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i'm just curious, but, i live in Argentina and i never got the chance to go to a full blown european demoparty in my life, so... my question is... what do you use in the projector computer? i mean, here we are used to see total commander / windows explorer every time a production is about to be shown... i would like to think that's not the "standard", is it? or maybe it is but there's more video equipment hooked up (such as a video mixer and more than 1 video source) preventing everyone to see the actual computer screen until the demo/whatever is showing?

eh, you've got demoshows in argentina? ;)

i think (never seen/done anything like it) they just use some slideshow software (more or less fancier than powerpoint and probably self-written :)) to display stuff and then you always notice that someone throws the beamer source switch to the compo machine as soon as the prod is running.

uh. why am i saying this anyway :)

for all the parties i've gone too, it's been any of these:

- Most typical situation: 2 (or more) computers attached to the projector. Then one computer used only for shoing banners/adds/current compo/title/etc. using:

a) self-written software (the most common)
b) scala (not bad)
c) powerpoint

Once the production was running, then they switched it over, and it got switched back right before the production ends (for multipart demos, that means that sometimes demos had to be repeated because they didn't show them till the end).

As for the most 'familiar' parties with no organization, it was usually one computer showing whatever (windows explorer, win commander, or just plain DOS for old parties), and you'd see it all

The worst I've seen (also one of the funniest!) was at Xplanada 2002. I used my computer for the democompo projection (I am -not- an organizer), and results... and I was writing all the stuff in wordpad (with fancy coloring, fonts, and funny messages).

The best I've seen, was at Euskal Party 4 (that's 1996). They used a custom software on Amiga and showed all messages on two small projectors at the sides of the big screen, while they used plain DOS (or Amiga) on the big screen to put projections on. Somehow Euskal Party has degraded this, to end up using Realtime Powerpoint(TM) [meaning, not even the slides were ready, and they were written on the run] on only one projector (that's for Euskal Party 9)

All in all, there is no standard... but if you want to have some decent organization, you'd rather code your own and use the switch thing =)

At Scene Event they use scala. They make the graphics compo as one concurrent presentation, a really simple yet nifty thing to do. It saves a lot of switch flipping ;)

In the last two React parties, the voting system itself was used to announce productions on the big screen. Since it already "knows" the production and group names, the administration console also features an "Announce!" button which shows the info in a simple HTML page. Pretty handy if you ask me :-) Especially since a skilled web author can actually make that HTML look good and you can make it full screen.

Also, true to demoscene tradition, that voting system was created from scratch at React 2002, about an hour before actual voting began :-P

the notepad-technique is actually a perfectly working solution. just make sure everything is working in advance, and ha a beer an lots of fun typing. We did this at the gathering some years back, due to lack of time to prepare scala-scripts and pre-recordings of the demos etc.

I guess my point is that the important thing is that everything gets shown and that people know what prods is showing. How fancy stuff looks isn't really important, it's only demos damnit.

I think that people at ReAct were writting some announcements or incoming demos in Word or Wordpad too.

Optimus: That is true for React 2002, where the voting system was not complete during the show, but it worked as such at React 2003 :-)

at kindergarden we have the patented crusli-system. i believe this is the most advanced and powerfull demoshow- and voting-system in the world, featuring an empty box of crusli-cereal, some hadwritten sheets and a videocamera. contact chauple/contraz if you are interressed in buying the rights to use it.

For showing a collection of demos back-to-back, I found that AutoIt worked well.

I just used it on New Year's Eve at First Night 2004 in Salt Lake City to show demos continuously from 6pm to Midnight. It worked well, as long as the demos worked :-).

I think demos are ALL about how fancy it looks

... and sounds <g>