Techniques for Inserting Video Clips into PowerPoint Presentations

This tutorial describes the steps needed to insert captured video clips into a PowerPoint presentation..

If you instead you need to capture video digitally, click here.

This is a lot simpler than you would first think. To insert a video clip into your presentation:

Obtain a clip
- you can capture your own
- or you can insert a clip from a DVD, CD, tape, etc.
Open the presentation you wish to insert a clip into
- In the presentation, scroll to the slide that comes before where you want the video
- Choose InsertNew Slide and choose the Blank format option
- Scroll down to your new, blank slide
- Click once on your blank slide, just to make sure you have it selected
- Choose InsertMovies and SoundsMovie From File
- In the box that pops up, browse to the location of your movie clip
- Select your clip and press
  - After that, either one of two things will happen
    - you will see the first frame of your clip and be asked; if so, decide how the clip should play
      - do you want the movie to play automatically upon the slide being opened?
      - or would you prefer to have it play when you click it with the mouse?
    - or you’ll get an error saying that PowerPoint can’t support this type of file; if this is the case, then the problem lies with the compression codec used when creating the clip
      - you must go back to Premiere
        
        import the clip from file
        
        re-export it but choose a different codec (such as the Cinepak one, or Divx Low Motion)
        
        click here is you need to review the video capture tutorial
- If however, you didn’t get the error message, then everything is fine and your clip has now been inserted

In actuality, the clip isn’t inserted per se, but the location of the clip is. Why is this important? If you change the location of anything (say, by opening the presentation on another computer), then there’s a chance that that location will no longer be valid. To prevent this, I recommend completing your presentation, then burning all video clips and the presentation to a recordable CD. Then, right before giving your presentation, go back through and re-insert all clips, to make sure that the computer you will be giving the presentation on has all the correct locations. NOTE: make sure you select and delete the clip from the PowerPoint presentation before re-inserting. Otherwise, you will have two copies of the clip stacked upon each other, thereby causing extremely slow and choppy playback.

Techniques for Inserting Video Clips into PowerPoint Presentations

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