Thanks, Douglas!

My client has a PowerPoint presentation (no video) that they want to encode for web broadcast as a Windows MediaPlayer file. I saw in PowerPoint that I can save it as a series of .jpgs. or .pngs. Then I could those those into Vegas and render as an .avi, could I not?

Jay

Really cheap way is to point a camera at a nice screen and let the thing go auto . . Look, you can't activate the separate screens anyway once in an AVI . .

Grazie

That's right, Grazie, but I'd rather keep it as "clean" as possible. Plus, now I'm wondering about the sound that accompanies it.

Jay

Jay, MS onmce had a thing called Director which was supposed to do this .. go on the MiSery site and you can spend some time browsing - one of things I do, 'cos I don't get out much . .what with the stuff I gotta do at home .. and all - anyways, as Spot says: Cam Studio WODGES of money, I haven't tried another package that got mentioned in the last 24 hours . .Spot has I believe . . but yes, export separate graph ifles and reassemble IS one option . .

Camstudio - great package - but £250GBps - okay if this IS a cost then wrap it into the billing . .. it is good though!

Grazie

Spot said: f you have no animations, motion, etc, your best option is to output the slides as stills/png's that Vegas can read, and then insert any video using Track Motion, etc.

Spot is, as usual, correct. I am about to do a small project for the Navy and it will be mostly PowerPoint slides. If you have no animation in your presentation, just go to File, Save As, and change the type to PNG or JPG or TIF. It will save every slide as a separate file. You then import those onto the Vegas timeline and go from there.

Exporting as an AVI file may be what you initially think you want to do, but even if you could do this, there are many problems. First, try the technique that Spot recommends, and that I explained in a little more detail above. If you do, the first thing you will find is that, unless your original PowerPoint just happens to be in 4:3 aspect ratio (which it almost certainly will not be), you won't be able to show the whole thing at once, unless you don't mind having tiny images with big, black, letterbox borders around it. Thus, you are either going to have to pan/scan your slides in Vegas, or you have to change the aspect ratio in PowerPoint before you export.

Second, you must understand that you are changing media. Any time you do this, if you try to simply do some sort of automatic conversion, you aren't going to have a very effective result. PowerPoint slides are not video, and video is not PowerPoint. The timing, resolution, effects, and many, many other aspects are totally different, and you need to take this into account. One example for the Navy presentation is that one of the slides has many long, diagonal arrows, with small thin lines. If I put that into Vegas and render to AVI, I will create shimmering, jagged video, and the lines will probably even disappear at times (they are only a few pixels thick).

So, my recommendation is to first modify the aspect ratio of your PowerPoint to fit 4:3 (if going to NTSC). Then, make your text and graphics "fat." Finally render to PNG, bring into Vegas and adjust your timing.

If you still truly want to just automatically create an AVI file, let me know, and I'll tell you how to do that.

[Edit] Rather than leave you hanging, here is one of dozens of solutions:

PowerPoint AVI Solutions

tutorial on using Camtasia:

Camtasia Tutorial

If you can get your PPT to a Macintosh, the Mac version of PowerPoint can export to a Quicktime movie. You can then use various tools to convert to the format of your choice.

Jay;
Is it worth $300 to be able to do it?
The reason I ask is the the folks from TechSmith have just released Camtasia Studio 2.1.
From their site:
Only Camtasia Studio records all the aspects of your presentation and publishes it in all the common multimedia formats.
Check it out. I watched the demo video and it looks pretty good!!

Mike

I'd just rent or buy a Scan Converter.

I agree, Camtasia Studio is very good indeed. G

Hello Jay, I once do a conversion like that, becouse a client have maid a PPS file and what me to put it on a DVD. So I output it from the S-Video of the graphics card and recorded on DV deck, them send it back to the PC by Firewire. I can tell you that the quality is quit good (that depends on output of your graphics card). At least is a cheap way to do it.

YEP - Scan Converter your best option.
Quality is terrific

I picked one up a few months back at CompUSA (Best Buy should carry too)
Like $99

AverMedia - AverKey i Micro

Pretty slick, takes input right from VGA cable or S-video.

Record to tape on your cam, then export back in.

The client provided the original PowerPoint file. I saved it (each slide) as a .png file. Those will be dropped into the timeline and adjusted for size, time, etc., and the audio inserted to an audio track. Then render it out to an .avi file and it's set to go.

Thanks to everyone!

Jay