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...Continued from Page 2
Codecs Are A Must
Bringing It Altogether
Alternative Methods
Portability of Presentations
Closing Remarks
Codecs Are
a Must - Find Them Here
What the heck is a Codec and why do I need them? Codec stands
for COmpressor / DECompressor and it does pretty much what
the name implies. They are used to compress multimedia files
for transfer and storage, and then to reverse the process
for play back. If you have ever used "Zip" to compress
a file you have the general idea.
Why are there so many different codecs? Different forms
of multimedia compress very differently depending upon their
contents. Consider the difference in the sound of a car engine
running and a full orchestra playing music. The engines sound
is of a very low frequency and repetitive, while the orchestra
produces a full frequency of sound with little repetition.
Obviously the engine sound would compress much differently
than would the orchestra music. So we use a different tool
or codec to get the job done. The same analogy holds true
for video. Codecs are constantly being upgraded and the technology
envelope pushed in order to compress the file smaller without
loosing quality during playback.
The good news is that Microsoft foresaw the need for future
codecs and built the MCI so we can simply install them as
needed. In plain terms, a codec is just another module of
the MCI and the MCI makes it available to other software,
in our case, PowerPoint.
There are literally hundreds (thousands?) of codecs in use
today and no one would have all of them installed on their
machine. However there are the "common" ones that
should be on every machine. In order to determine which codecs
are install on your machine go into Control Panel and double
click Multimedia. Click on the Devices Tab and look for "Audio
Compression Codecs" and "Video Compression Codecs".
Click on either of these to see a list of the codecs installed.
Here is a list of some of the most common codecs:
DSP Group
TrueSpeech Software Audio Codec
Intel
Indeo R3.1 Video Codec
Indeo R3.2 Video Codec
Indeo 5.04 Video Codec
Microsoft Audio Codices
ADPCM Audio Codec
CCITT G.711 A-Law and u-Law Audio Codec
GSM 6.10 Audio Codec
IMA ADPCM Audio Codec
Microsoft Video Codices
RLE Video Codec
Video 1 Video Codec
SuperMatch
Cinepak Video Codec
Fraunhofer
Fraunhofer IIS MPEG Layer-3 Codec
In putting this information together I have tried to track
down sites where codecs could be downloaded. I found two
things: First, folks that create codecs tend to play it very
close to the chest. That is you won’t find much in the
way of web sites that have lots of them for down load. And
second, the companies change the URLs to their sites on a
regular basis so placing them in this document is a waste
of time. So the best advice I can give is to use your favorite
search engine and go hunting on the web.
Late breaking news! I have found the Nimo All in One Codec
Pack that will install many of the possible codecs you might
need. Click
here to get the download...
Back
It
Bringing Altogether
OK, we have the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files straightened
out, and we have the standard codecs installed, now what?
Next come driver issues. The most common problem I've seen
in multimedia and PowerPoint is problems in the video drivers.
If you are experiencing a situation where PowerPoint allows
you to insert the multimedia file but it doesn't play as
expected the chances are it's a video problem. What can be
done about it? Before "fixing" the problem lets
try to determine that it is in fact a video problem. To do
this, restart your computer in Safe Mode and run the presentation.
It won't be pretty but the question to be answered is, did
it play properly? If the answer is yes then it's almost certain
you have a video driver issue. There are three basic "fixes" for
this situation.
First, go to the web site of your video card manufacturer
and see if there is an updated driver for it. If you aren't
certain which driver to use, most manufactures provide a
small utility to examine your system and give you this information.
You might also be able to get this information from Control
Panel - System - Device Manager. Look for "Display Adapter".
Second, change your display color depth. I wish I had a
magic formula to tell you which optional setting to use but
it depends upon your particular system. So, simply try different
settings to see if one works properly when you play your
presentation.
Third, Lower your video hardware acceleration. Again go
into Control Panel - System - Performance. You will see a
button labeled "Graphics". Click it and you are
presented with a slide control, which may be used to set
the acceleration level. Move it down one "notch" at
a time and try the presentation.
One or a combination of these things should fix the problem.
However, I will note that I have run into problems with certain
new video cards that I wasn't able to resolve. The answer
at that point was to replace the video card. As a side note,
many of the video cards that have video capture or "video
in" tend to install their own proprietary codecs. These
will work fine on your machine but if you move the file to
another machine it may not work at all. Just a word to the
wise.
These same issues are applicable to sound playback. First
make certain the WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI files are correct,
then make certain the required codecs are in place, and then
play the file in "mplayer.exe" (mplayer32.exe for
winNT). If you are unable to play the sound in this manner
there are problems with your sound subsystem.
The fixes are the same as for video issues. Make certain
you have the latest driver for your sound card from the manufacture.
Next make certain your playback settings match or exceed
the quality level of your file. As an example, if you have
your system set to produce only 8-bit mono playback and the
file is 16-bit stereo the quality of the sound will obviously
suffer, or may not play at all. And the last area to look
at is the audio hardware acceleration. Again try adjusting
it gradually and try playing the presentation after each
adjustment.
All the audio adjustments are made in Control Panel - Multimedia
- Audio.
Back
Alternative Methods
Up to this point we have been dealing with how to play multimedia "natively" in
PowerPoint. By that I mean using the standard method of,
Insert - Sound/Movie - From File. There are a number of other
ways to do this, and the following are some examples.
If you use "drag and drop" to place a multimedia
file on a slide, an instance of "Windows Media Player" is
created. At that point Media Player is in control of the
playback.
To play a non-supported file format (QuickTime, Real Media,)
you may Insert - Object - Create From File and navigate to
the file and insert it. This will call the player that is
associated with that file type. This of course assumes you
have the correct player installed on your system.
You may also hyperlink to the file. Select the object or
text you want to assign the hyperlink to, and Insert - Hyperlink.
In the "Link To" window select Existing File or
Web Page, and then navigate to the desired file. Again the
player associated with the file type will be called. I happen
to like using this method when giving a presentation because
it allows me to have control of when the movie is played.
There are a number of additional methods to play multimedia
in PowerPoint using Visual Basic for Applications, Active
X controls, or Visual Basic controls already existing in
PowerPoint. However, they are well beyond the scope of this
document and are best left to the programmer types.
There is one last method that I should mention. If you have
an OLE compliant application, it to may be inserted as an
Object. One place this might come in handy is the playback
of DVD movies. Neither PowerPoint nor Windows Media Player
is equipped to handle this format.
Back
of
Portability Presentations
I've included this section as many users ask why their presentation
works on one machine and not another. As you can see from
all the above information it isn't so much a PowerPoint problem
as it is an environment (Windows Setup) problem. We simply
have no way of knowing in advance how the receiving user
has his/her machine setup.
What can be done to maximize success in transporting presentations?
Don't create a presentation with critical timing on a fast
machine and expect it to work the same way on lesser machines.
If you have a video playing, don't add to the computers workload
by having other animations happening at the same time. It's
also a good practice to place a couple of seconds between
slide transitions and the start of a video.
Use Multimedia file formats that are likely to be found
on most machines. For video this is the AVI format using
the Cinepak codec or the (preferred) MPEG format. For audio
use the Microsoft wav format. I can hear the grumbling already
about quality and file size. Folks, if you want to distribute
the presentation to others you have to use the lowest common
denominator. Remember, a big file that plays properly is
a lot better than a small file that doesn't play at all.
Be certain that you include any multimedia files along with
the presentation. Because Microsoft uses the word "Insert" we
tend to think the file has been inserted into the presentation.
Unfortunately this isn't true, the Multimedia file has been "linked" to
the presentation and it is called when needed. PowerPoint
expects to find the file in the same place it was originally
linked from.
Back
Closing Remarks
That about covers the "generic" information on
using PowerPoint and multimedia. I'm certain there are a
number of issues that are specific to your machine and presentation,
but I couldn't possibly cover all of them in this document.
If you have read through this information, made the suggested
changes, and still encounter problems or issues I urge you
to visit the PowerPoint newsgroup - microsoft.public.powerpoint where
I and a bunch of wonderful folks hang out working together
to get the most out of PowerPoint.
Heck, don't wait until you have problems, just stop in and
say hello. You never know what you might learn or teach others.
Happy Presentations,
Austin Myers
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
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