Chapter 17: Incorporating Motion Video

PowerPoint creates complete multimedia presentations, which means that not only can you include pictures and sounds but also movies and animations. In this chapter, you'll learn how to select the appropriate video type, how to insert clips, and how to control when they will play.

Understanding Video Types

Let's begin at an obvious starting point: figuring out how you are going to get a hold of the videos you need. Not all videos are live-action recordings; some are digitally created cartoons (either 2-D or 3-D). PowerPoint can show both kinds. The difference is not that important once you get clips into PowerPoint, but when you are determining how you will acquire them, it is helpful to make the distinction. The following sections discuss the types of videos that PowerPoint supports.

Animated GIFs

When is a video not really a video? When it's an animated GIF.

As you may already know, GIF is a file format for static graphics files. One of the advantages of it over other graphic file formats is that you can create animated versions. These are not really videos in the traditional sense; they are a collection of still graphics stored in a single file under one name. When the file is displayed-on a presentation slide, a Web page, or some other place-it cycles through the still graphics at a certain speed, making a very rudimentary animation. You cannot control the animation of an animated GIF through PowerPoint, nor can you set it up to repeat a certain number of times. That information is contained within the GIF file itself. PowerPoint simply reads that information and plays the GIF accordingly.

PowerPoint's Clip Organizer comes with many animated GIFs that have simple conceptual plots, such as time passing, gears turning, and computers passing data between them. They are more like animated clip art than real movies or real animated clips, but they do add an active element to an otherwise static slide.

EXPERT TIP 

It is possible to convert an animated GIF to a "true" video format such as AVI. However, you can't do it using PowerPoint alone; you need a conversion utility. Corel Animation Shop will do this (http://www.corel.com), as will many GIF-editing programs.

Live-Action Videos

Now you get to learn about the "real videos." Recorded videos have a live origin. Someone went out with a video camera and pointed at something in the world. You can get live-action videos from the Internet, but in most cases for business presentations you will want to record it yourself with a camera to suit your purpose. You might use recorded video to present a message from someone who could not be present in person, show how a product functions, or provide a tour of a facility, for example.

There are two kinds of video cameras: digital and non-digital. It is important to know which kind you have because they hook up to the PC differently to transfer the video. A digital video camera hooks up directly to the PC via USB or FireWire port, whereas a regular (analog) video camera requires a conversion box or an adapter card that converts analog to digital.

If you are not sure what type of video camera you have, look at how it stores the video. If it stores it on VHS or some other kind of tape, it's analog. If it stores it on a disk or cartridge that says "digital" on it, it's digital. Also look at its interfaces. If it's digital, it will have either a USB or FireWire plug that fits into your PC; the end of the cable that fits into the video camera will be smaller and more square.

You don't usually import videos directly from the camera into PowerPoint because they are too rough and may contain extraneous footage, unwanted sounds, or awkward jerks or transitions. Instead you want to polish up your videos in a video-editing program. Windows Movie Maker, which comes with Windows XP and Vista, is a decent low-end choice. If you bought an analog-to-digital video converter box or card, it may have come with video-editing software as well. Video editing can be very time-consuming, so allow plenty of time to do this work before assembling your presentation in PowerPoint.

EXPERT TIP 

Don't assume that you have to record every bit of live-action footage with your own camera. As long as you are diligent about obeying copyright restrictions, you can safely download tons of great footage from the Internet. For example, the Internet Archive at http://www.archive.org contains links to huge repositories of footage on all subjects, mostly pre-1964 material on which the copyright has expired. Warning-you can easily get sucked in here and waste several days browsing!

Digital Animation

Digital animation does not have a live origin-it's a simulation of life. Simple animations appear cartoonish, but there are animation applications that, in the right hands, can create extremely realistic 3-D simulations. Digital animation is useful when you are showing things that either don't exist yet or are unavailable for live filming. For example, you could show how a planned product will be manufactured or how it will work. Simple cartoons can also add a whimsical touch or lighten the mood.

To create your own animations, turn to a separate animation application; PowerPoint doesn't have any capability for doing it. If you want high-end, high-quality 3-D animations, use a professional-quality application like Adobe After Effects.

Video File Formats

The video capture and video-editing program you use to create or acquire your video clips will determine the file's format and specs. PowerPoint can accept videos with the following file formats:

• Motion Picture Experts Group (.mpg, .mpeg, .m1v, .mp2, .mpa, and .mpe)

• Microsoft streaming format (.asf and .asx)

• Microsoft Windows Media Video (.wmv)

• Audio Video Interleave (.avi)

• QuickTime (.mov or .qt) versions 1 and 2.x

Caution 

Versions of QuickTime 3 and higher will not work as an inserted movie in PowerPoint. You would need to either insert a later-format QuickTime file as an object (Object button on the Insert tab) or convert it to a supported format such as AVI using a third-party utility.

You may not have a choice in the settings used for the recording of live video or the file format. If you do have a choice, AVI is among the best formats for use in PowerPoint because of its near-universal compatibility. There may be compatibility issues with video in some MPEG variants, such as MPEG-2 and MPEG-4, such that you might need to install a separate DVD-playing utility or a specific codec to handle those formats.

CROSS-REF 

See the "Troubleshooting Movies That Won't Play" section later in this chapter for more information on MPEG variants.

On the theory that Microsoft-to-Microsoft always works, the Windows Media Video format (.wmv) is also a good choice. Because Windows Movie Maker creates its movies in this format by default, it's a good bet that they will work well in PowerPoint.

If you have a choice in quality, you should balance file size against quality. This is usually measured either in frames per second (fps), which is anywhere from 15 (low) to 30 (high), or in kilobits per second, which is anywhere from 38 kbps to 2.1 mbps. You might experiment with different settings to find one with acceptable quality for the task at hand with the minimum of file size. For example, with Windows Movie Maker, a wide variety of quality settings are available.

Note 

What's the difference between a movie and a video? There really isn't any. PowerPoint uses the terms interchangeably.