Alludo USER to USER Web Board

My nephews are having a joint 18th & 21st Birthday. The venue has been hired and they provide a projector (and cables). all I need to do is provide the laptop. It plugs into the projector through a VGA cable (presumably as if connecting to a external monitor).

I was thinking of just making a regular DVD like I normally do for my family gatherings. My Christmas family video have been such a hit I've been asked to chronicle the two young lives.

I'm sure DVD would be fine but I'm presuming any video file format that can be played on a laptop in full screen mode can be projected and wondering should I choose a different file format.

Any projector pit falls I should be aware of?

The laptop I will be using is someone elses Toshiba satellite M200 running Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

I'm not real familiar with all the different projectors, however had minimal experience with some. One thing that comes to mind, is Murphy's Law. If you have a chance to get hold of the Toshiba laptop and the projector beforehand, I would. Just to check out if one will work with the other.

It's been several years since I've had to do such a presentation. The laptop I was using was a bit of problem using dual display. I could get it send the signal to the projector, however my laptop display would go blank, or I could see it on my laptop, but not on the projection. This however was using a PowerPoint Presentation. I had to "wing it", because I could not see my notes...

Yes...that was one thing we had already thought of. We will be doing a rehearsal.

I was wondering if with a video I can get away with a format other than DVD like...WMV...but I'm thinking DVD will be safer

For better quality via a projector a high quality wmv file would be a wise choice, no problems with using an interlaced dvd file.
You could even make a HD WMV file and play it through.
Save it to a memory stick, or burn to a dvd as a data file.
Have at least two two copies of it.

Your choice may also be influenced by how the presentation works, If it's just a case of hitting play and letting it run, a single file, rather than a DVD might be the best and simplest approach.

The main thing influencing picture quality will be the resolution and quality of the source video.

If you think you might need to respond to audience requests to play certain parts again, a DVD might enable you to use the chapter points to access particular sections quickly.

Make sure you have set up the laptop for mulit display. This is done in the
Control Panel ... Display ... Settings... Multiple Monitors...This will extend you display and you can just slide Windows Media Player on to the projector display. I would use a WMV HD to get the best results even if it is in SD.

The source files are stills and some video that has been digitised from VHS so the quailty of the video is not very good...especially since a low bit rate (in one case 2000bps) was used to cram way too much video on a DVD.

The project will be in 16x9

So what would be a decent WMV frame based setting to use?

One thing about some laptops. Some laptops you must start the projector and computer before you hook the VGA cable up to the computer. Then set the laptop to dual monitor. Not all laptops are this way but a lot are.

If you just want to store the video on you hard drive and display it, there is a program called Freeapth www.freepath.com that allows you to insert most types of video into a cue and use it to project the video without having to drag and drop like media player. Really is a nice presentation software and it is free.