Triggering cues from MS Powerpoint

[MentAl]

Hi folks,

I've seen the FAQ and a few posts on this forum describing ways to utilise SCS to project images etcetera. I am working on an existing show and just changing the sound setup. The show currently runs to a Powerpoint presentation that has many, many slides, most of which have a number of custom animations in them. As such it's not very easy to convert the show. This show runs without an operator, just two performers.
My question is: Is there a way anyone can think of to cause Powerpoint to send a signal that SCS could interpret as a cue trigger? Perhaps a third party program or add-on that makes Powerpoint send a midi signal, one that can be routed internally within a PC...?

Thanks for any help you can offer,

Daniel McCusker

[derick]

You could experiment with midi files attached to the Powerpoint, and route them with MidiYoke to SCS
I never done it, but it is worth trying.

[Mike Daniell]

derick's suggestion is worth trying, but you may find that PowerPoint will not route the MIDI to "MIDI Yoke: 1" but to the default MIDI device (probably "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth"). It seems there's no facility in PowerPoint to select a different MIDI output, and I haven't had any success in trying to change the Windows default MIDI device.

You say that the show "runs with an operator, just two performers". Does that mean that when you start the PowerPoint it runs through to the end without manual intervention? If so then you could create a WMV file from the PowerPoint presentation (using Save As in PowerPoint) and run the WMV file as a video file in SCS. You could then set your audio file cues to auto-start a nominated time after the start of the video file cue.

[derick]

I have no problem selecting Midi Yoke 1 as default midi out on my XP machine
I did not tested it on a Win7 system yet

[Mike Daniell]

Unfortunately it's not so easy under Windows 7. One of the web pages I found using Google is Change default MIDI device in Windows 7 - Microsoft Answers. This includes the following comment from a support engineer: There are some limitations when it comes to MIDI in Windows 7. The ability to choose a different hardware or software MIDI synthesizer other than the default Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth has been removed from the user interface for audio configuration in Windows 7. I can't make much sense of the solutions offered by the support engineer. Dropping this feature makes you wonder about some of the decisions made by Microsoft.

[derick]

I did a search on my Win7 machine and on Google, and indeed, no way to set Midi Yoke as default.
I think this was a insane decision from Windows, hope they get it back in Windows 8

As for the topic starter, you can also attach your audio files in Powerpoint and let them start automatically when they are needed

[MentAl]

I meant to say "without an operator". More precisely, one of the performers operates the AV through a small handheld laser pointer/powerpoint commander device.

I'll investigate the MIDI idea. At the moment I have a standard license, so I'll see if the theatre computers are able to do the MIDI routing first, before I upgrade.

Cheers,

Daniel