[Martin Cermak]

Sorry about the silence guys, I had some deadlines to catch.

I should have mentioned this clearly in my first message, but anyways, I’m a PhD student and what I want to do is my free time project (outdoorsy/climate change/sustainability one). I can’t really pay for software which is double my rent ☺ I was hoping for some progressive per-performance pricing of dedicated programs, but apparently that’s not how it works.

I have to say that I have mixed feelings about power point. Not too long ago I put a simple AVCHD H.264 600x800px video in my slides, and it didn’t go too well. First it was that second or two (which felt like forever) before the video “loaed” and then it didn’t play smooth at all. There were these “jerky” breaks as if someone rewound the video every now and then. I don’t want to make conclusions based on this one case, but in general, everytime I put a video in a power point presentation, there is a delay, and the moments before it starts playing are very stressful! ☺ That being said, I underestimated power point. I had no idea that you can do so much with that. I’ll keep on playing with it, but as per now, I’m not sure if I can get the desired level of flexibility out of it. Let me give one more example:

Imagine you are running a one-man show. Nobody’s there to help you with your slides, timing, etc. You have a bunch of pictures, an mp3 music file and an mp4 video file. You prepared the music and the video files so that when they play after each other, the outcome is seamless. Let’s say you start your presentation with the music file, have it looping, and flip through the pictures. When you’re at the last picture, you tell your audience you’re going to play a video for them. Now it gets tricky. You want to transition from the last picture into the video so that the music is seamless. I don’t know if I’m missing something, but I don’t think this is achievable with power point, is it? I mean, if the timing of the slides is set, I might see the way how to do it, but if you want to give yourself a space to talk for as long/as short as you want, I don’t think it’s doable. I’m more than happy to be wrong though! Maybe I’m just missing some basic concept?

As for the DVD authoring software, that’s definitely a good idea. I’ve never worked with one, I don’t really know how they work, but I’ll look into that.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts! I know I’m the worst… asking for miraculous features and not wanting to pay for them ☺ I wish this was my full-on project with a real budget, but unfortunately it isn’t. At least for now.

[Martin Cermak]

Thanks Thomas! That was an exhaustive answer! I really appreciate it.

I’ve browsed their websites, watched some youtube tutorials and both programs seem very good. Actually, I’m afraid “too good for me”. I’m not a professional, I don’t really need multiple displays/projectors and all the fancy features, and most importantly I can’t afford the pricey licenses. All I need is a simple “interactive timeline player”. I’ll keep on searching though. Maybe I could just script some of the open source media players? Maybe someone else sees this and will know a simple workaround? We’ll see.