[lcfut]

Does anyone know if the new OS 2.0 builds will work with the Blackberry Presenter?

all previous posts on this topic are from June of last year and the BB Presenter does not work with OS 1.0x

thanks!

[peter9477]

Actually there have been posts reporting success connecting with the Presenter using A2DP on the last several 2.0 builds.

I've had no troubles with mine though I think the other posts said you can't do volume control just yet.

[f_d]

I did a quick search and didn't find anything... My presenter will pair with my playbook (running os 2.0.0.7111), but it shows no available services... And I'm not clear why you would think that a2dp would have anything to do with the presenter as it's an audio distribution profile whereas the presenter is for showing powerpoint slides wirelessly, and it has no audio capabilities...

[peter9477]

Er... is this thing not the Presenter? Dang... I've got one of those too, but I guess this is the "Media Gateway" or something. Never did get them straight... they were freebies!

Sorry to confuse!

[taylortbb]

I don't think Presenter support is a priority for RIM as the PlayBook has the HDMI out directly on the device. You can with a $35 adaptor convert HDMI to VGA like the Presenter. With Bridge 2 your BB can act as a presenter remote. Given that it's already a pretty good presentation tool, no Presenter required.

peter9477: The product you're thinking of the BlackBerry Music Gateway.

[f_d]

The Playbook is a good presentation platform but it's not perfect.. Biggest issue unfortunately *is* the HDMI IMO... I teach a lot of courses, and my style is to walk around the stage and interact with the audience, and I would love a portable presentation tool where I could see my presentation along with my annotations and notes, *and* control the presentation from the same device.. The HDMI gives great resolution, but is a physical tether that confines you to one spot, and 99% of projectors that are installed in boardrooms around the world are still VGA input only (ironically, including most of RIM's own internal boardrooms), forcing you to carry an expensive and bulky converter box with you, or your own HDMI capable projector, and if you're going to do that, you might as well carry a laptop, rendering the Playbook's presentation capabilities and "travel light" premise rather moot...

The old presenter allowed you to do presentations wirelessly from a Blackberry device and carry only a very small additional device with more universal compatibility with projection systems.. It was a bit slow and had some lag going from slide to slide and didn't support animations or anything like that, but it was convenient, and I'd certainly use it with my Playbook if it were supported..

[Superfly_FR]

Reading latest leaked infos from BGC (relayed on CB's homepage) it looks that OS2 may embed wireless multimedia streaming capabilities (may it be DLNA ?).

If I remember correctly, the presenter uses BT 2.0 EDR to communicate with the BB device and you need a specific app on the device.
So the question is "will full BT specifications be implemented on PB ?" and, most likely "will the app be ported on OS2/QNX". I think it's reasonable to answer positively for both, as backward compatibility is often raised as a "force" of RIM.

But this is pure speculations ... I'll try to remember and ask @ devcon ...

[lcfut]

The Playbook is a good presentation platform but it's not perfect.. Biggest issue unfortunately *is* the HDMI IMO... I teach a lot of courses, and my style is to walk around the stage and interact with the audience, and I would love a portable presentation tool where I could see my presentation along with my annotations and notes, *and* control the presentation from the same device.. The HDMI gives great resolution, but is a physical tether that confines you to one spot.....

The old presenter allowed you to do presentations wirelessly from a Blackberry device and carry only a very small additional device with more universal compatibility with projection systems.. It was a bit slow and had some lag going from slide to slide and didn't support animations or anything like that, but it was convenient, and I'd certainly use it with my Playbook if it were supported..

This is exactly my point. I have several training's coming up this year and don't like being stuck in one spot. Walking around the classroom give a personable feel to everyone and not a lecture.

The use of Blackberry Presenter and the Playbook would be a perfect match.

[f_d]

My contact at RIM tells me that the multimedia streaming is in fact DLNA, but only a subset of features, but this still doesn't directly address the niche that the presenter filled..
You still need a box of some sort to go from wireless to the projector..

The problem with the BB Presenter is that I think RIM kind of hacked it together and it doesn't follow any kind of standard: it's Bluetooth, but it uses a proprietary protocol over the serial port profile rather than using the Bluetooth basic imaging profile.. You can download the open source portions of the presenter firmware as per the small print in the docs, and it gives some tantalizing hints about the capabilities of the little box, but alas, not enough to cobble together our own client app on the playbook without some significant bluetooth protocol sniffing and reverse engineering.. If RIM doesn't intend on supporting the presenter going forward, they should release the firmware and control app sources so that the user community can develop their own apps around this device..