I have come to the same conclusions as most the thread mentions... including having tried Camtasia... (My first thought) Problem is the expense of the program and only having to use it this one time for an ANIMATED SLIDE in PP. Was hoping for a quick fix.
A Vegas owner/software-developer also wrote an "any res" export or powerpoint into a still format. So if you don't have any of those clunky animations or attention-grabber activities going on - that works well.
I'd steer clear of anything you pay for (unless it can burn it to DVD/ISO for you too perhaps - like the 321studios effort did/does).
There are heaps of references to different ways of converting PPT to video, and gratis here. Many of them give great results - considering the pain of the source medium.
You can just save the still out from PPT to the PNG format and import them to Vegas. If you don't need animation, this works great. I've also "re-created" PPT slides using Vegas tools which often work better in a video than simply using the PPT slides as is. I'll throw a Digital Juice Jumback in, animate text, and otherwise make it look better than PPT could ever hope to be!
Gosh... all of your suggestions were great! In the end... because of TIME DELIVERANCE ISSUES - (why is everyone in such a hurry to get things done...) I succumb to simply taking snapshots of the MAIN PPP and then I am adding the animation via VEGAS - GIF and CREATIVE PROCESSING which I do a lot. It's just time consuming...
Hey VEGAS!!! Come out with better USER FRIENDLY TOOLS to do simple screen animation in VEGAS 7 - which I am sorely looking forward to.
For all you who have advised and were so quick about it... WELL VEGAS ROCKS IN MY BOOK! FIVE YEARS IN THE USE and still going strong! You have made me live a lifestyle that most 50??? years could only dream about.
Try "fraps" from www.fraps.com. It is a high quality screen/window session to video capture program. Easy to use, good quality, allows video up to HD resolution.
And -- it does not cost much ($37).