Curious about how PPT sizes inserted video.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mike M.
  • Start date Start date
M

Mike M.

PPT 2002, Windows 2000. How does PPT decide what size to make an inserted
video? Insert->Movies and Sounds->Movie from File. It seems to make it
relative to some magic number (page size 10 x 7.5?) regardless of the Page
Setup size.

Specific example:
Video clip (wmv) size is 720 x 480 pixels. When I do Format Picture->Size
tab it shows 7.5" x 5" as original size.

If my Page size is 10 x 7.5 this is not too far off. However, on my plasmas
this size is very small.

I have read many previous posts about the difference in pixel resolution
v.s. PPT sizing, antialiasing and all. I anticipated that PPT would take a
stab at sizing the video based upon the Page size and the "pixel resolution"
of it. I was hoping to insert at 100% of the original video to avoid having
to stretch the video and let PPT do it's "magic" (make it fuzzy).

Any thoughts on what it does and how? How to change the behavior? A good
BBQ place in Tuscon?
 
The magic number depends on your font settings in
Display>Settings>Advanced>General.
By default, if you're set to Small Fonts, it will be 96dpi even though, as
you're probably tired of hearing, dpi has little relevance to screen work.
The only reason it's relevant here is because PowerPoint insists on
measuring pages in cm/inches rather than screens in pixels.

So, in your case, 7.5x96dpi = 720 and 5x96dpi = 480. Magic.

However, this 96dpi doesn't match your PowerPoint screen:page dpi ratio
malarkey, which is 1024px/10" = 102.4dpi.
This means that your video will not show pixel-for-pixel on the screen if
left at PowerPoint's 100%.
In PowerPoint 2002 your life is made easier by the 'Best scale for...'
option under Format Picture>Size.
Set this to your screen resolution and PowerPoint should resize the clip to
a pixel-for pixel size. However, this will be smaller still than the 100%
size (I'd bet it will be reported as about 94% - 96/102.4).

The long and the short of it? Forget the numbers and choose a codec that
scales well and stretch the clip to the size that's best for you. And I
didn't say anything about dpi, right?
 
Thanks Adam. That appears to be what is happening. I did mess around with
the "Best scale" setting but when I changed it to my resolution it made the
video huge (larger than the slide). After I ran the show the setting was
turned off again. I think I am just going to have to size manually and hope
for the best.
 
Mike M. said:
Thanks Adam. That appears to be what is happening. I did mess around with
the "Best scale" setting but when I changed it to my resolution it made the
video huge (larger than the slide). After I ran the show the setting was
turned off again.
Click to expand...

I'd expect the setting to be turned off - it's only a one-shot setting to
kick PowerPoint into pointless number crunching. What should remain,
though, is the new size in %.

It's only with some codecs, and even then only with certain conent, that
you'll notice any serious issues with bad resizing.
I suspect your wmvs look fine at an approximate size, as do inserted
pictures that aren't sized exactly.
 
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