Struggling with MPEG-2 clips in PowerPoint

[Guest]

I am attempting to insert and play some MPEG-2 video clips, but am having
difficulties. When I insert the Movie from File, a black box appears on the
slide. If I run the show, all I get is the black box. If in PowerPoint I
right click on the box and select "Play Movie", I get a brief flicker
followed by the black box. To answer some questions from earlier threads:

* I am creating my clips using Avid Liquid 7, and writing them using the
"DVD Compatible MPEG-2" template.

* In addition to the above template, I've tried 720 x 480 and 640 x 480
resolution, CBR and VBR.

* I have Windows Media Player 10 and the latest version of PowerDVD installed.

* When selecting Start > Run > mplayer2.exe and loading the "DVD Compatible
MPEG-2" format clips, they play as advertised.

* The directory lengths are sufficiently short (c:\videoclips\file_name.mpg).

* I also tried moving the clip files to the same folder as the ppt file
(c:\presentations) without success.

* I've tried creating AVI files using MJPEG, Indio Video, and Cinepak
codecs. All leave a noticeable amount of blockiness and compression noise
around the superimposed characters. Thus, I'd really prefer to get the
cleaner MPEG-2 versions working.

I am open to suggestions. Thanks!

 

[Austin Myers]

I am attempting to insert and play some MPEG-2 video clips, but am having
difficulties. When I insert the Movie from File, a black box appears on
the
slide. If I run the show, all I get is the black box. If in PowerPoint I
right click on the box and select "Play Movie", I get a brief flicker
followed by the black box. To answer some questions from earlier threads:

* I am creating my clips using Avid Liquid 7, and writing them using the
"DVD Compatible MPEG-2" template.

The question is, compatible with who's deffinition of MPEG-2. I say that as
MANY applications for creating MPEG-2 files fall short in many areas of
creating an MPEG-2 file meeting the set requirements.

Let me ask this, does you video play properly in PowerDVD? If not you may
also have an issue between the codec installed by PowerDVD and the files you
are creating.

* In addition to the above template, I've tried 720 x 480 and 640 x 480
resolution, CBR and VBR.

* I have Windows Media Player 10 and the latest version of PowerDVD
installed.

If I may offer a suggestion. You might try creating an uncompressed AVI,
storing it on your hard drive, and then use PFCMedia to both compress it and
insert it into the presentation. You can get a free (fully functioning)
trial copy from;

http://www.pfcmedia.com

PS: You may want to try running the current Mpeg-2 versions you currently
have through PFCMedia.


Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team

Provider of PFCMedia http://www.pfcmedia.com