Help with equipment to show presentations

[William99]

Sorry, this is so long, but I really do need the help.
I need help from the experts on equipment and other hardware to set u
a remote computer that runs presentations. This is for a church tha
already has a setup they want upgraded. The computer is in a separat
room from the main hall.

Here is what they already have:

An old computer with an AMD 133 with Win95 and a 1.5 gig HD located i
a separate computer room.
A Logitech serial mouse attached to the computer
A second serial mouse in the main hall PA control booth connected to a
extension cable strung from the control booth to the computer room.
Corel Office with Presentations ver 8
An EIKI projector with a video cable strung from the projector to th
computer room

Here is how it currently works:

They start the presentation and then start a Logitech program tha
allows a type of “hot swap” of the serial connections. They unplug th
serial mouse from the back of the computer and plug in the extensio
that goes to the serial mouse at the control booth. This mouse (at th
controls) is how they advance the slides. They then unplug the monito
cable and plug in the extension to the projector. When this happens
the image then shows up on the screen.

Here is what I would like to propose:
1) An updated computer with larger HD
2) A video card that supports dual monitors, or at least
some A-B switches.
3) A back up plan – CD Burner and/or dual HDs for Ghost imaging
4) Switching to MS PowerPoint

My question is: Is there a better way to accomplish this? It canno
be too elaborate, as they cannot afford much. I will probably b
donating all my time and some of the hardware costs

 

[TAJ Simmons]

William

How far away is the other serial mouse?

It might be a lot easier all round to use a radio frequency controller...for
advancing the slides

This one works up to 100 feet away.
http://www.l3sys.com/keyrf/keyrf.html
I'm sure there are lots of others also.

Most projectors have a "monitor out" socket. So you could run a cable back
to your local monitor. So you can project and view the presentation at the
same time.

Another options is a "distribution amplifier" that basically takes one
signal (e.g. your monitor out from your pc) and converts it to many other
signals
http://www.tvone.com/signalpage.shtml
Again I'm sure there are lots of other makes and models.

One way of keeping the cost down is to use something called "open office"
that includes a presentation package similar to powerpoint. Although a lot
of computers these days come with microsoft office installed already (word,
excel, powerpoint, outlook, etc)

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com

 

[Ute Simon]

:
[...]

Here is what I would like to propose:
1) An updated computer with larger HD
2) A video card that supports dual monitors, or at least
some A-B switches.
3) A back up plan - CD Burner and/or dual HDs for Ghost imaging
4) Switching to MS PowerPoint

My question is: Is there a better way to accomplish this? It cannot
be too elaborate, as they cannot afford much. I will probably be
donating all my time and some of the hardware costs.

William,

I don't know HOW limited your financial resources are, but IMHO most of your
problems could be solved by buying a laptop computer:

1) Hard disks are large and nearly the same size as in PCs (the one I bought
some months ago came with 60 MB)
2) Video cards of most new laptops support dual monitors
3) Most laptop computers come with a CD Burner (or even a DVD burner) as a
standard
4) You might easily find one with PowerPoint pre-installed (Please note:
Office Home Edition up to 2002/xp did not include PowerPoint, but it is
included in most versions of Office 2003)

Another advantage: Because a laptop is portable, you can place it besides
the projector without needing quality-reducing extension cables. A laptop
will not much more expensive than a PC plus CD burner plus dual exit video
card.

Kind regards,
Ute