OT: AVI files and PowerPoint

JackW wrote on 11/7/2006, 11:03 AM
I'm working on a large PowerPoint presentation which will include a number of clips from Vegas projects I've edited. The situation is that I'm speaking about shooting and editing and refering to examples which are being projected onto a large screen.

I can create links to the avi files within the PP presentation so that the files open in Windows Media Player, but when they open the Media Player tool bars are present at both the top and bottom of the screen, and have to be removed manually, through a couple of mouse clicks.

Does anyone know of a program that will permit the avi files to open full screen, without any tool bars, when called from within the PowerPoint presentation?

Or of a better way to handle this?

Jack

Comments

Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/7/2006, 11:17 AM

Jack, you should be able to insert the video into the chosen "slide" and select that it starts playing automatically.


daryl wrote on 11/7/2006, 11:44 AM
Or create WMVs, you can set them to play auto or on-click, a bit less stress on the machine too unless the AVIs are fairly small. I have gotten VERY good results using WMVs when an AVI stuttered.
Daryl
JackW wrote on 11/7/2006, 12:08 PM
Jay, I've tried that and for some reason PP (vers. 2000) won't recognize the avi files.
I can insert jpg files, for example, without any problem, but as soon as I try to insert the avi file there is no response of any kind, the cursor just sits there and blinks -- no error message or anything. I'm wondering if I should go out and get vers. 2003, although the documentation for 2000 claims that your suggestion should work.

Daryl, I'll try the wmv route, too.

Thanks to you both for the input.

Jack
bakerja wrote on 11/7/2006, 12:24 PM
Definately go with .wmv files. You will get great results.

JAB
rs170a wrote on 11/7/2006, 12:24 PM
Try using MPEG-1 files. Knowing that Vegas is not the best at this particular render, feed the Vegas-rendered AVI to TMPGEnc and let it do the conversion for you. It's only a 352 x 240 stream so you won't need a registered version.

Mike
Jay Gladwell wrote on 11/7/2006, 2:21 PM

Jack, don't use .avi, use .wmv.


kkolbo wrote on 11/12/2006, 1:32 PM
Use a WMV file created at the screen resolution of the presentation. I use 640x480 or 800x600 .

In PP insert a new slide.
Go to the insert menu and select Movies or Sound from file. That will make the movie play on the slide rather than going to Windows Media Player.

You can adjust the size of the video to match the slide size by dragg
ing the edges.

JackW wrote on 11/12/2006, 8:56 PM
Thanks for the suggestion, Keith. I had already done what you propose, only to have PP (vers. 2000) refuse to recognize the avi files. After doing some digging at Microsoft, I discovered that vers. 2000 lacks codecs necessary to play some or all avi files. Unfortunately there is no indication of what specific codecs are required.

So, I'm either going to use a combination of DVD and PP, or purchase vers. 2003. I think going the DVD route will produce better image quality.

Jack