Problem with timings using viewer

[Elorah Dannon]

I'm using PP for song presentations. I do one presentation per song,
then put those together in a list and run it with the viewer. I'm
having some glitches, though. Sometimes the words on the slide don't
show up. The next time I run it through the timings are off on one of
the songs. I go in and redo the 'rehearse timings' and get it all
straight. But when I go to view the whole list again, it does the
same thing. The slides get ahead of the music and it cuts the music
off before it's through. Then I have to page through the rest of the
slides on that one presentation to get to the next song. It's done
this on two different list presentations with two different songs. I
can't figure out what the problem is. Seems like a hiccup with the
viewer, but not sure. Please help! I'm running these presentations
for two more days and would like to get this fixed so they run
smoothly......

 

[Bill Dilworth]

Hi Elorah,

I'm very sorry you are having trouble with this. If it helps, so did I.

PowerPoint simply does not do for synchronized slide/audio, variances
between machines, task load, and even runs will accumulate and produce the
undesired result you are seeing. The basic reason is that PowerPoint only
gives a command to start the sounds, it doesn't actually play them.

You would do better, since strict timing is required, to look at Windows
Movie Maker 2. It requires a minimum of Windows XP, but is a very good
product. There are several steps to making a movie of the song.

1) Make the slides you have created into pictures via File | Save As ... |
{file Type pulldown} PNG and when asked, save all slides to a directory
you'll be able to find.

2) Open WMM2, start a new project, and import those picture files. Also
import the song audio file.

3) Drag the slides onto the timeline and arrange to order. Drag the audio
onto the timeline also.

4) Expand the pictures of the slides to fit the audio.

5) Save the movie as whatever format (I'd recommend WMV). Because these are
movies, they will stay sync'd (well... almost always).

6 ) Optionally, you can import the movies into PowerPoint to handle to flow
from one to the next.

There are other methods to help reduce the accumulated sync variances, but
this is the best way to eliminate it. This link should help you:
**Synchronizing Sound, Video, Animation, Etc
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/synchronizing.htm

Sorry to give you more work, but I think you'll find the solution not so
bad, once you get comfortable with WMM2. You can help by telling Microsoft
this is something you feel they should build into the next version of
PowerPoint:
**Tell Microsoft
http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp