Presentations 2Go Support

VGA2USB device as Video source in Windows Media Encoder

support — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:44:13 GMT

When you want to capture videos in a presentation, you would normally create a new source in Windows Media Encoder and add the VGA2USB device as a video device.

When Windows Media Encoder doesn't detect a VGA signal on the VGA2USB device, it will return an error 'One or more codecs required to open this content could not be found' and will not allow you to store the configuration. To solve this issue you can configure VGA2USB to send a static image if no VGA source is available. To do this you need to configure VGA2USB.

Startup the VGA2USB application on your desktop (the green e icon). (If you are on windows7 be sure to run this as an administrator to persist the settings in registry).

Choose Capture and Configure Device and switch to the Directshow tab. Check the Fix resolution checkbox select a resolution you want to use (eg 1024*768). Then check the Default image checkbox and browse to an imagefile you want displayed by default. This image file needs to be a uncompressed bmp file.

Widescreen (16x9) support in Presentations2Go

support — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:27:02 GMT

To capture a presentation that is displayed on a projector using 16x9 resolution, two items are important:

1. You need Presentations2Go Encoder 2.3.3 or higher. It has an configuration option to define the resolution, the slides are captured in. All standard VGA resolutions are supported as long as the VGA2USB adapter supports it. A special resolution (named SOURCE) is available that follows the input resolution.

2. The VGA2USB device needs to be configured to prefer Wide Screen Resolutions. To configure this startup the VGA2USB application that can be found on your desktop (the green e icon). (If you are using Windows 7 then be sure to start it as administrator to have the setting stored persistent.)

Select Capture and check the Prefer wide VGA mode option.

Tuning tips for Windows Media Encoder

support — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:21:58 GMT

Want to get the best quality out of Windows Media Encoder then have a look at this site http://on10.net/blogs/benwagg/Best-practices-for-Windows-Media-Encoder-in-2009/

Beware however that you might need a faster PC to do the encoding.

Preferred video position

ovonder — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:06:01 GMT

You can force the preferred video position by adding the following string to the URL:

&layout=..

There are 4 options

1 Video left
2 Video right
3 Floating video
4 Floating slide

Example:

http://nhtv.presentations2go.eu/P2GTV/viewer.html?path=0907-268/2009/12/11/1/video_post.wmv&layout=2

Change the background image of an recording

ovonder — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 13:52:39 GMT

You can overrule the background of an individual recording by adding the following string behind the URL:

&BackgroundImageUrl=http://...

for example:

http://p2g.presentations2go.eu/P2GTV/VideoViewer.html?path=LearningValley/Video/2009/12/09/1/nobroadcast.wmv&BackgroundImageUrl=http://wallpapers.free-review.net/wallpapers/42/Nature_Green.jpg

VGA2USB tricks

support — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:55:38 GMT

Sometimes the VGA2USB has a hard time detecting the VGA resolution used in a specific laptop/beamer combination. The result will be that Presentations2Go Encoder will not capture as many frames as it should. Because of the VGA2USB resolution mismatch, no data is sent to the Encoder and no slides can be captured.

The VGA2USB icon on your desktop allows you access to some interesting setting.

You can for the detected resolution to a fixed setting overriding the auto detect mechanism. To do this choose Capture/Configure Device. Then the DirectShow tab and then select the Fix resolution option. You can then choose a fixed VGA resolution.

When you want to use the VGA2USB device to capture the VGA signal as a Video stream (eg if you have movie fragments in your presentation), you can define the VGA2USB as an extra video capture device in Windows Media Encoder. During recording your can then switch between the various video sources.

However when you start a recording while no VGA signal is present (yet) you will get an error message in Windows Media Encoder. This also may happen if you want to save the Windows Media Encoder profile. The cause of the error is the missing video signal on the VGA2USB device. You can however force the VGA2USB adapter to sent a bitmap when no video signal is present. To accomplish this act as follows.

Start the VGA2USB console application and choose Capture/Configure Device. Then the DirectShow tab and then check the Default image checkbox. You may now select a bitmap (it should be a none compressed .bmp picture in a 4*3 aspect ratio).

Silverlight supported codecs

support — Mon, 18 May 2009 15:27:33 GMT

When you use Silverlight to play Presentations2Go recordings, remember the not all Windows Media Encoder codecs are supported in Silverlight.

MSDN list the supported (and unsupported) codecs here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc189080(VS.95).aspx

Unsupported Formats

The following formats are not supported:

Interlaced video content
Windows Media Screen
Windows Media Audio Professional
Windows Media Voice
Combination of Windows Media Video and MP3 (WMV video + MP3 audio)
Windows Media Video using odd (not divisible by two) dimensioned frames; for example, 127 x 135

Supported Formats

The MediaElement object supports the following formats. These encodings are supported regardless of the file name extension.

Video

WMV1: Windows Media Video 7
WMV2: Windows Media Video 8
WMV3: Windows Media Video 9
WMVA: Windows Media Video Advanced Profile, non-VC-1
WMVC1: Windows Media Video Advanced Profile, VC-1

Audio

WMA 7: Windows Media Audio 7
WMA 8: Windows Media Audio 8
WMA 9: Windows Media Audio 9
WMA 10: Windows Media Audio 10
MP3: ISO/MPEG Layer-3
- Input: ISO/MPEG Layer-3 data stream
- Channel configurations: mono, stereo
- Sampling frequencies: 8, 11.025, 12, 16, 22.05, 24, 32, 44.1, and 48 kHz
- Bit rates: 8-320 kbps, variable bit rate
- Limitations: "free format mode" (see ISO/IEC 11172-3, sub clause 2.4.2.3) is not supported.

Update old (local) recordings to use the new silverlight player.

support — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:19:27 GMT

Since version 2.2.2.9 of the encoder application, local recordings (from your harddisk or CD) can be played with the new silverlight player.

Recordings created with the 2.2.2.9 encoder will automatically have the right settings but older recordings need a modification.

The first step is to republish the old recordings with the new (2.2.2.9 or newer) encoder application. This will convert the recording to its new format.

To do this use the republish option in the Presentations2Go encoder and republish each individual recordings.

The second step is to update the player files in all recordings.

This requires two steps.

1) First create a new (local) recording. A recording of a minute or so is sufficient. This will be the source for the next step.

2) Copy the player files to all directories that have a recording.

The easiest way to do this is by means of a smal batch file (see below). Just copy the lines below to a file in notepad and safe that file in c:\p2g or another folder if you used another installation directory.

Safe the file as UpdateP2G.cmd

The start the batch file in a DOS prompt in the directory where you created the cmd file (in c:\p2g) and give it the full path to the recording you just created.

So try:

Start/Run/Cmd

In the dos box type: cd c:\p2g

Then type: UpdateP2G c:\p2g\postprocessing\2009\03\31\1

The batchfile will show the directories it updates. and notify you when it is done.

=============================

The contens of the file:

@echo off
cls
Echo Update script for Presentations2Go recordings
Echo =============================================
Echo Usage: "UpdateP2G.cmd sourcefolder". Eg. UpdateP2G c:\p2g\recordings\2009\03\31\1
IF (%1 == "") goto NoInput
IF NOT EXIST "%1\Viewer.html" GOTO NOFILE1
IF NOT EXIST "%1\SilverLightviewer.html" GOTO NOFILE2
IF NOT EXIST "%1\Presentations2Go.xap" GOTO NOFILE3
ECHO Starting replacing of Viewer.html.
FOR /R %%d IN (Viewer.html) DO IF EXIST %%~dpd\Viewer.html (copy/y %1\Viewer.html %%~dpd && ECHO "Copying Viewer.html to %%~dpd")
ECHO Starting replacing of SilverLightviewer.html.
FOR /R %%d IN (SilverLightviewer.html ) DO IF EXIST %%~dpd\SilverLightviewer.html (copy/y %1\SilverLightviewer.html %%~dpd && ECHO "Copying SilverLightviewer.html to %%~dpd")
ECHO Starting replacing of Presentations2Go.xap.
FOR /R %%d IN (Presentations2Go.xap) DO IF EXIST %%~dpd\Presentations2Go.xap (copy/y %1\Presentations2Go.xap %%~dpd && ECHO "Copying Presentations2Go.xap to %%~dpd")
ECHO Done replacing
GOTO END

:NOFILE1
Echo Input file Viewer.html not found in %1
GOTO END
:NOFILE2
Echo Input file SilverLightviewer.html not found in %1
GOTO END
:NOFILE3
Echo Input file Presentations2Go.xap not found in %1
GOTO END
:NoInput
Echo No input paramaters supplied
Echo Usage: "UpdateP2G.cmd sourcefolder". Eg. UpdateP2G c:\p2g\recordings\2009\03\31\1
:END

TCPBufferSize and republish speed

support — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 11:31:13 GMT

Since version 2.2.2.7 of the Presentations2Go Pro Encoder there is a new config parameter TCPBuffersize in EncoderApplication.exe.config file.

This parameter defines the segmentsize that is used to upload a recording to the server.

De default setting of the parameter is 32768 (bytes) but experience has learned that the optimum value is dependent on your network connectoin.

In fast networks (>= 100Mb) a buffersize of 32K resulted in a transfer speed of about 80Mb. Increasing the buffersize to 64K increased the speed to >120Mb.

In slow networks however a larger buffersize decreased the transfer speed and an optimum of 8K (8096) was found.

So if you experience transfer rates that seem below what you would expect in your network, try changing the buffersize to a lower value.

For example go from 32678 to 16384 or 8192 or 4096. In fast networks you could even go up to 65536.

In future versions of the Presentations2Go Pro Encoder the TCPBuffersize will be a configurable parameter in the config interface.