Presentation Software Integration - Keynote

[SvenCRen]

Hello Richard,

One of the more interesting trends that has been happening lately in corporate presentations has been the migration from Power Point to Keynote which is a MAC application as you may know. So my question to you, is there a way we could port the output of keynote (on the same machine or even networked from a source machine) through the Catalyst application? I know this is probably much more complicated than it sounds but I can see some usefulness to this in brodening Catalyst's profile in future productions.

Thanks,
Scott Riley

[samsc]

you can easily export the entire output of keynote as a movie - all transitions are rendered into the movie.
Powerpoint never used to do this correctly.

i used apple intermediate codec recently to do this - and it looked great.

[SvenCRen]

Hello Richard,

That sounds like a great approach for shows that will flow at a predetermined pace. I was kind of hoping for a solution that could be more beneficial to a real time environment with a presenter on stage going at their own pace. I know that we could potentially do a series of movie files from Keynote and simply cue them and react to the presenter as a Power Point operator normally would but this would require a great deal of preproduction time and be very difficult for modifications. I am not looking for a quick fix just to make a particular show work, I am hoping for a tool that can provide us a new direction in how we are approaching our productions.

Thank you again,

Scott Riley

[samsc]

Hello Richard,

That sounds like a great approach for shows that will flow at a predetermined pace. I was kind of hoping for a solution that could be more beneficial to a real time environment with a presenter on stage going at their own pace. I know that we could potentially do a series of movie files from Keynote and simply cue them and react to the presenter as a Power Point operator normally would but this would require a great deal of preproduction time and be very difficult for modifications. I am not looking for a quick fix just to make a particular show work, I am hoping for a tool that can provide us a new direction in how we are approaching our productions.

Thank you again,

Scott Riley

export options-
http://safari.oreilly.com/0321246616/ch11lev1sec6

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apple put something in their keynote export to indicate the slide points-

i havent yet looked properly into this-

I think they are using chapter tracks to indicate slide points-

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/tutor...tertracks.html

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other than that you could trigger keynote in some way itself using dmx or something like that-
by simulating keyboard/mouse presses.
this is possible using applescript and other similar techniques.
It is possible to send an applescript to a remote machine to step through slides.

using this kindof thing-
http://dougscripts.com/itunes/itinfo/keycodes.php

---

there is also a more remote possibility it might be possible to capture the screen in realtime.

[SvenCRen]

I think that we are kind of going off point if I am understanding you correctly. I hope to be able to port keynote through Catalyst in much the same way that we can take in a video input. The live output of the Keynote application would be ported into a Catalyst layer to be integrated along with all other Catalyst media and effects.

I understand what you are getting at with a VGA capture of sorts but that is very difficult to do in real time from what I have experienced. I would like to be able to do this with much higher resolution presentations as well and I think that would rule out the remote capture.

Thank you,
-scott

[Marty Postma]

I think that we are kind of going off point if I am understanding you correctly. I hope to be able to port keynote through Catalyst in much the same way that we can take in a video input. The live output of the Keynote application would be ported into a Catalyst layer to be integrated along with all other Catalyst media and effects.

I understand what you are getting at with a VGA capture of sorts but that is very difficult to do in real time from what I have experienced. I would like to be able to do this with much higher resolution presentations as well and I think that would rule out the remote capture.

Thank you,
-scott

Try one of these.....

http://www.canopus.com/products/Twin...winPact100.php

.....allows you to import VGA (RGB up to 1600x1200) directly through FireWire and call it up as Live Input on any Layer.

[samsc]

I think that we are kind of going off point if I am understanding you correctly. I hope to be able to port keynote through Catalyst in much the same way that we can take in a video input. The live output of the Keynote application would be ported into a Catalyst layer to be integrated along with all other Catalyst media and effects.

I understand what you are getting at with a VGA capture of sorts but that is very difficult to do in real time from what I have experienced. I would like to be able to do this with much higher resolution presentations as well and I think that would rule out the remote capture.

Thank you,
-scott

i did - but i think keynote really kindof takes over an entire machine.
especially at high resolutions.

i just checked it takes over both monitors - there dont seem to be any prefs allowing second screen in another application to work at the same time?

i have made some experiments in the past.

[SourceChild]

Hey Scott,

I've dealt with this quite a few times.

The first solution is capture the Keynote or Power Point through the Video input of catalyst. I do this with my Decklink HD card when I'm doing large edge blended screens and don't get anything but a laptop with a presentation.

The second solution is something similar to what Richard pointed out about creating a quicktime file. This is the method I prefer doing because I can put the whole thing on my laptop and create a quicktime movie at whatever size I want so that I don't loose resolution.

The secret is to count frames and create cues that stop the file at each point when the transition stops. Using a Hog 3, I'll build the main cue to Setup as an InFrame on one list. Then I create a second list with Play modes setup as follows:

Cuelist 2

01 Forward
02 link --> 06
03 InFrame 00000
04 Pause
05 Forward
06 link --> 09
07 InFrame 00000
08 InFrame 00300
09 Pause
10 Forward
11 link --> 15
12 InFrame 00000
13 InFrame 00300
14 InFrame 00600
15 Pause
16 Forward
17 link --> 21
18 InFrame 00300
19 InFrame 00600
20 InFrame 00900
21 Pause


As you can see, the inframes I set with 10 second offsets foe example. The link cues I create a wait time of 10 seconds which skips to the next pause.

Then using a MIDI trigger device, I have a remote with two commands, play and back. This way a user can play forward or skip backward for up to three slides (or more if I add them).

Literally, I can create a cuelist for 100 slides like this in less than 5 minutes.

I have never had a situation where it didn't work.

Hello Richard,

One of the more interesting trends that has been happening lately in corporate presentations has been the migration from Power Point to Keynote which is a MAC application as you may know. So my question to you, is there a way we could port the output of keynote (on the same machine or even networked from a source machine) through the Catalyst application? I know this is probably much more complicated than it sounds but I can see some usefulness to this in brodening Catalyst's profile in future productions.

Thanks,
Scott Riley

[samsc]

The secret is to count frames and create cues that stop the file at each point when the transition stops. Using a Hog 3, I'll build the main cue to Setup as an InFrame on one list. Then I create a second list with Play modes setup as follows:

im going to try and create a playmode that does this automatically. ( when i get time )
after peeking around it seems keynote does dump frame information for the slides into quicktime chapter tracks - as part of the movie export.

[SourceChild]

im going to try and create a playmode that does this automatically. ( when i get time )
after peeking around it seems keynote does dump frame information for the slides into quicktime chapter tracks - as part of the movie export.

Oh WOW! I'm excited. Granted, my work-around works but it's a pain in the ass and not something I can easily teach to many of the clients I work with for permanent installs.

A playmode that jumps to chapter indexes would be pretty damned cool.
The only issue I could think of is that I would still have to create a MIDI interface for a trigger device to give to a speaker.

I know this might sound ambitious Richard but since Catalyst can manage Serial and MIDI out so well, what about deriving an interface tool that allows one of the many standard USB presentation devices to trigger forward and reverse steps by chapter when the programmer assigns "Presentation Playback mode."