WMV Jerky in PPT but not when played in the WMP

[Trey Selman]

PPT 2003
win xp Home Edition sp1
laptop P3 1.1Ghz

I have inserted a wmv in a presentation.
It starts to play great then about 30 secs into it becomes jerky. every few
frames it stalls then plays.

If I play the wmv in Windows media player outside of PPT the video plays
great!

I have checked codecs, display drivers, and updated office 2003 and windows.
Audio plays fine just video that skips.


It works fine on my desktop in PPT and in WMP.


Trey Selman

 

[Mike M.]

PowerPoint uses the driver specified in your MCI settings (win.ini,
system.ini) to render the video. It does NOT use WMP to play them. You can
insert an WMP object on the slide and point it to the video so it will play
better within PowerPoint. However, PowerPoint will not know when it is done
so you will have to advance your slide with a mouse click. I get a CPU
savings of almost 50% by using the WMP object instead of inserting the movie
into PPT.

 

[John Simpson]

Hi Mike .. I've had some problems with video in slides ... tried this but
couldn't find the WMP through the 'Insert | Obect' route ... am I looking in
the wrong place?
Regards
John S

 

[Mike M.]

Yes you are. It is in the "more controls" list. The hammer and wrench
thingy on Control Toolbox. If you don't have the control toolbox visible,
right click on a blank spot in the tool box area and select control toolbox.
When you click the more controls you will get a list of items in
alphabetical order. Just look for Windows Media Player. Once you insert
it, right click and select properties. Then you can click the Custom
property to browse to the clip to play.

HTH

 

[Trey Selman]

Thanks Mike
I was under the impression that 2003 had integrated Windows Media 9 with the
insert method, but I guess I was wrong.

Went back to the old way of inserting the object and it works fine. The only
problem is the fullscreen property not remaining but that is a known issue.

Thanks

 

[Sonia]

Well, you're half right. PowerPoint 2003 will use MCI if it can and if not
it will try WMP. Therein lies a big problem, because it isn't exposed to us
which it will be. Very confusing and painful.

 

[Trey Selman]

Are there any tricks to ensure WMP is used over the MCI.

Like maybe using an asx file to call the wmv? or something like that?

Trey

 

[Trey Selman]

I have done some preliminary testing and using an asx file calling the wmv
video through the insert movie option works and doesn't yield choppy video.
It must be calling WMP - Maybe? who knows, but it seems to work and there is
no problem with the fullscreen playback property being reset!

 

[Sonia]

My understanding is that WMP would automatically be used to play a WMV, but
I could be wrong. I'm assuming you have WMP 9 installed and used it to
create the WMV??

 

[Trey Selman]

That was my assumption, too!
Yes, WMP9

However, choppy video playback when using insert-movie and sounds.
But if I insert-object Windows Media player as Mike M suggested in and
earlier post it plays without choppy video.
Problem there, is the issue with setting properties to fullscreen and not
keeping the setting.
BUT if I create an asx file pointing to the same wmv file and insert then
asx file using the insert-movie and sounds the same video file plays without
choppy video and there is no problem with property settings being lost.

Video was made using WMP encoder series 9.

Video plays fine in WMP alone and on another machine there is no problem in
PPT with either method.

Kinda goofy, Huh!

 

[Sonia]

Well, it may behave goofy, but I would guess that the process is different
if PowerPoint controls the play versus if it hands it off the WMP via a
control. If you have found a satisfactory solution, I say "Go with it".

 

[Mike M.]

Sounds interesting. How do you generate an asx file from a wmv file?

 

[Mike M.]

Scratch that question. I just renamed and PPT recognized it. Now comes the
big but, are you sure PPT is playing it using WMP control instead of
natively through the MIC driver? I use PPT2002 and I inserted the asx file
on a slide using Movie from file. I then added a WMP object to the next
slide and pointed it to the asx file. The inserted asx on the first slide
consumes 100% of my cpu. The WMP object on the second slide consumes less
then 50%.

 

[Trey Selman]

An asx file is a text - metafile (xml) file that calls a windows media
stream file.
created in Notepad.

Just renaming a wmv will not change things. I am guessing the asx (metafile)
forces windows media player to be the player for streaming reasons. However,
I am not sure that WMP9 is being used.

In any event it solves my problem of choppy video playback. My resources are
not at 100% when playback occurs it is more like 68-70% using the asx file.

Some quick links describing the interaction of the files
http://cita.rehab.uiuc.edu/mediaplayer/asx-overview.html
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/introwmmeta.aspx
example
*************
<ASX Version = "3.0">
<Title>The Video</Title>

<Entry>
<Title>Video Title</Title>
<Ref href = "C:\my documents\my videos\jsj5mbps.wmv" />
<AUTHOR>Trey Selman</AUTHOR>
</Entry>

</ASX>
**************

I probably should be using wmx files instead of asx.
or change the wmv to asf - either way things are working.

 

[Mike M.]

Hello Trey. I am trying to reproduce what you have done. I use PPT2002 and
Windows 2k. I created the following asx file:
<ASX Version = "3.0">
<Title>The Video</Title>

<Entry>
<Title>Video Title</Title>
<Ref Href = "C:\Documents and Settings\mmalone\My
Documents\Atlantis\Aqua Tots.wmv" />
</Entry>
</ASX>

When I double click in Windows Explorer, WMP launches and the clip plays.
When I do Insert->Movies and Sounds->Movie from file it puts a speaker icon
on the slide. When I right click it shows, "Play Sound", "Edit Sound
Object" and such. If I try to play I get the error, "The MCI device you are
using does not support the specified command."

win.ini:
[MCI Extensions]
asx=MPEGVideo

System.ini:
[mci]
MPEGVideo=mciqtz.drv

I am curious how you were able to insert the asx file using insert movie
from file. Any thoughts?

I am trying to play some high res clips (1280 x 768, 4 MB) within PowerPoint
and having very little luck even on a 2.4 Ghz machine.

TIA

 

[John Simpson]

Hi Mike .. ah, I'm familiar with this as it's the route to inserting Flash
files. But hate to say it, Windows Media Player isn't listed in the 145
other controls I have.

I'm running XP and WMP v8 is installed and plays as a standalone. Anyone
any ideas?
Regards
John Simpson

 

[Mike M.]

Hmm, I have Windows Media Player 9 installed. I have four Windows Media
controls; Channel Manager, Player, Unicast Manager Admin Control and Unicast
Traceview Control. I feel sure there was a Windows Media Player control as
of WMP 8 but maybe I am wrong.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Mike, FWIW, this works with WMP 7; don't have 8 handy to test with.

 

[Mike M.]

o.k. Thanks. I am using WMP 9.0.