MPG will not play in powerpoint

[Drew]

My company makes animations among other things. Several of the animations
in .mpg and .avi format will not play on some laptops once inserted into the
slide. It comes up black. Those same files are able to be played on all
desktops that I've tried them on. There is one laptop that will play the
avi/mpg files and it is and old Dell Lattitude C600-the oldest on we've got.
The laptops in question are running Office 2000--one on XP, one on Windows
2000. I've tried dragging and dropping, updating office, updating windows,
updating Direct X, loading DIVx, slowing the hardware acceleration, trying
to play it in safe mode, thinking it might be a driver issue. Both machines
had media player 9. I upgraded the XP machine to MP 10, with the same
results. I verified All MCI modules are available through add/remove
windows components. The mpg/avi's will not play in the mplay32 on the
laptops, but those same files will play in the mplay32 on the desktops and
that one old laptop. All the machines have the same security patches (we
use SUS) I'm baffled. Any ideas?

 

[Michael Calo via OfficeKB.com]

Update the video drivers?

 

[Drew]

I tried playing the file in safe mode. Same symptoms, same result.

 

[TAJ Simmons]

Have you tried points 2 and 6 on this page

http://www.echosvoice.com/tshoot_video2.htm

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc

 

[Drew]

I have--put the ppt and the mpg in the same folder on the root. I
considered the conflict, but there are machines with the same exact
software, on which it runs. It runs on my machine, and mine has a bunch of
extra junk on it. We're an all Dell shop, so the software and hardware is
pretty consistant. We just received a new laptop for presentations. I've
only loaded antivirus, ms updates, and office on it. I get the same result.
Generally intervideo DVD gets bundled, although the newest laptop has power
dvd and Sonic record. If it didn't work on other machines, I'd almost think
it was a corrupt file. Any ideas?

 

[Drew]

One thing I didn't mention. Those same machines that will not play the mpg
in Powerpoint and mplay32, will play the mpg in WMP. Just for fun, I
updated the Video driver on the brand new XP machine and tried it. Still
didn't work.

I have--put the ppt and the mpg in the same folder on the root. I
considered the conflict, but there are machines with the same exact
software, on which it runs. It runs on my machine, and mine has a bunch of
extra junk on it. We're an all Dell shop, so the software and hardware is
pretty consistant. We just received a new laptop for presentations. I've
only loaded antivirus, ms updates, and office on it. I get the same result.
Generally intervideo DVD gets bundled, although the newest laptop has power
dvd and Sonic record. If it didn't work on other machines, I'd almost think
it was a corrupt file. Any ideas?