sync for worship singing?
The church uses something called "MediaShout" for sing along.)

The music for my PPT is played from an external source as well, it is not
embedded in the PPT. Although for developing the timings, the music could
be embedded, then then remove it so the final video is silent. The actual
music during worship will probably be "live", though it could be the same
recording just not played through the PC with the PPT. If "live" there is a
click track audio that does come from the PC with the PPT.

So this is why I looked for an (inexpensive) PPT to video converter, becasue
we have so many PPT files like this already (perhaps a more expensive one
would work better than the ones I've tried!).

I've never used Vegas. I see that Vegas Movie Studio is about $75 and can
create slideshows into video. Do you know if an existing PPT be loaded in?
I couldn't find that info on Sony's site.
--
Sue Morton

Steve Karl wrote:
> "Sue Morton" <867-...@domain.invalid> wrote in message

Steve Karl

unread,

Apr 13, 2008, 9:26:13 AM4/13/08

to

"Sue Morton" <867-...@domain.invalid> wrote in message news:iFlMj.5688$GE1....@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...

> Do you know if an existing PPT be loaded in? I couldn't find that info on Sony's site.
> --
> Sue Morton
>

I suspect not.
I just tried and even with "all media types" selected it doesn't see a .ppt file.

S

polymod

unread,

Apr 13, 2008, 10:03:16 AM4/13/08

to

Hey Sue,
How about plain old Windows Movie Maker.
I use it all the time and it seems to work as well if not better than PP.
Easy as heck too. Saves as wmv. files.

Poly

"Sue Morton" <867-...@domain.invalid> wrote in message

news:iFlMj.5688$GE1....@nlpi061.nbdc.sbc.com...

Sue Morton

unread,

Apr 13, 2008, 10:12:09 AM4/13/08

to

I tried that once... I can't recall why I didn't like it :-( Maybe I
should look at that again. Thanks Poly!
--
Sue Morton

Sue Morton

unread,

Apr 13, 2008, 10:13:40 AM4/13/08

to

Dang. Thanks for checking it, Steve.
--
Sue Morton