PowerPoint and Presenting Stuff

Vyew 2.0 in Public Beta

Vyew announced the public beta release of Vyew 2.0, a web conferencing and always-on collaboration platform that enables shared visual communication from any browser almost instantly without software installations. This is a major version released that includes several new and expanded features.

Read more on the Vyew site.

Filed Under: Companion Programs
Tagged as: Companion, Conferencing, PowerPoint, Training, Whiteboard

Articulate Updates Engage

Articulate has issued a free upgrade for Engage, their interaction creation tool for e-learning courses. This free upgrade addresses several minor issues.

Learn more on the Articulate site.

Filed Under: Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, Articulate, Engage, Online Presentations, PowerPoint

Cinematize: Conversation with Naoko Miyazaki

Naoko Miyazaki is one of the founding members and the VP of Marketing and Sales at Miraizon. Before Miraizon, she held various marketing and management positions at software companies in Tokyo and Silicon Valley, California.

In this conversation, Naoko discusses Miraizon’s DVD extraction program Cinematize, and how PowerPoint users can typically use Cinematize.

Geetesh: Tell us more about Cinematize and how it evolved. Also, how does the product work with commercial, encrypted DVDs?

Naoko: Cinematize 2’s predecessor, Cinematize 1, was originally released in the summer of 2003. At that time, we noticed that there were already many one-to-one DVD copy tools but no single tool that allowed you to easily and quickly extract editable clips off of DVDs while keeping the original high quality. We also noticed that more and more people were using DVDs purely as a medium of storage, taking advantage of the high capacity to replace tapes and CDs. We saw people creating family videos on DVD. We saw churches using DVDs to capture their Sunday services. Doctors were using DVDs to record their operations. We felt it was necessary to create an easy-to-use tool that allowed not only pros but also amateurs to easily extract audio and video clips off of their DVDs for reuse.

Cinematize 2 and Cinematize 2 Pro evolved to meet the needs of customers who wanted increased control over the extraction process. We also wanted to better handle both the increasingly complex DVDs being produced by professionals as well as the discs produced by popular DVD recorders.

Now the question of commercial encrypted DVDs. First of all, as I said before, many of our customers are using non-commercial DVDs such as those they created themselves or that are created for them by service bureaus. Also, some older commercial DVDs and European commercial DVDs are not encrypted at all. Most of the recent Hollywood blockbusters are encrypted, however, and we cannot avoid addressing the issue of how to handle them. Our software packaging and website include the disclaimer that Cinematize extracts from any DVDs including commercial DVDs decrypted with popular ripping tools.

In the US, we have a law called the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) which makes “circumvention of encryption” illegal. This provision of the DMCA, however, contradicts the long-established “fair use” provision of existing copyright law which legally allows duplication and modification of copyrighted materials for non-commercial purposes. The fair-use provision of copyright law is what permits photocopiers and VCRs, for example, to be sold and used freely. We are not legal experts, but as far as we know nobody has really resolved the fundamental conflict between the DMCA and the fair-use provision. It has not been tested fully in courts.

The movie studios seem to prefer the current ambiguity of the law because it allows them to sue any company that includes decryption technology in their products. To avoid these problems, Miraizon as a commercial software company for legal, rather than technical or marketing reasons, does not provide any capability to remove encryption from DVDs. Instead, users must do this on their own and at their own risk. As far as we know, no individual has ever been prosecuted for ripping a DVD. In fact, the process of removing DVD encryption has become rather an open secret these days, covered in mainstream computer magazines. I won’t go into any details, but there seem to be plenty of free decryption tools available out there for anyone who cares to look for them.

Geetesh: How do PowerPoint users typically use Cinematize?

Naoko: Teachers are a good example of combining PowerPoint with Cinematize. We have many teachers from the middle school to the college level using Cinematize 2 to create PowerPoint presentations with embedded multimedia clips. Teachers have a limited time to show what they want to their students. Instead of the time-consuming process of playing a DVD, finding the right location, and then switching to another DVD, if you can gather the right movie clips beforehand and put them in your PowerPoint presentation, you can deliver much more efficient and effective lectures.

We also know that many medical doctors use Cinematize to create PowerPoint presentations. They often record surgical procedures and patient interviews on DVDs, extract the highlights, put them into PowerPoint, and use these presentations in medical conferences or for teaching purposes.

Another popular application is creating PowerPoint presentations for weddings and parties. Many people now have a service bureau transfer their old VHS tapes or 8 mm movies to DVDs. Cinematize is very useful in extracting short clips off of those DVDs and converting them into formats compatible with PowerPoint.

With Cinematize, you can extract audio, video, and subtitles, alone or together as a movie. You can also create a still image off of DVDs. So, PowerPoint users can choose just the right format for their presentations.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Interviews, Movies, PowerPoint

Cinematize 2 Pro

Cinematize extracts movie clips from a DVD — then it saves those extracts into different movie file formats that can be inserted in PowerPoint. And now the folks who create Cinematize have launched a Professional version of the same product. So, what does it do better than the basic version?

Read the Indezine review of Cinematize 2 Pro.

Filed Under: Add-ins
Tagged as: Add-in, Movies, PowerPoint

PowerShrink: Conversation with Bronwyn Lane

Bronwyn Lane is from TopByteLabs, a Germany-based company that creates several optimization programs including a PowerPoint file optimization software called PowerShrink.

In this conversation, Bronwyn tells us more about the need for PowerShrink, and how it performs.

Geetesh: Tell us more about yourself and PowerShrink.

Bronwyn: PowerShrink was founded in early 2004. At that time, the product’s main aim was to compress a PowerPoint document while keeping the presentation itself at its best. Since 2004, we at TopByteLabs have made many upgrades to make the product more specific and unique. We now provide free templates, trial versions and even other software programs to complement PowerShrink.

I joined TopByteLabs Ltd. in July 2006. My responsibilities are in helping market all their programs — something that suits my marketing background immensely. I wanted to work with a self-driven, qualified team that would help me as much as I could help them. In TopByteLabs, I have found that. Not only are they a energetic fun team, they also inspire each other.

Geetesh: How does PowerShrink evaluate the presentation, and compress it?

Bronwyn: PowerShrink starts with evaluating the Microsoft PowerPoint file, looking for embedded pictures and objects. This is important for file security so that no data gets lost.

When this is done, the pictures and objects are optimized to the user specifications set in the program settings. At this point, PowerShrink creates a copy of the presentation never putting the original file at risk, also saving a copy of the original. The copy is created with embedded images that are optimized (shrunk). At this stage, embedded objects are converted to pictures, if this option was chosen.

PowerShrink also has the option to batch-shrink multiple files. The average compression rate for PowerShrink is 62%. This saves time and space for everyone using PowerShrink.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog post or content are those of the authors or the interviewees and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company.

Filed Under: Interviews
Tagged as: Add-in, Interviews, PowerPoint