Presentation Software Recommendations

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Presentation Software Recommendations

Lowell

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March 31, 2015 at 6:58 am

#99081

I babysit a non profit, and once a year in June, they have their big fundraiser, where they get 600 people or so for a big dinner. i do their overhead projector stuff, where i move between the following presentations:
a scrolling banner of the sponsors images for the year.
a powerpoint slideshow of the same sponsors to add variety.
a video of the national anthem.
a scrolling list of names of lower level sponsors.
a few videos of accomplishments made over the past years.
a powerpoint slide show of the current Auction Item(s) during the live show.
list of game and raffle winners get throw up ad hoc and live using a crappy scrolling banner that slides along the top or bottom of the screens., kind of like you see on CNN or something.
i've got custom software i wrote, in addition to using normal programs like video players and powerpoint.
right now, i do it from my laptop, using monitor#2 as what points to the projectors,and i organize, and drag and drop from monitor 1 to monitor 2. the list is to emphasize that the data is not static, but toggles and moves with the ebb and flow of the show.
i was looking for any recommendations to make my presentations a bit slicker and more organized; right now theres only one person who can do it, i'd like to make it easier for a end user to do it, instead of a technical resource like myself. i'd love to get something that does a nice fade in and out or something, instead of it being obvious that i'm dragging windows around to monitor2.
does anyone have any experience in doing somewhat the same thing? does anything do it the same as me, so i don't have to worry about it?
Lowell
--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

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Eirikur Eiriksson SSC Guru Points: 182916 More actions · Answer 1

Eirikur Eiriksson

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Points: 182916

November 13, 2015 at 10:40 am

#1839672

Lowell,

did you find anything useful for this?

😎

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 2

Eirikur no i never did;

i continued working with the vertical scroller in winforms application i had put together into myself, and toggled between powerpoint presentations and my scroller; i never got any suggestions, and my Google-Fu just was not strong enough to find an alternative.

it was just enough to make it through, but i really wanted to find something with polish and nice transitions.

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004409 More actions · Answer 3

I don't see why PowerPoint couldn't do all of that. You can embed videos, setup "Credits" animations and scrolling entrances and a whole bunch of other things.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 4

Powerpoint is a part of it, but its not the conductor for me.

At least in my case, its because only portion of the media is static prior to tbe presentation. Some is adhoc, or last minute additions, and any presentation oftenchanges its order might change on demand.

So ill run a powepoint of sponsors, as the core, and someone says "run promo video 4" because the want to talk about sponsor 4 now., or "sponsor 18 just walked in, run their video to make em feel special."

The flow and ad hoc nature made me wish for a console like fox sports or something, to move items in and out of the big screen.

Some stuff, like winners of raffles, are discovered moments before i throw em onscreen. Those i handle a bit different, but its ebb and flow of events that make me want something not so developer oriented.

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 5

hey guys my non profit's event is coming up again, and i'm still looking to replace something i cobbled together that is more professional.
i really need a organized deck so i can leap back and forth, and get a scroller with news or raffle winners and stuff going while other events are going on.

It's been a year, so has anyone tripped over a decent presentation software they actually used?

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004409 More actions · Answer 6

It doesn't help but wanted to let you know someone is listening. 😉 I've got nothing on this. I guess I should get out more. 😉

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004409 More actions · Answer 7

I'm still thinking that PowerPoint can be made to do just about anything you want but the following Google search came up with a pretty good return. Anything more professional than PowerPoint seems to cost as much or more than PowerPoint.
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=multimedia+presentation+tools

Within the list that produces, here's a link for a bunch of free ones. I've not checked the quality on any of them.
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2012/05/list-of-20-free-tools-for-teachers-to.html

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 8

yeah power point is only 20-30% of the show, like i mentioned. except for a pptx of sponsors logos, nothing executes in any specific order. Power point is very top to bottom driven. yeah, you can pause, find where to start again, and resume from that slide, but it's klunky to even try that.
I need something that lets me hot swap various media like that easily. I'm almost after The classic video transitions from "Camera 1" to "Camera 44" like the big boys do in real life. but I need overlays and layers for additional info.

The who thing is very dynamic. while showing a video, for example, i might need to throw a scroller on top of the video with a raffle winner,CNN news style, for example. someone walks in, and they are suddenly the priority, and i need to launch That vendors custom presentation.
I'm building a dock on left or right side scroller now as well, because if someone scans a "winner" via barcode, and it updates my database, i want to scroll that on one side, while the main presentation continues with live auctions, or videos, or one of several powerpoints,

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004409 More actions · Answer 9

Lowell - Sunday, April 23, 2017 5:37 AM
The who thing is very dynamic. while showing a video, for example, i might need to throw a scroller on top of the video with a raffle winner,CNN news style, for example. someone walks in, and they are suddenly the priority, and i need to launch That vendors custom presentation.

Ah.... now I get it. I haven't seen anything like that that falls into the inexpensive area.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

Helpful Links:
How to post code problems
How to Post Performance Problems
Create a Tally Function (fnTally)

Ed Wagner SSC Guru Points: 287026 More actions · Answer 10

I was just surfing around and come across this thread. I remember seeing a presentation at a SQL Saturday in Cleveland on the APPLY operator. The material was good, but nothing new. The presentation, however, stuck with me. Kevin used HTML 5 to run his presentation right out of a web browser. The thing that really caught my eye was the navigation. Picture going from slide to slide across the top, and being able to go down to "child" slides. Keep going down and when you want to "pop over" to the next or previous "parent" slide, the left and right arrows took care of it. I'd never seen a presentation like that before, so I asked him about it during a break. He said it wasn't too hard to set up and it worked for him.

I did some searching and found his presentation online at http://www.catallaxyservices.com/presentations/apply-yourself/. See if this is something along the lines of what you're looking for, but I can't imagine editing HTML during a presentation and throwing it on the screen without testing it first. If it were me, I'd probably try to figure out how to do it it Power Point. Then again, I've never given a presentation with video,

I've used some other presentation software before and I remember wishing I could use Power Point. I guess that means I'm sold on it.

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nerdCat SSC Eights! Points: 859 More actions · Answer 11

I just started using ActivePresenter. I really like the tool. Just learned that I could make quiz's as well with it. Came on here to post my first quiz. Talk about timing.

I am using the free version. May upgrade Someday

*** Added *********
I am not 100% certain ActivePresenter can accomplish what you need to do. Not sure if it can be as dynamic as you need. I picked it up a few days ago and am still learning. For the most part it is intuitive. I had some challenges understanding what a 'slide' was and how to use them. Think I have a handle on that now.

You can add powerpoint slides to it as well as creating similar slides. You can add and manipulate video, record a screen presentation, along with quite a few other capabilities. If you haven't found what you need then maybe take a moment to do a little research on this product.

~Keep your stick on the ice!

nerdCat SSC Eights! Points: 859 More actions · Answer 12

My apologies for coming across as a salesperson for ActivePresenter. Ed Wagner mention HTML5 in his post. This tool allows exporting to HTML5. It is what I used for the short little quiz/test I created. Still trying to think of a way to get that 'CNN' banner on the screen; sounds as if the banner needs to pull from the database. That tool I am using does allow for using jscript in it. Not sure, just thinking.

* Edit *
Dang, I should look at when the original post was made Please note I am a 'grasshopper'.

Lowell SSC Guru Points: 323518 More actions · Answer 13

no, your post is relevant, no worries.
Every year, I help with the same style of project I mentioned above, and I ask around before I program something.
I've already written a cnn banner thing, it reads from either an RSS feed, or from a flat file. it's just a narrow modal form that moves text across a label using a timer.
it works, and I can call multiple instances if I need a top/lower/bottom slider.

Offhand it looks like ActivePresenter has the ability to create a slideshow that happens to contain video, or happen to contains slides or other content. it might fit the bill if it can do the idea below:
I'm dreaming of a centralized dashboard that has a list of, say three slideshows, and a dozen videos, so the end user clicks something, and it launches that.
My problem is almost, but not quite,
so right now I have three powerpoints, and a dozen instances of VLC waiting to be either started or drag and dropped and maximized to the screen for the projector; it works, but it's not really all that centralized.

Lowell

--help us help you! If you post a question, make sure you include a CREATE TABLE... statement and INSERT INTO... statement into that table to give the volunteers here representative data. with your description of the problem, we can provide a tested, verifiable solution to your question! asking the question the right way gets you a tested answer the fastest way possible!

Ed Wagner SSC Guru Points: 287026 More actions · Answer 14

nerdCat - Monday, July 31, 2017 12:00 PM
My apologies for coming across as a salesperson for ActivePresenter. Ed Wagner mention HTML5 in his post. This tool allows exporting to HTML5. It is what I used for the short little quiz/test I created. Still trying to think of a way to get that 'CNN' banner on the screen; sounds as if the banner needs to pull from the database. That tool I am using does allow for using jscript in it. Not sure, just thinking.
* Edit *
Dang, I should look at when the original post was made Please note I am a 'grasshopper'.

I don't think you came across as a salesman at all. When I posted my notes about HTML 5, I didn't know what package Kevin used to create his presentation or if he wrote them all by hand. I thought Lowell might find it to be of some use, just like you did about ActivePresenter. Thanks for posting an idea.

Tally Tables - Performance Personified
String Splitting with True Performance
Best practices on how to ask questions