PowerPoint Movies Won't Transfer Reliably

[CharPatton1]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor: Intel Hi. I have several large talks that contain 20-30 QT and/or WMV movies each. The movies are all located in the same folder as the PowerPoint file. They play great upon my work computer. However, when I copy the folder to a USB drive and attempt to play from there, about half the movies won't play. Any ideas would be greatfully appreciated! Thank you.

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

Version: 2008 Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) Processor:
Intel Hi. I have several large talks that contain 20-30 QT and/or WMV
movies each. The movies are all located in the same folder as the
PowerPoint file. They play great upon my work computer. However, when I
copy the folder to a USB drive and attempt to play from there, about
half the movies won't play. Any ideas would be greatfully appreciated!
Thank you.

PowerPoint has a special Save As feature. Use Save As and on the Format
pop-up choose PowerPoint Package.

PowerPoint creates a folder, copies all your linked media files to the
folder and then goes through the presentation and adjusts the links to
be "relative" links so that your content plays reliably. Then you just
copy the package folder to your USB drive.

Various updates to PowerPoint break and then later ones subsequently fix
this feature. If you find that some of your linked files don't get
copied to the package folder, just copy them yourself into the folder. I
think the latest update fixed this problem, so be sure your PowerPoint
is up to date (Help menu > Check for updates)

-Jim

 

[BustedFlush]

Hi. I have several large talks that contain 20-30 QT and/or WMV movies each. The movies are all located in the same folder as the PowerPoint file. They play great upon my work computer. However, when I copy the folder to a USB drive and attempt to play from there, about half the movies won't play. Any ideas would be greatfully appreciated! Thank you.
Could the usb drive be too slow to reliably play the videos. I always try to transfer to the computers internal drive for playback.

 

[Jim Gordon Mac MVP]

movies each. The movies are all located in the same folder as the
PowerPoint file. They play great upon my work computer. However, when I
copy the folder to a USB drive and attempt to play from there, about
half the movies won't play. Any ideas would be greatfully appreciated!
Thank you.
Could the usb drive be too slow to reliably play the videos. I always
try to transfer to the computers internal drive for playback.

Hi,

Yes, your analysis is very likely correct. USB drives have various speed
capabilities. Movies require a high data transfer rate. If the USB drive
can't keep up, the movie will stutter.

-Jim

 

[CharPatton]

Hi Guys: Thank you both for your posts; I really appreciate you sharing your expertise!

Unfortunately, in this particular case, I'm not sure if these thots provide a solution. The issue occurred while running on the laptop directly from the hard drive (vide supra). All movies are in the same folder as the PowerPoint presentations. What is so confusing to me is that this talk has worked just fine from this location multiple times in the past. Can a PPT (or PPTX) file get corrupted? Would this explain why I am unable to insert movies into it anymore? If a file gets corrupted (I don't even know if this can even happen), is there a way to uncorrupt it? Or do I just troll through backups?

Interestingly, many of the other speakers at the meeting stated that they have had multiple problems with PPTX so have downgraded all their talks to PPT. Perhaps the technology is just a bit too new for talks with multiple movies (it always works great of movies are not involved). Perhaps the next edition of Office will address these issues?

Thanks again for your thoughts.

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi,

You can get details about links to movies and sounds from this FAQ:
http://www.pptfaq.com/FAQ00155.htm

There¹s no difference in the way videos are linked between .ppt or .pptx so
changing formats shouldn¹t affect your experience with this problem. There
*is* a difference with PowerPoint 2010 (Windows) where videos are no longer
linked by default. Instead they are embedded. I¹m hoping this behavior will
ship with Office 2011 for Mac later this year.

You should use .ppt if you are using PowerPoint 2003 or 2004. Use .pptx if
you are using PowerPoint 2007, 2008, 2010, or 2011. Following this rule of
thumb avoids running your presentation through a translator, which possibly
could slow things down.

As I mentioned previously, the data rate of the USB drive must be considered
when playing movies. A low data rate could cause a movie to stutter, but it
still should try to play.

You can use PowerPoint¹s Save As Package feature to create folders that have
presentations with all media content properly linked. Don¹t alter the
presentation or the media once you make one of these packages.

It¹s possible to have a file go bad. It¹s been years since it¹s happened to
me, and it seems to be a very rare occurrence. Only if a hard drive were on
the verge of failure would I expect problems of this nature. Of course,
periodic checks with disc utilities such as Disk Warrior, TechTools, or
Drive Genius should be part of your regular maintenance schedule. When file
systems start acting a bit erratically, it¹s a signal it¹s a good time to
give these tools a workout.

Hi Guys: Thank you both for your posts; I really appreciate you sharing your
expertise!

Unfortunately, in this particular case, I'm not sure if these thots provide a
solution. The issue occurred while running on the laptop directly from the
hard drive (vide supra). All movies are in the same folder as the PowerPoint
presentations. What is so confusing to me is that this talk has worked just
fine from this location multiple times in the past. Can a PPT (or PPTX) file
get corrupted? Would this explain why I am unable to insert movies into it
anymore? If a file gets corrupted (I don't even know if this can even happen),
is there a way to uncorrupt it? Or do I just troll through backups?

Interestingly, many of the other speakers at the meeting stated that they have
had multiple problems with PPTX so have downgraded all their talks to PPT.
Perhaps the technology is just a bit too new for talks with multiple movies
(it always works great of movies are not involved). Perhaps the next edition
of Office will address these issues?

Thanks again for your thoughts.

--
Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info