Live Switching and CG

[J_Camp]

Hi,

I'm new to the Toaster and here's my situation.

We currently use PowerPoint as our primary projection tool, so this is a large change for us. To help with the transition, is it possible to still use PowerPoint as our CG by chroma keying out the background, while still being able to transition between camera shots/DDRs behind it?

Our VT3 will be ready next week and, having cut my teeth on the original Toaster in the early 90s, I'm really excited to get my hands on it.

Thanks.

[bbeanan]

Actually what you will want to do is just save your slides as PNG files (well I use PNG files) with Alpha. Then bring them into a DDR selecting the DDR on the DSK bus. Then as needed fade up the DSK and Fade Out the DSK. Pretty easy...

Now where it gets tricky is if you want to do an actual Power Point Presentation via the VT3... Again you have to export your slide and bring them into a DDR... But then you lose the slide transistions and slide builds (where you have say the first line appear the the next and so on as you click) So far the best solutions I have heard are:

1) Use a scan converter.
2) Use a good LCD monitor with a camera shooting the screen.
3) Do the DDR thing I said above.
4) Have the presentations created in Flash or Swish where you can export as an AVI file which will play in a DDR

I'm sure now that this "can of worms" has been opened about 20 other users will chime in VERY VERY soon. Most of us have been asking for a PowerPoint plug-in / support.

[J_Camp]

Thanks for the reply, but I think I didn't make myself clear. My fault.

I'm fine with making pages in CG to run in a DDR. What I'm trying to do is retain the 2nd computer using Powerpoint for its interface, to make the transition easier for my volunteers. I'll have one guy on the RS-8 controller switching and another on the mouse and keyboard on the toaster handling engineering. What I'd like to do is have the 2nd computer running PowerPoint with a one color background that I key out to use the CG.

Thanks.

[jcupp]

AFAIK there is no easy way to do this. The switcher doesn't really allow you to get into and out of a chroma key neatly so it's tough to do live. And there is no way to import a video stream live from another computer with an alpha channel either.

[rjking]

The way that we have done exactly this is:

(please note, the following solution requires a little extra $$$) :D

1) Get a good scan converter to convert the Powerpoint VGA output into a video signal

2) Buy another toaster

3) Use the second toaster as a dsk only, keying the pp presentation over your live-switch from the first toaster

Advantages: Solves your problem

Dis-advantages: Costs a little money, introduces a *noticeable* delay in your final video output (which will be a problem if you're displaying program output live).

Since we have two toaster setups, and a nice extron s/c, we have been able to do this in the past, but as I mentioned previously, the delay is a bear. Other than that - buy some VERY expensive equipment other than the toaster... hey - for $5k is has to have SOME limitations, right...?