Producing a DVD presentation is only half the battle. Eventually, you'll have to deliver it, and to do that you'll need to assemble a presentation system.

DVD is impressive. That's why people who are in the business of impressing others (particularly sales, marketing and advertising professionals) are starting to use DVD's "wow factor" to punch up the persuasive power of their presentations. And this user group has great growth potential; heck, just about everyone will need to make a presentation at sometime or another.

But producing a DVD presentation is only half the battle. Eventually, you'll have to deliver it, and to do that you'll need to assemble a presentation system, comprising three key components: source player, video display or projector, and audio subsystem [Audio subsystems will be addressed in the December 1999 issue--Ed.]. It won't be easy. A DVD presentation system is different. This isn't your father's presentation system.

Indeed, if you were to tell the staff at your local audiovisual supply house that you're trying to put together a DVD presentation system, they'd probably just scratch their heads or laugh. That's because the reality of the presentation market is that the vast majority of business presentations today use no multimedia at all, never mind high-quality DVD.

"Most presentation systems are simply PowerPoint accessories," says Bill Coggshall, president of Pacific Media Associates, a Mountain View, California-based market research firm that covers the large-screen display industry. "Not much video is used in everyday business presentations and audio (except for the voice of the presenter) is often not used at all. Even in big, expensive conference room systems, DVD-Video and Dolby surround sound are very rare."

Consequently, he who dares to use DVD will automatically become a pioneer. That's not to say DVD-compatible presentation equipment is hard to buy--on the contrary. You'll just have to buy through non-ordinary, non-business channels, for the most part. Instead going to a pro AV dealer, for example, you may have to follow your son or daughter to the local hi-fi store. This is good news, really. Consumer audio manufacturers have been gearing up for years to supply couch potatoes with the so-called "home theater" experience. Presenters will be able to take advantage of the available surplus.

ROAD WARRIOR VERSUS HOMEBODY

What kind of presentation equipment you need will depend on where you do your presenting--on the road or in a fixed facility. Generally, presentation systems fall into two distinct categories:

* The mobile, on-the-road system that some poor slob has to haul from city to city and office to office, and

* The in-house facility that is more or less permanently installed at a fixed location, usually a corporate conference room or boardroom.

Ostensibly, the boardroom system assembler has a much more enviable job. Since the entire reputation of the company is at stake, costs are often of little consequence.

THE SOURCE

Some mobile presenters, such as salespeople customizing presentations for different customers, will probably want to stick with their laptops. It's tradition; they're used to them. And, anyway, much of the content they will want to deliver may already be there, stored on their hard drives.

Mobile business presenters will probably not want to use a DVD-Video player (at least not exclusively). This would mean they would be limited to showing only what they've put on their disc several weeks or even months ago. They would have no flexibility; they couldn't switch gears in the middle of a live presentation to respond to a question. They couldn't go online as they speak and pull up graphics from a Web site to demonstrate a point. The couldn't call up and show a recently created Excel spreadsheet. This is an extreme drawback. "Most of our clients are changing their presentations up to the last minute," says Blaine Graboyes, president and creative director of New York City-based Zuma Digital. That kind of flexibility demands DVD-ROM. So clearly, the majority of road warrior presenters will be tempted to try to use a DVD-ROM drive-equipped notebook PC as their source.

Most installers of boardroom systems at corporate sites will also want a computer hooked into their presentation system, but since weight and space limitations don't usually exist here, it will be easy for them to install both a computer and a DVD player. And since player ruggedness will not matter, they'll be able to choose from a large assortment of DVD players from many manufacturers.

Those mobile presenters who decide to take a DVD player on the road would be wise to choose one of the more-rugged industrial players such as the Pioneer DVD-V7200 or the Philips DVD-170. Zuma Digital, a company that specializes in DVD presentations, never uses anything but the Pioneer industrial player. "I'd never recommend a consumer player to my clients," says Graboyes. "If the CEO is up there giving a million-dollar presentation anti the equipment I gave him doesn't work, I could be in big trouble."