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Troubleshooting
Any time you are working with multimedia clips like video, you are likely to run into compatibility and performance issues because not all computers support multimedia equally well. It can take up quite a bit of CPU time and memory to do a good job, and not all PCs are up to it. In addition, not all PCs have the needed software and codecs installed to handle all types of clips.
Clip Won't Play in PowerPoint
If you can't get a certain clip to play within PowerPoint, but you have some other media player that it will play in, use Insert⇨Object to insert the video clip instead of inserting it with Insert⇨Movies and Sounds⇨Movie from File. The clip will then play using whatever player is defined as the default for that file type. However, it will not be eligible for any PowerPoint animation or timing settings; you will need to use the external player's controls for it.
To set up a default player for a certain file type, do the following:
From a Windows file management window, such as My Computer, choose Tools⇨Folder Options.
On the File Types tab, locate the desired extension, select it, and then click the Change button.
Choose the desired application to associate with that extension and click OK.
If the clip will not play anywhere-not in PowerPoint or in any of your players- then perhaps your system does not have the needed codec. A codec is a compression/ decompression driver, and different formats need different ones.When you play a video clip in Windows Media Player 9 for which you do not have a codec, it will try to connect to Microsoft's servers to download one automatically. If it fails, you can try manually searching the Web for a suitable codec for that file format. You can also try downloading the latest official set of codecs for Windows Media Player from www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/format/codecdownload.aspx.DVD movie clips are a special case. Windows Media Player may attempt to play them but fail, and you'll get an unhelpful generic error message. This is usually caused by not having a DVD hardware or software-based encoder/decoder. If your PC plays DVD movies, then you already have one. If not, there are many good ones. You might give WinDVD a try; a free trial is available at www.intervideo.com. You can then use Insert⇨Object to insert the clip and let it play with WinDVD (or whatever player you are using.)
| Tip | If you record video with your own video camera, and it won't play in PowerPoint, it is probably because your camera uses a proprietary codec. Use the software that comes with the camera to rerender it using a more common codec. Some of the most popular standard codecs are Cinepak and Indeo Video Codec (R3.1, R3.2,5.04). A utility called gspot, available at www.headbands.com/gspot, can identify what codecs are being used in your video files. |
| Tip | This may seem hard to believe, but it's true. If you get an error message when you try to drag-and-drop an AVI video clip into your presentation, or if you try to insert it and PowerPoint simply ignores you, try renaming the file extension from .avi to.mpg. This often will fix it. |
Playback Quality is Poor
Be aware that slower, older computers, especially those with less than 64MB to 128MB of RAM, may not present your video clip to its best advantage. The sound may not match the video, the video may be jerky, and a host of other little annoying performance glitches may occur if your PC is not powerful enough. On such PCs, it is best to limit the live-action video that you use, and rely more on animated GIFs, simple AVI animations, and other less system-taxing video clips.When constructing a presentation, keep in mind that you may be showing it on a lesser computer than the one on which you are creating it, and therefore performance problems may crop up during the presentation that you did not anticipate when creating it. Here are some ideas for at least partially remedying the situation:
Copy the entire presentation and all its support files to the fastest hard disk on the system, rather than running it from a CD. Hard disks have much faster access time than removable disks. Use Package for CD to copy the needed files rather than simply copying through the file management interface in Windows, to ensure you get all the files.
Run the entire presentation on the playback PC from start to finish beforehand. If there are delays, jerks, and lack of synchronization, just let it play itself out. Then try the whole presentation again, and it will usually be much better the second time. This happens because the system caches some of the data, and it's faster reading it from the cache than from the disk.
Make sure the playback PC is in the best shape it can be in. If it is feasible to upgrade its RAM, do so. Run Disk Defragmenter and Disk Cleanup on it, and make sure its video driver is updated.
Work with the original media clips to decrease their complexity, and then reimport them into PowerPoint. For example, use video-editing software to lower the frames per second of video clips, and use image-editing software to lower the dots per inch of any large graphics.
If possible, spread out the more complex slides in the presentation so they are not adjacent to one another. Have an intervening slide that is just simple text.
If all else fails, copy the presentation to videotape or digital video from the original PC (where presumably it plays correctly). See the following section for tips on that.
Make sure you test the presentation on the actual computer on which you are going to show it, especially if you are using a non-standard codec.
