Help: Video flash to black momentarily before playing.

[wrreisen2]

Hi,

I have tried importing an 640 x 480 wmv9 25 fps video file into both
powerpoint 2003 and 2007 on both 64bit and 32bit windows Xp on 3
different computers. Every time during presentation automatic playback
the area where the video is shows the 1st frame of the video then
momentarily flashes to black before playing properly is there some fix
for this. I als tried it with an mpg, an avi also a 30fps mpg. Same
problem every time. Thanks for any advice.

 

[Troy @ TLC]

There is most likely nothing wrong with your video formatting. A bit of info
on how PPT uses video should explain the reason for the flash. Video plays
on a layer on top of the PPT slide (hence no PPT content can be on top of
video) - see this page on my site for more detail
http://www.tlccreative.com/images/tutorials/movies.htm.

You can do a few things to minimize effect.
1. cut begining of video to start on a real frame (I am guessing video
currently has black frame at beginning)
2. Hide video under something so you do not see the static image of video
(needed for playback placement and size), see this post on my blog for
mini-tutorial
http://pptblog.tlccreative.com/index.php/all/2007/08/29/organize_and_enhance_movies_in_presentat_2
(read 8/27/07 to 8/31/07 for full tutorial).

Hope that helps.