Presenter 8 video record fails to work with firewire camcorder

[WHFitch]

Tried to record with camcorder connected via firewire. Presenter video creator crashed. Poor results for a highly anticipated "upgrade". Problem with installed "Adobe-Pr-VC.exe" app. Wish that Adobe would test their products instead of having us doing their Quality Control. But, I guess this is what they would describe as being a "feature". Glad I'm finding all these problems during the "trial" period.

[Mukul_Adobe]

Hello,

I am Mukul from Adobe Presenter Engg Team. Sorry to know that you are facing issues with Adobe Presenter video creator tool.

Adobe Presenter is not supported with firewire as of now. Please try to connect another external web camera and try recording. If you find any issues, please email to mvlele@adobe.com and we will help you resolve the issue.

Regards,

Mukul

Adobe Presenter Engg. Team.

[WHFitch]

Sorry to hear that Presenter 8 is restricted to working only with a low

quality camera source. I do a lot of video recording of corporate training

presentations for use in Presenter that necessitates using firewire

connections. I'm not seeing any real advantage to upgrading to version 8.

Have you any suggestions for work-arounds, other than using a webcam? Will a

USB video breakout box work?

Best Regards, Bill

Bill Fitch

CAPTURZ Multimedia

2 Clayton Ave.

Wilmington, DE 19809

302-593-5101

bill.fitch@verizon.net

[Guest]

Hello Bill,

I reported a similar issue on August, 9 :  "Presenter 8 crashes after connecting external Firewire cam"

("http://forums.adobe.com/message/4609394#4609394")

The lack of support for FireWire connections is making the product less usefull than I tought it would. We also record conferences and corporate training presentations, and recording the speaker with just a low quality webcam is not always the best option (limited options of framing, zooming, panning, tilting, following the speaker ... they are not always standing on the same spot ).

Being in the "trial" period still, I digitized and copied a pre-recorded videofile of a recent presentation on my PC and tried to synchronize it with the PowerPoint presentation, but then I found out that I need to split up my complete recording in as many individual pieces of video as the amount of slides the speaker presents. Presenter only allows to import and synchronize one videofile with one particular slide. This type of post-processing is time-consuming and inefficient.

I also can't ask the trainer to do his/her presentation in a classroom first before an audience, and then repeat the whole presentation again afterwards in front of his/her webcam to record it to make it available for people who couldn't attend the session.

That is why the connection of an external camera or recorder is a necessity. There is nothing as easy and efficient as having a camera at the back of the class or conference room, and synchronize the camera image with the PowerPoint slides in real-time, while the speaker is presenting the slides before an audience. We simply don't have the time to go through a time consuming post-processing cycle by cutting the recorded presentation into several individual videofiles and importing them into the individual slides, or asking the speaker to repeat the presentation for the 2nd time in front of a webcam.  Time is Money.

I also found out that only presentations recorded in real-time with a webcam (via the RECORD button on the toolbar) gives me the possibility to upload the presentation to YouTube. When using the possibility to import a videofile to a slide via the Presenter toolbar (Video --> import), it only gives me the possibility to publish to My Computer (or network), to Adobe Connect or to a PDF-file.  No YouTube publishing possibility here anymore.

Why not, Adobe ?

Company policy to only connect to the proprietary Adobe Connect platform?

That is a real pitty.

I really don't understand Adobe's policy to not support FireWire appliances in Presenter 8.  This would open so many possibilities for the product.

FireWire support is nothing new for Adobe. I'm an Adobe Premiere user for more than a decade, I use Adobe Flash Media Live Encoder to stream training sessions, conferences, etc ... and all these products support FireWire without any problem.

Don't tell me that the Adobe team needs to start studying for months how to connect a FireWire camera or recorder to its Presenter 8 software.

I hope they will investigate how they can solve this flaw as quickly as possible.

In the meanwhile, I guess, I will let the trial period pass and might consider purchasing the product once this issue has been solved.

Regards,

Patrick ROTEN

CIPAL

Governmental ICT Agency

Dept Marketing & Strategy

(Belgium)

[WHFitch]

Hi Patrick:

Thank-you for your email.

For some insight, I've been using Presenter 7 since 2009. What you described

for adding video to Presenter presentations has been the norm for creating

interactive modules for training. Basically a two-part process- First-

videotape the presenter(s), edit and create individual clips. Then, import

each clip to each slide. Plus, if the PowerPoint slides involve any

animations, you have to edit the PowerPoint file and time the animations to

the video clips. Very labor-intensive. I was briefly excited when I saw the

"Record" video tab in the Presenter 8 ribbon in PowerPoint. Then I

discovered the limitations. I see the offering of video recording the

narrator & slides into a single video as their "solution" of addressing the

increasing demand of posting presentations in a format that can be viewed on

an iPAD. The loss of all the interactive components of the Flash & XML

programming eliminates the quiz component and minimalizes the value of

Presenter for creating interactive content for iPAD.

I don't know how much audio-only modules you are creating, but doing it this

way allows "live" recording and sync-ing with the PPT graphics/ animations.

The only challenge with recording audio in Presenter is monitoring volume

control. I've had Presenter stop recording audio during a live presentation

due to the presenter coughing. The addition of digital VU/ volume meters

would be nice! (And I see they haven't added this feature in version 8). I

now use Sound Forge to set/monitor audio levels when doing live audio

recordings in Presenter. Just another needless workaround.

On the positive side, my clients really like the Presenter programs. I've

customized a few items to address branding and the look and feel of the GUI.

Plus, when the training modules are ready for release, I publish it both in

web format for posting on their servers, and as a stand-alone PDF for

off-line viewing. This way, my client can provide the modules to their

Big-Box Store retailers as training tools for their sales people.

Best regards,

Bill

[Jorma_at_CoSo]

Also, while you can't record live video into Captivate, you can use it to overlay a video across mulitple slides in a presentation without having to split the video. It may be worth doing a trial of Captivate 6.

[Guest]

Thank you Jorma and Bill for your replies and suggestions.

I also will give Captivate a try.

In the meanwhile, I hope that Adobe will solve the "FireWire" problem in Presenter 8. This would also solve a few things and can't be a big problem for them.

Patrick