Possible to Run PowerPoint in Background?

[here2lrnstuff]

Hello!

I oversee the livestream for our church services, and we currently use a two-computer setup:

One computer runs the pastor’s PowerPoint slides (which he controls with a remote),

The other runs OBS for the livestream. We link the two so OBS captures the slides.


Ideally, I’d like to simplify things and move everything to a single computer, as I also run sound during the service and would love to streamline the workflow.

The issue I’m running into is this: for the pastor’s remote to control the PowerPoint, the presentation has to stay active and in focus. That means I can’t switch over to OBS to make changes without interrupting his control of the slides.

I previously worked around this by putting the slides in a picture-in-picture format, but that made them difficult to read, especially on mobile devices, so I switched to full-screen slides via the two-computer setup.

My question is: Is there a way for the pastor to control his slides in the background while I still manage OBS on the same machine?

Thanks so much for your time and any advice you can offer!

 

[Lawrence_SoCal]

For our house of worship, I run OBS Studio and PowerPoint on a single computer. However PPTx is our service bulletin, and OBS Studio operator handles advancing slides (we use a Windowed Slide show set in Portrait layout, with window largely covered by browser monitor of livestream (ie act as digital usher). In our case, with a barely visible PPTx window, all we have to do is put the mouse over the small section of the window and use the mouse scroll wheel (not make window active) to advance slides. And we use slides on the left side of our stream video and we have different scenes for different PPT vs camera width (ie using approx 1/2 width of PPTx slide screen and using more of frame width for video)

anway... all that just for context

1. I'd recommend researching alternate remotes
2. if an alternate remote still has same problem, and letting OBS operator control slides isn't an option, I'd consider coming up with your 'remote' [maybe even using exact same remote... only difference being] to take 'remote' button push to send command line (possibly over LAN from other PC) to PPT.
just 'thinking aloud' at this point... three could be sophisticated options. but depends on programming sophistication available to you. Or, leave PPT running on both PC#2 and #1 (OBS Studio). Remote controls PPT on PC#2... but all that is on that is basically blank slides with macro that activates for going forward or back. Those embedded macro in PPTx then sends command line to PPT on OBS Studio PC #1... I don't like this as it adds a point of failure... but enabling pastor to not change behavior, might make it worth it *if* you can't find a remote that talks specific to an application, regardless of window focus