Thinkpads Forum

I am planning on getting an SXGA+ laptop and was wondering how well this would work giving presentations on an XGA or even SVGA projector. Any comments? TIA

It is very easy if you use IBM/Lenovo Presentation Director software http://www.lenovoblogs.com/insidethebox/?p=128

works effortless also without ThinkVantage bloat in Vista or XP and also in Ubuntu (I use all 3).

pibach wrote:works effortless also without ThinkVantage bloat in Vista or XP

Hm, I'm wondering how to get dual display (not second monitor) in Windows XP easily without the ThinkVantage software ?

right click your desktop and configure the dual display in xp natively. But the presentation director works better in my opinion and doesnt bloat it too much.

Thank you. I'm aware of the Thinkvantage Presenter program, but I was wondering how well the pictures displayed by the projectors come out when the laptop is not the same native resolution as the projector (e.g. mapping an SXGA+ laptop onto an XGA or SVGA projector). Has anyone tried this to see how well it works out? TIA

The VGA output and Windows desktop have always the exact projector resolution when selected. As for notebook display, you can choose between expanding the lower resolution to SXGA+ or to center it without expanding.

You don't want to let the projector scale down SXGA+ even if it can do it. The picture is awful. Set both screens for XGA and it will work fine.

I don't know why anyone calls Presentation Director bloatware. It uses 0 CPU cycles until you open it and it uses like 1MB on disk.

awolfe63 wrote:You don't want to let the projector scale down SXGA+ even if it can do it. The picture is awful. Set both screens for XGA and it will work fine.

Thanks...just to be certain that I understand...I can change the SXGA laptop to have an XGA screen resolution while I do the presentation and that should work fine....right? Have you tried this? TIA

I do it often. As mentioned - presentation manager has a preset for it - otherwise you can do it in the control panels.

Got a new XGA projector this morning. Works great with SXGA thinkpads.

awolfe63 wrote:I do it often. As mentioned - presentation manager has a preset for it - otherwise you can do it in the control panels.

Got a new XGA projector this morning. Works great with SXGA thinkpads.

Same there, I have SXGA laptop and XGA benq projector and with presentation manager it works perfectly.

My T60 is 1680x1050 resolution, I change the "Display Property" from Control Panel to 1024x768 when I use the T60 with an external projector, works flawlessly.

The only downside of this approach is that my desktop icons got all rearranged when I go back to the native resolution after the presentation..........

Great! Thanks! Which XGA projectors do you use and why? TIA

I actually have no idea which projector that one is as it is in a location I go to at times and is mounted on the ceiling.

I have also used the same set-up at work with a 4 year old Sony LCD projector of 800x600 without any issues.