Powerpoint to Quicktime movie questions

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

Michelle - 18 Apr 2007 06:08 GMT

Is the "Make a movie" under the file menu just a shortcut to the "Save as:
Powerpoint Movie (Quicktime format) or are they two different thing?

I tried taking a completed Powerpoint file (appx. 18 minutes long) and saved
as PPT Movie. The original file has transitions as well as audio that plays
the entire length of the presentation. The resulting movie file was twice
as long as the original. The first half was the audio playing only to the
first slide, while the 2nd half was the slides themselves going through
their prescribed rotation and animation. Should I have removed the audio
file from the original PPT and assigned it in the Preferences>General>Movie
Options>Background soundtrack instead?

What are the advantages/disadvantages for saving it as a movie versus saving
it as a PPS and then including PowerPoint viewers for recipients that don't
have Office and/or PowerPoint? Do I lose anything one way or the other?

Reply to this Message

Jim Gordon MVP - 19 Apr 2007 00:11 GMT

Hi Michelle,

Lots of good questions!

Some of the questions you asked have answers in PowerPoint's help system.
Search for these topics:
My PowerPoint Movie file is too large.
My PowerPoint Movie plays too slowly.
Optimize a presentation for delivery as a PowerPoint Movie
Change the screen size of a PowerPoint Movie
Add a soundtrack to a PowerPoint Movie
Movies and sounds don't play correctly in my PowerPoint Movie.
Troubleshoot PowerPoint Movies

Save as PowerPoint movie and Make Movie are the same feature.

I like the Save As Movie option for several reasons. You can open the saved
presentation in QuickTime, QuickTime Pro, and you can edit it in iMovie.
Presentations saved as movies will play on any computer, Mac or Windows
(assuming the free version of QucikTime is available, which it almost always
is). If QuickTime is not available, QuickTime pro has lots of other formats
you can export to. You can also put the saved PowerPoint movies into iDVD
and play them on any regular DVD player. Drawbacks to the save as Movie
feature: many slide transitions are not supported. Sounds are tricky, as you
have discovered, but with QuickTime Pro you can edit the sound track.

The Mac PowerPoint player is way old (1998) and doesn't support path
animations, the new transitions, and other new features. A few months ago I
tried a very nice free cross-platform powerpoint viewer (that for the life
of me I can't find or remember its name right now) that I prefer to the
Microsoft viewer. Hopefully someone will jump in here and help me with my
failing memory.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Quoting from "Michelle" <teacher24_70@yahoo.com>, in article
C24B1209.7993%teacher24_70@yahoo.com, on [DATE:

> Is the "Make a movie" under the file menu just a shortcut to the "Save as:
> Powerpoint Movie (Quicktime format) or are they two different thing?
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
> it as a PPS and then including PowerPoint viewers for recipients that don't
> have Office and/or PowerPoint? Do I lose anything one way or the other?

Signature

Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Reply to this Message

Michelle - 19 Apr 2007 02:10 GMT

Thanks Jim. I'll do a little more research into the help files.

I didn't even realize that PPT had the movie feature until I was browsing
around in the prefs and menu windows. For a while I've "dreamed" about
creating a photo slideshow that I wanted to be able to be played on a DVD
player, but didn't think that iMovie and/or iDVD would give me the
flexibility of captions and text on pages that PPT gives. However, I
thought that I would have to buy an expensive program to turn PPT
presentations into "movies" that could be burned to a DVD. And all along,
the option was built right into PPT (at least the Quicktime movie portion).

Once I saw this option a couple of days ago, I too thought that it would be
preferable to the PPS with the viewers--for the same reasons you stated. I
made CD's last year for our 5th grade recognition (in the process of
creating this years powerpoint) and was very disappointed when the OLD Mac
viewer was the only one that I could find. Let me know if you ever remember
the name of the cross-platform viewer that you used. That would be
great--at least provided that I decide to go that route instead of the
movie. It would be nice to only have to include one viewer on the CD and
not two.

By the way, what kinds of things are editable once you import the PPT movie
into iMovie? Is text still editable, individual pictures, etc.? How does
this work. Since I don't have a digital camera, the only thing that I've
used iMovie for is still photos and soundtrack.

Thank you for your expertise on my questions. These newsgroups are a
fantastic resource!

On 4/18/07 6:11 PM, in article
C24C1DDD.19343%goldkey74@WarmerThanWarmMail.com, "Jim Gordon MVP"
<goldkey74@WarmerThanWarmMail.com> wrote:

> Hi Michelle,
>
[quoted text clipped - 50 lines]
>> it as a PPS and then including PowerPoint viewers for recipients that don't
>> have Office and/or PowerPoint? Do I lose anything one way or the other?

Reply to this Message

Jim Gordon MVP - 20 Apr 2007 04:17 GMT

Hi Michelle,

Once you've saved a presentation as a movie you can drag the movie file into
one of the little editing blocks in iMovie. You can't do much editing except
cut things out and move them around, but you can mingle the presentations
with other movie clips and photos. Play around with it and you'll find that
there's a great deal of synergy between PowerPoint and Apple's
i-applications.

I'll come across the name of that player sooner or later.

I've learned most of what I know about computing from the newsgroups.
Welcome to the community. I hope you quickly become comfortable asking
questions and offering solutions that you might know about to help other
people. The newsgroups are indeed an amazing resource.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Quoting from "Michelle" <teacher24_70@yahoo.com>, in article
C24C2BAE.79C7%teacher24_70@yahoo.com, on [DATE:

> Thanks Jim. I'll do a little more research into the help files.
>
[quoted text clipped - 83 lines]
>>> it as a PPS and then including PowerPoint viewers for recipients that don't
>>> have Office and/or PowerPoint? Do I lose anything one way or the other?

Signature

Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Reply to this Message

Michelle - 20 Apr 2007 06:38 GMT

I will definitely have to play around with it a little. I've also heard a
lot about the Snapz ProX--that it might have a little bit better quality,
etc. I may have to look into that also. Have you had any experience with
that program?

Now that I know that PPT has more operability with iLife than I would have
thought, I have another quick question. If I saved the PPT slides
themselves as pictures (instead of or in addition to exporting all of it as
a movie), would these slides be importable into iMovie as "stills". I'm
still on iLife '04 and that's a limitation that I see in iMovie--the
inability to add captions, text onto slides to label or explain the photos,
etc. That is unless I'm missing that option. I know that I can add text
between stills, but I haven't seen the option to add them ONTO stills. Is
this possibly a feature that's been added in a newer version of iMovie?

On 4/19/07 10:17 PM, in article
C24DA918.19448%goldkey74@WarmerThanWarmMail.com, "Jim Gordon MVP"
<goldkey74@WarmerThanWarmMail.com> wrote:

> Hi Michelle,
>
[quoted text clipped - 108 lines]
>>>> it as a PPS and then including PowerPoint viewers for recipients that don't
>>>> have Office and/or PowerPoint? Do I lose anything one way or the other?

Reply to this Message

Jim Gordon MVP - 20 Apr 2007 23:35 GMT

Hi Michelle,

I remembered the name of the program that is a nice universal player. It's
Tonic Point Viewer. So I was all happy until:
http://tagedge.com/2007/04/17/google-acquired-tonic-systems/

Yep, Google bought it. That must be the new presentation component of their
office web service. It wouldn't surprise me if in a few days or weeks that
you'll be able to use Google's "new web service" to play your PowerPoint
presentations.

I don't know where to get a copy of the Tonic Point Viewer any more. The
Tonic Point web site is eerily no longer with us

I found it interesting that Google was able to change history by getting rid
of prior entries for http://www.tonicpoint.com/ in the wayback machine
http://web.archive.org/
and replacing those entries with their current stuff. Even as far back as
2004. I guess with Google's money and power they can do just about anything
now.

Yes, the saved slides can be imported into iMovie as stills. I don't think
iMovie can add captions to pictures. I tried. But you certainly can do that
in PowerPoint.

Please let me encourage you to post to the newsgroup the results of any
experimentation. The more everyone knows the better off we all are.

Thanks.

-Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

Quoting from "Michelle" <teacher24_70@yahoo.com>, in article
C24DBC1D.7A08%teacher24_70@yahoo.com, on [DATE:

> I will definitely have to play around with it a little. I've also heard a
> lot about the Snapz ProX--that it might have a little bit better quality,
[quoted text clipped - 131 lines]
>>>>> don't
>>>>> have Office and/or PowerPoint? Do I lose anything one way or the other?

Signature

Jim Gordon
Mac MVP

MVPs are not Microsoft Employees
MVP info http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/

Reply to this Message

Mac Forum / Applications / PowerPoint / April 2007

Powerpoint to Quicktime movie questions