ProPresenter strikes again
June 9, 2008
For a perfect program run on a perfect computer, it sure is out to get me. This past Sunday morning I was running sound/video for a volunteer orientation. Part of that orientation was to show a video, which was given to me on a USB stick. On the disk were two copies of the video, higher quality and lower quality. I added the lower quality video to the playlist and tested it, video played in its entirety with no problem.
Later my boss came in (still before the event started) and asked if the higher quality video had worked and if I tested it. I explained that I just worked with the lower quality and she requested that I try the higher quality. By this time people were already gathered in the room and I had no video switcher to keep the video off the screens for people to see. So she says just to try it out in Quicktime “because if it works in Quicktime, it will definitely work in ProPresenter”.
So I do, and the video stutters a little. Then I open the lower quality video and play the whole thing in Quicktime, which works fine. I add the video back to the playlist and the event starts.
It comes time to start the video, and it doesn’t start. I click. Nothing happens, I click a couple of times, finally the video starts. And stutters, and pauses, and resumes and stutters. It stopped for 1 second every 4 or 5 seconds. I was so embarrassed, I tested this video in advance, even played it in Quicktime, there is no reason why this should have been happening. I’m guessing the CPU was busy working on something else, but darned if I know what. Do Macs have an equivalent to the Task Manager in Windows that lets you see all running processes and their CPU usage?
So that’s my story. I don’t know what I could have done differently. I was wrestling with whether or not to stop the video or try something else, but I didn’t have DVD backup or anything to fall back on, so I let it run through the whole 3 minutes that way. I’m thinking I’m just going to use my own laptop and MediaShout for all future events. At least until North Point kicks me out for defiling their equipment like that.
June 9, 2008 at 8:41 am
yes, Macs have an activity monitor..in fact, its called “activity monitor”
were you trying to play the file from the USB drive?
June 9, 2008 at 12:08 pm
There’s an activity monitor in the Utilities folder (in the Applications folder).
My question/concern is that you may have had some other programs up r something. We use ProPresenter in our man auditorium and youth room, and we hardly ever have issues, but on both of those computers, I have taken off any and all programs that aren’t necessary.
Anyway, sorry you had issues.
June 9, 2008 at 2:45 pm
The irony is that my first run through the video may have been off the USB stick. When I had tested both videos in Quicktime, I had copied them to the desktop. When I went back to Pro, I couldn’t remember if I had really dragged the desktop copy or the USB copy into the playlist. That’s why I deleted the slide and re-added it from the desktop just to make sure.
The root of the problem is that I just don’t know my way around Macs to troubleshoot this sort of thing. The same could have happened in MediaShout but at least I’d know what to do and probably could have fixed it and restarted the video almost instantly.