Solution to PowerPoint video problems

(This post used to be part of my old blog; it was posted on 29 February 2008.)

Boy oh boy. I've been spending the last 2 hours trying to get my video clips to work in PowerPoint. In the process, I've searched half the web (OK, that's a bit of an exaggeration) without finding a solution to my problem. Now that I've finally found a workaround, I thought I'd share my solution with the rest of the PowerPoint-video-problem-plagued community out there. So without further ado, here it is.

The Problem

When playing a video clip in PowerPoint, the clip's placeholder only shows a black (blank) screen, although audio works perfectly.

The Solution

Use an embedded Media Player object instead of the built-in PowerPoint method.

What do I need/What effects does this have?

I tested this solution on a computer running Windows XP, Office 2003 and Windows Media Player 11. The procedure should be the same if you're using something different, but Media Player 11, or at least 10, is quite essential. The disadvantage to this solution is that the movie clips you insert in this manner are embedded into the presentation. This increases the file size quite a bit, which means that if you were planning to send the presentation with e-mail, you can't embed a movie clip of 20 MB. If you're planning to show the presentation on your own computer/laptop and you have got enough space, this is the easy solution to a very, very irritating problem.

For PowerPoint 2007, scroll to the bottom of this post.

How do I do it?

In PowerPoint, click on "Insert" > "Object..."

Click "Create New" on the left, if it isn't already selected.

From the list that appears, select "Windows Media Player". Make sure that "Display as icon" (on the right) is not selected.

Click "OK".

A blank Windows Media Player instance should appear in your presentation. It should look something like this:

Now, right click on the Windows Media Player object and click "Properties".

In the dialog that appears, double click on the "Custom" entry in the list.

A nice GUI appears where you can set all options easily. In the "Source" section of the new dialog, select the movie clip that you would like to have displayed. Set all the other options in the dialog and press "OK".

Your movie object should now be able to play. Yah!

UPDATE FOR POWERPOINT 2007:

Thanks to visitor 'Jackie' for adding the instructions for PP2007.

For those running PPT 2007 on Vista - here is step by step how to access this control. Click the Windows icon, click PowerPoint options. Check the box for “Show Developer tab in the ribbon” and click OK. Click the Developer tab. In the center section is Controls. Click More Controls. Select Windows Media Player. Click OK. Now (and this is the full instruction that was missing) you have to use the cross-hatch tool that appears to DRAW a box for your Windows Media Player. Once you do this you can activate the properties as detailed above. Click custom and then click the … box next to it to pull up the custom properties. It took me a few times to realize that I now had to draw a box for the media player - many people may be expecting the media player to just appear.

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