[turbulentfurball]

I'm currently making a PowerPoint presentation for a presentation at uni. It's about Apple

I want to include the current advert for the new iMac, and I've saved it as a QT movie with QT pro. The computer I'll be doing the presentation on is (surprise) a Windows XP machine. I know that they don't have QT, so I won't be able to play it as it is, and there are also no codecs on the machines for DIVX/AVI. I think I'll have to convert it to WMV, since I can be certain that it will play WMV files. Does a converter exist to convert QT to WMV? Or is there a format I can use that will just play on the windows computer that won't need a codec? Maybe the plain AVI file that QT Pro can output?

[Brad]

Flip4Mac Studio. It's a little expensive to get the export option, but it's your only reliable option if you want a file using the Windows Media codecs.

There's no such way to export a video that "won't need a codec." Codec is short for compressor-decompressor and is the software that takes the bits of data and converts it into video and audio streams that the specific player can display to the screen. Just because you don't have to install a codec doesn't mean you're not using one; QuickTime includes a variety of codecs and WiMP includes its own variety.

Nitpick mode off.

Yes, you could try exporting to AVI using the various options in QuickTime Player. I don't know, however, which of the codecs (if any) are also available with WiMP by default without downloading and installing.

[turbulentfurball]

Thanks Brad

I tried using an AVI made in QT pro, saved the presentation, then tried it on my Windows laptop. Powerpoint gave told me that I needed Quicktime to play it, although it's just an AVI. The TIFF image files I used also won't display.

I then deleted the AVI from the presentation, then imported it again using Powerpoint for Windows, and it worked.

I then saved the presentation, loaded it back into Powerpoint for Mac, and now it plays, but with sound only.

I may just bring my mac to uni and hope they'll let me use it, otherwise I'll have to do some last minute editing of my powerpoint file before I do the presentation.

Are the above issues related to MS Powerpoint generally being an ass?

I can't justify paying for Flip4Mac for a one time use. I already bought QT pro today, just to download the video in the first place

[Brad]

When you choose to export as an AVI, hit that "Options" button on the side. Then click the video "Settings" button. From the popup menu for Compression Type, keep choosing different ones. Eventually hopefully you'll find one that "just works."

As for the TIFFs, that's no surprise. As I recall, the Mac version of Office actually supports more image formats than the Windows version; that would explain this. Try them as BMPs.

[turbulentfurball]

I found the setting that 'just works' and it's resulted in a 242MB avi, for a video that's 30s long. I eventually found a windows program to make a wmv, which was easy enough, but guess what?

MS Powerpoint for Mac won't allow you to insert a WMV. It's a stupid oversight for Microsoft who seem to be trying to make WMV a ubiquitous format.

Anyway, I've given up on the whole idea. Please lock the thread so I don't come up with any more madcap plans!

[Dorian Gray]

Oh come now, don't give up that easily!

I don't know all the intricacies of exactly what PowerPoint will play on a Windows computer (some codecs might work in an AVI container), but I do know that any computer will play MPEG-1 out of the box. For something as important as a presentation, I'd be very inclined to use that then.

ffmpegX can encode to MPEG-1 for free. Just now I encoded a QuickTime file by following these steps:

1. Open the QuickTime file (MOV) in ffmpegX and enter a filename (for output).

2. Select "VCD mpeg2enc" as the "Target format".

3. Click the Encode button.

You may get an error message at the end, but the file will have been encoded just fine by this point. Open it in QuickTime Player to see if it plays (and hit Command-I to check it's actually MPEG-1). The quality will be markedly lower than the original but probably acceptable for a presentation.

Alternatively, I'll happily encode the video for you to MPEG-1 with a professional video encoding app (Sorenson Squeeze 4, which I managed to find for £175 at educational discount) if you give me a download location for the exact video you want encoded. The quality would be more than good enough for a presentation.

PS. You should have asked us before buying QuickTime Pro if you only wanted it to download that video! There are ways and means of doing these things for free.