Powerpoint displays blank screen during videos

[Steve Howie]

In powerpoint XP, when I try to play a video file (insert, Movies and
Sounds), all I get is a white screen. There are no error messages and all
videos on this machine appear to act the same way. I've tried reinstalling
the codecs from the Microsoft site and Windows Media Player works fine.

Sometimes I can see a thin, black outline (vertically only) of the box that
should be playing the movie. Otherwise, no sound or video shows.

It's just when I try to play videos within Powerpoint.

Any help troubleshooting would be most appreciated!

 

[Austin Myers]

If you shoot me one of the videos in email I'll be glad to look it over.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

 

[Sonia]

Try moving your presentation and the video file to C:\Test and then delete and
re-insert the video file to recreate the link. Then test the slide show. I
suspect that you currently have the video stored in a location with a very long
path. If it is greater than 127 characters, PowerPoint won't play it.
--

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

 

[Steve Howie]

Same results using a new presentation file and inserting a movie from
c:\test. No video or sound, just a white screen. Thanks for the
suggestion, though.

This is getting most frustrating as I can't even find any knowledgebase
articles or anything else that even describes the problem here....

 

[Sonia]

Try going to Start > Run and type mplay32.exe to open the MCI player. Then open
the video file and click on the Play button. Does it play?

 

[Steve Howie]

Yes, mplay32 will play both the AVI and the wmv files.....

 

[Sonia]

Which means that PowerPoint *should* play them. Have you tried each of the tips
at http://www.echosvoice.com/tshoot_video2.htm?

 

[Steve Howie]

Inexplicably, after playing the videos in mplay32, Powerpoint now plays them
as well.

Very strange, but hopefully will keep working... Thanks, all, for your
suggestions!!!

 

[Sonia]

Just wondering - - does the video now work in your original presentation file
also?

 

[Austin Myers]

Curious indeed.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

 

[Guest]

I have exactly the same problem.
Only my video wasn't corrected by playing it through mplay32.exe.
I've tried every suggestions by Sonia and Austin, including the very helpful
web sites suggested. All the way to regedit and codecs.

I copied the file to a laptop and it runs fine. Again everything from reg to
codecs and path length are identical. Additionally this has never happened
before and there have been no resotore points or other significant changes to
either machine.

XPSP2, PP 2003. Insert, Movies and Sounds, Movie from File. It's a wmv
format video clip.

Any ideas left up a sleeve?

Thanks for all the help.

Kennard