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Presentations with VideoScribe instead of PowerPoint

Hi


I like VideoScribe so much that I would like to use it instead of PowerPoint :)


Below are a number of ideas that I would like to propose:

1) In preview mode would it be possible to add a tick box "Presentation mode" where the preview will stop after each animation and I can use mouse click to move on to the next one? This would allow me to talk during a webinar/session/presentation and not worry about timing. I believe this simple change would make things a lot easier.

2) Could you allow "playlists" where I can add existing presentations (scribe files) and move from one to another one easily? This is similar to powerpoint slides on left side but I prefer "playlist" because I have some shared slides likes Q&As and having a "link" to scribe files means that I need to update it only once and all future webinars will use the same updated scribe file.

3) I realize point 2 might take some time so I would like to offer an alternative approach which is ability to open scribe file directly from my PC folder, this would allow me to create a folder with shortcuts and get most of point 2 functionality, except moving fluidly to next presentation. The problem I have is that I can open scribe file using your program but it asked me to log in and loads the presentations which is not ideal for a webinar. Ideally when I open the file and go directly to preview mode (ideally with point one implemented). This option also means I don't have to export scribe file to wmv which takes a bit of time especially important for minor refinements/fixes.


Thank you for considering my suggestions.

Take care

Emil

2 people like this idea
Yes, Emil, you're right.  Sometimes my participants would ask questions or clarifications during a presentation and if I cannot "pause" the presentation and clarify for them, it will seem very awkward to move on to the next topic.  If we have "manual" control over the playback of the presentation would be fantastic.

Cheers

Daniel

 

Hi Emil and Daniel,


Thanks for your suggestions/feedback!

Having some kind of manual control over your presentation is an idea that has come up before and is on our list of things to look into.
Also, regarding having a playlist, this would be difficult to do in the app itself as each scribe would have to load before it would play, but you could render your scribes as video files and put them together in a play list.

Powerpoint (or Keynote on Mac) has rich capabilities for live presentations. This would be time consuming and expensive for Sparkol to duplicate in VideoScribe.


Here's a flexible way to do what you need:

  1. Divide your topic into sub-topics, with the intent that you can pause for questions/discussion after each sub-topic. 
  2. Create a Scribe for each sub-topic. 
  3. Design a standard transition between sub-topics. I start each sub-topic with a blank screen, and end each sub-topic with the most recent scribed content static on-screen, for reference during questions. 
  4. In PowerPoint, each sub-topic gets its own slide. Match the slide background to the Scribe background so viewers see no difference between Scribe content and PowerPoint content.

There are many advantages to this approach.
  • It is easier to edit sub-topics than a long video.
  • It is MUCH easier to insert new content into the middle of a longer presentation when you merely need to create one or more new sub-topics, than to edit a previous Scribe to insert new material in the middle.
  • If you create multiple presentations around the same topic, you will find yourself reusing some of your sub-topics like building blocks.
  • You can insert any PowerPoint content in between sub-topics.

When you start to think about VideoScribe as creating clips for use in other apps, or in conjunction with clips created in other apps, it becomes even more useful. Most of my videos are made of 2-10 Scribes stitched together using another application, sometimes serially, sometimes in layers. 

Dave said "Powerpoint (or Keynote on Mac) has rich capabilities for live presentations. This would be time consuming and expensive for Sparkol to duplicate in VideoScribe"


Don't think we're asking for a bunch of "rich capabilities" just the ability to pause...with one finger.  


Currently you can import into Powerpoint and use Alt-P to alternate between play/pause but, during a presentation that get pretty awkward. (Hey developers, can you mimick the alt-P so that, in powerpoint mode, while in screen show, left or right click = alt-P, just an idea).


Also, it would be nice to be able  to handout, on one sheet, the canvas.  Personally, I would do that after the pitch.

I'd also really appreciate the ability to manually control my scribes, so I can use them while I present to the audience. I prefer the idea of building the whole presentation as a single scribe which pauses between "scenes" (a bit like Prezi) - rather than having lots of mini scribe clips. It could then also double up as a video with a voice-over (without the pauses, of course).


Any sign of this feature appearing any time soon? I'd love to use it for a conference I'm presenting at in September.

related information about pausing:

1) in youtube pressing the K key on your keyboard will pause/unpause your video
2) in Youtube clicking your video will pause/unpause your video
3) in youtube pressing the spacebar will pause/unpause your video unless your browser is set up to use spacebar to scroll, in which case it may scroll your youtube page instead of pausing/unpausing the video.
4) in powerpoint, clicking the video will pause/unpause
5) in powerpoint you can use bookmarks to make your video pause at intervals decided by you, and resume with a click
6) some video players will pause/unpause when you press the spacebar.

-Mike (videoscribe user)

 

Yes, you can use VideoScribe within Powerpoint and combine the best of both worlds. The engaging animation style of VideoScribe with the control of Powerpoint. You can add multiple scribe videos to a single Powerpoint file by creating separate scribes, rendering them as videos and importing into separate Powerpoint slides. As Mike said, you can pause videos within Powerpoint by either clicking or using bookmarks.

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