This one has me stumped. Basically I have a Powerpoint presentation that has been created on a Power Mac G5 with OS X 10.4.7. The presentation works fine and all animations/graphics/text work and come across smoothly when viewing the presentation in Powerpoint. The version of Office on the Mac is Office 2004 with the latest service pack installed.
The problem stems from trying to stream the presentation over the internet. I'm using WebEx (a NetMeeting-type online application) to share the presentation over the internet. When clicking the mouse button to advance to the next slide or animation the effect is MUCH MUCH slower then when I go through the presentation in Powerpoint.
During the presentation I have a laptop signed in through my same internet connection (T1 line) but signed in as a participant. This way I can see exactly what the host/presenter sees and what the participants see on their computers. I know that the nature of the internet will cause a little latency, but waiting upwards of twenty to forty seconds for the animation to go through is a bit extreme I think. I might see the animation or next slide come up on the host/presenter computer three seconds after clicking, then I see the animation come across on the participant computer after another three seconds. Or sometimes I'll click for the next animation/slide on the host/presenter computer and I'll see it first appear on the participant computer after a few seconds, then after a few more seconds it will appear on the host/presenter computer.
I have tried converting the Powerpoint presentation to WebEx's proprietary .UCF format yet this accomplishes nothing except increasing the size from 5 Mb to 26 Mb. Another thing is last night I tested this Powerpoint file in an instant meeting and the animations/slides came across showing realtime on both the host/presenter and the participant computers, there was no slowdown. Yet this morning I used the same Powerpoint file from last night (using the same computers and internet connection) and it was incredibly sluggish (we're talking over 30 second delays).
I've spoken to WebEx technical support and they have suggested that it is either some kind of graphic or layer in the Powerpoint file that is causing the slowdowns, or that it may be caused by a recently installed Office update. They say the speed of the computers being used is irrelevent as long as they are above 500mhz (the laptop is a Celeron-M and the desktop is a mobile Barton running at 1.8ghz, also the G5 creating the presentations has dual 2ghz processors). They've also stated that the speed or type of the video card is irrelevent, both the host/presenter and participant computers are using standard plain-ol' onboard video while the G5 has a Radeon 9600.
I tested an older .UCF file that had been created a couple of years ago from an older Powerpoint (also from that time period) and the animations/slides came across in realtime with no slowdowns whatsoever. At the time that UCF had been created using an unofficial WebEx Document Viewer that had the ability to convert Powerpoints to .UCF files. Since then I have been using the WebEx Toolkit that installs a custom "WebEx" menu to Powerpoint and allows for conversion from directly within Powerpoint. Thinking that there might be a relation I restored an older computer to the state that it used to be in, that is Windows XP, Office XP, and this old version of the Document Viewer. Upon converting to .UCF this time the images were all blown out but I think that was caused by a separate issue with the graphics of this newer presentation file. The performance was better but still not satisfactory, plus WebEx specifically advises against using that Document Viewer program. They recommend using the Toolkit that adds the menu to PowerPoint.
I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone may have so long as its not something to the effect of "get rid of WebEx and use something else". Thanks all.
The problem stems from trying to stream the presentation over the internet. I'm using WebEx (a NetMeeting-type online application) to share the presentation over the internet. When clicking the mouse button to advance to the next slide or animation the effect is MUCH MUCH slower then when I go through the presentation in Powerpoint.
During the presentation I have a laptop signed in through my same internet connection (T1 line) but signed in as a participant. This way I can see exactly what the host/presenter sees and what the participants see on their computers. I know that the nature of the internet will cause a little latency, but waiting upwards of twenty to forty seconds for the animation to go through is a bit extreme I think. I might see the animation or next slide come up on the host/presenter computer three seconds after clicking, then I see the animation come across on the participant computer after another three seconds. Or sometimes I'll click for the next animation/slide on the host/presenter computer and I'll see it first appear on the participant computer after a few seconds, then after a few more seconds it will appear on the host/presenter computer.
I have tried converting the Powerpoint presentation to WebEx's proprietary .UCF format yet this accomplishes nothing except increasing the size from 5 Mb to 26 Mb. Another thing is last night I tested this Powerpoint file in an instant meeting and the animations/slides came across showing realtime on both the host/presenter and the participant computers, there was no slowdown. Yet this morning I used the same Powerpoint file from last night (using the same computers and internet connection) and it was incredibly sluggish (we're talking over 30 second delays).
I've spoken to WebEx technical support and they have suggested that it is either some kind of graphic or layer in the Powerpoint file that is causing the slowdowns, or that it may be caused by a recently installed Office update. They say the speed of the computers being used is irrelevent as long as they are above 500mhz (the laptop is a Celeron-M and the desktop is a mobile Barton running at 1.8ghz, also the G5 creating the presentations has dual 2ghz processors). They've also stated that the speed or type of the video card is irrelevent, both the host/presenter and participant computers are using standard plain-ol' onboard video while the G5 has a Radeon 9600.
I tested an older .UCF file that had been created a couple of years ago from an older Powerpoint (also from that time period) and the animations/slides came across in realtime with no slowdowns whatsoever. At the time that UCF had been created using an unofficial WebEx Document Viewer that had the ability to convert Powerpoints to .UCF files. Since then I have been using the WebEx Toolkit that installs a custom "WebEx" menu to Powerpoint and allows for conversion from directly within Powerpoint. Thinking that there might be a relation I restored an older computer to the state that it used to be in, that is Windows XP, Office XP, and this old version of the Document Viewer. Upon converting to .UCF this time the images were all blown out but I think that was caused by a separate issue with the graphics of this newer presentation file. The performance was better but still not satisfactory, plus WebEx specifically advises against using that Document Viewer program. They recommend using the Toolkit that adds the menu to PowerPoint.
I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone may have so long as its not something to the effect of "get rid of WebEx and use something else". Thanks all.
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