Powerpoint 2000 won't play WMA or MP3 files

[Michael Wright]

I have Powerpoint 2000 on an XP Home, SP 2 machine. I installed XP fresh,
applied SP2, and than installed Office 2000, with all service packs. I
cannot get WMA or MP3 files to play in a slide show.

The same show will play on a notebook with the same configuration, only
difference is that I installed Office 2000 under SP1 and than applied SP2.

Any help would be appreciated. Have checked the MCI settings in registry,
etc.

Thanks.

 

[Sonia]

Read through the info at
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/multimedia.htm . If you have
Real Player installed then section #3 should be checked carefully.
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Michael]

Read through the info at
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/multimedia.htm . If you have
Real Player installed then section #3 should be checked carefully.

Sonia,

I have been through the tutorial already. Here are a couple of
additional things I learned last night:

1) I found some WMAs and an MP3 that would play fine. The WMAs that
won't play are ones compressed with Media Encoder 9 and/or ripped from a
CD using Media Player 9 or Media Player 10. So, it isn't refusing to
play all WMAs or MP3...just some of them.

2) I have tested the file using mplay32.exe...everything plays fine.
Everything plays fine in WinMedia Player as well.

Thank you for any additional suggestions you might have. Is there a way
to uninstall and reinstall all MCI extensions or codecs that come with XP?

Michael

 

[Sonia]

In that case I would suspect that your WMA files are protected by DRM (Digital
Rights Management). When you ripped the songs, WMP may be set to copy protect
the output. That would explain why you can't insert them in PowerPoint.

 

[Michael]

In that case I would suspect that your WMA files are protected by DRM (Digital
Rights Management). When you ripped the songs, WMP may be set to copy protect
the output. That would explain why you can't insert them in PowerPoint.

The interesting thing is...one of the WMAs that won't play is a file I
recorded from tape and compressed using the Media Encoder. The other
file which I ripped will play fine (in PowerPoint) on my laptop which
has the same version of PPT installed. I did think about something like
that...but I've been able to play the file on three different machines.

Powerpoint does insert the little speaker icon, but it just won't play it.

 

[Michael]

In that case I would suspect that your WMA files are protected by DRM (Digital
Rights Management). When you ripped the songs, WMP may be set to copy protect
the output. That would explain why you can't insert them in PowerPoint.

I would be glad to e-mail you the presentation I am working with and you
could take a look at if you would like.

 

[Sonia]

That probably won't help. If your WMA plays on some systems and not others,
then it isn't DRM.

Remember, though it appears that PowerPoint plays media files, it just hands
them off to Windows for play. It "sounds" like you are missing a codec.
However, did you compare your MCI settings to those listed in the tutorial? Do
they match *exactly*?

 

[Michael]

That probably won't help. If your WMA plays on some systems and not others,
then it isn't DRM.

Remember, though it appears that PowerPoint plays media files, it just hands
them off to Windows for play. It "sounds" like you are missing a codec.
However, did you compare your MCI settings to those listed in the tutorial? Do
they match *exactly*?

I did do my best to compare...I found one difference and made the
change. It was in the MCI32 section and it was the MPEGVideo entry, I
ad it twice, the second time it was called MPEGVideo2. I deleted the
entry with the "2."

Have you heard of Sherlock2.0? This is a Codec Reporting Utility. I
could use it to create a list of my codecs and send to you for review.
Perhaps you could find something I'm not seeing??

Thansk.

 

[Sonia]

I can't really tell what you're missing if I don't know what is needed, but I
can tell you how you list differes from what I have on my system. Please print
the list to PDF and you can send the file to sonia @ soniacoleman dot com.

 

[Echo S]

The interesting thing is...one of the WMAs that won't play is a file I
recorded from tape and compressed using the Media Encoder. The other
file which I ripped will play fine (in PowerPoint) on my laptop which
has the same version of PPT installed.

Do these different systems both use Windows XP? If so, do they both have
SP-2 installed?

I'm asking because it seems like every time MS releases a security patch,
they zap yet another codec because of whatever security issue happens to
have reared its head since the last patch.

I wonder if that's what's going on here? SP-2 has rendered various codecs
useless, and those happen to be the codecs you rendered your files with...

I did think about something like
that...but I've been able to play the file on three different machines.

Powerpoint does insert the little speaker icon, but it just won't play it.

What's frustrating here is that if the file plays in mplay32.exe, it
*should* play in PPT.

 

[Sonia]

Thanks for sending your list of codecs. I don't see any glaring differences. I
have some that you don't have, but they were installed by software that I have
and you don't. You also have Media Encoder 9 codecs, but I don't have ME9
installed, so I don't have those installed.

Based on something that Echo said above, I have to ask two things that I should
have asked to begin with (banging my head with my knuckles).

1. How long are the paths to the audio files that won't play? Are they stored
in My Documents?
2. Are you sure that the links aren't broken?