UKY script--draft #1 ... Comments from Nestor

[John A. Greenfield]

On Tue, 17 Aug 1999, Nestor J. Zaluzec wrote:

> 
> -----------------
> Other Observations
> -----------------
> 
> During the UNM demo, I found it difficult to know how things were going
> at the remote sites, since my only  view into the Chautauqua was
> via  VIC windows. Remember I am be doing the presentation/demo from
> my TPMlab, not the ANL multi-media or Futures Lab so I do not have the
> advantage of seeing "all" the sites on a large screen.  This obviously
> creates problems for a lone presenter like me.
> 
> Here are some of my observations/thoughts:
> 
> 
> 1.) As a speaker  I glean alot from the faces of the audience, I could not see
> any of them effectively from any of my VIC screens.  By watching the
> audience It allows me to change the flow of a talk/demo by gauging the audience
> reaction. I've done lots of one-on-few sessions where I have a full head shots
> of my participants, this allows me to interact effectively. The only audience
> shots I had available during UNM were essentially useless.  The added problem
> for me is obviously not enough landscape on my lone Mbone screen, but that
> is a local problem.  Somehow we need to allow a lone remote presenter the
> interaction with the audience. In the Future's Lab that is easy, but at a
> site like mine it is not. Perhaps a slowing scanning video shot of the
> front few rows of the audience on a predefined window would do the trick?
> 

Scanning view is fairly difficult to implement, and runs the risk of
inducing motion sickness in the remote audiences. Also there are a limited
number of cameras and camera angles available.

> 2.) It is also clearly important for a speaker to know what is on the main
> screen at all times, again from my site  I could not tell if the slides
> changed or
> which Netscape window was  on screen.  The reason, no one thought to point a
> wide angle camera at the master screen while I was talking. I should have
> asked for this while I was speaking but since  we were behind schedule I
> was rushing and did not think to do so.
>

Actually, I believe the MAIN camera was always pointed at the screen
during your talk. Part of the time it was zoomed in on some part of the
screen in order to provide info for the sites taht were not getting
distributed powerpoint or web page views. For example, I know some sites
lost sync with the powerpoint, so I zoomed in on that for a while. Later,
I zoomed in on the web page in order to handle the sites that didn't
manage to get a copy of it up. The MAIN camera was not situated in a good
position to show much of anything except the main screen, so I know it was
pointed at it, but it probably wasn't very helpful to you at vic size.
Remember that you are looking at a full shot of a 20' wide screen in which
your powerpoint is only half the screen at most (much less than that if
you want both power point, netscape and your head shot up as well). With a
20' screen and 2 projectors, there is a severe limitation on available
screen real estate.

The lesson here is that some advance communication/rehearsal between
remote presenter and chautauqua site is very useful, to let the presenter
know where things are being shown and what he can do with them. I have
also noticed many problems with people being able to find the available
camera views from a given site in a hurry especially since if they get
seperated form one another during startup -- Better labeling might be in
order.
 
> I basically just  assumed that the local people heard my audio cues and
> kept up with me.   As such I think it will help if a Camera/VIC window was
> pointing
> at the screen, even though it will be  largely illegible, I will be able to
> tell if slides/views
> are changing as I  talk the remote   sites through the live demo.
> 

> 3.) Finally a global comment.
> 
> The remote operation of slides via a Windoze NT dppt protocol might need
> to be reconsidered. Something more cross-platform like VNC   might be
> appropriate to at least also evalutate / test out.  Certainly without any
> Windoze machines
> here in the TPMLab  dppt it doesn't do me any good. The obvious problem
> with VNC
> (or the commerical equivalents like  Timbuktu) is that they are dogs and
> slow everyone down since it tends to  require complete screen redraws on
> all sites. .
> But it does allow the remote  user complete screen control
> independent of platform of the viewer and presenter. I'm sure everyone
> knows about this, but thought I would add my 2 cents.
> 

The problem with this is that the display method we are using involves
using many different windows being put up on a single windows NT desktop.
If an application takes control of the whole screen, it takes control of
the "whole screen". This means that running VNC would eliminate the
ability to show netscape or any of the remote video feed on the main
screen at the same time. I completely agree that some better method of
running distributed powerpoint, especially one that handles animations and
movies is vitally needed. On the other hand, it is probably too late to
make many changes for the UKy chautauqua.

 
**************************************************************
John Greenfield
green at arc.unm.edu
University of New Mexico
THE ALBUQUERQUE HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING CENTER
Office # 505-277-8249
Direct # 505-277-9545
Fax #    505-277-8235 
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