Re: Looking for workarounds for bugs in Powerpoint 2008 (even with

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Nancy,

Thanks for replying to my post.

I have also asked Microsoft to help me with these problems as one of my "two
free support incidents", and someone named (or pseudo-named) Kimberley has
been
trying to help (v-8kimca@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx). However, she appears not
to understand the problems, and we have gone around several times on this.
Here is my most recent email to her, edited to make it clearer to you.

Basically, in a brand new Powerpoint 2008 presentation, if a video is inserted
by itself into a presentation, it plays smoothly on all my machines. I have
no
performance issue with these movies. (I have a MacBook Pro, 2.4 GHz Intel
Core
2 Duo, with an NVidia GeForce 8600M GT graphics card, and I have two brand-new
MacPros, with eight cores, 4 GB of memory (!), and an NVIDIA GeForce 8800.
These are the most powerful systems Apple makes. I am running OS 10.5.2,
and QuickTime 7.4.1. These systems are less than a month old, so I have
the "latest and greatest" of everything.

However, if an image is placed over the video, but configured to appear only
after a mouse click (after playing the video), then the video plays jerkily.
This occurs for *any* video I insert, even tiny (in X and Y) videos.

Here is a directory containing files that show the problem:

http://graphics.stanford.edu/~levoy/for-microsoft/powerpoint-bugs.pptx
http://graphics.stanford.edu/~levoy/for-microsoft/crowd0-sap.mp4
http://graphics.stanford.edu/~levoy/for-microsoft/fern83.mov

In the .pptx file, slide #2 places crowd0-sap.mov beneath an image, slide #3
places crowd0-sap.mp4 beneath an image, and slide #4 places a tiny (180 x 180
pixel) 1.3MB video, fern83.mov beneath an image. In all cases, when you play
the video in Powerpoint 2008, it plays jerkily. If you return to slide
editing
mode and delete the image from atop the videos, then re-enter presentation
mode
and play the videos, then they play smoothly. This happens on all my
machines,
even my huge 8-core MacPro. Obviously, performance is not the issue.

(Unfortunately, I cannot find a way to use relative pathnames when inserting
movies into Powerpoint presentations, so you may have to delete and re-insert
the movie in order to play it. I know how to create relative pathnames in
action settings and hyperlinks, but not inserted movies. If there is a
method,
please tell me. If you delete and re-insert the movie, make sure you place it
in the same place (in X and Y) as the image, but below it (i.e. behind it in
ordering).

Regarding my problem with having to click on the movie multiple times to get
it
to replay, on slide #5 of the .pptx file, consider "fern spore" movie. (If
you
need to delete and re-insert it, then check "Rewind after playing" after
re-inserting it.) If in presentation mode you click on that movie, then after
the movie plays, it rewinds. But only once. If you click on the movie again,
it plays a second time, but doesn't rewind. In fact, it won't rewind again,
unless you exit from presentation mode and re-enter it. These clicks are
slow,
and they are done leisurely, *after* the movie plays the first time. There is
no processor load involved. So again, this is not a performance issue; it is
apparently a bug.

On Q6, I have tried every syntax I can think of to start the movie; nothing
works. I cannot browse to select a file; Powerpoint 2008 apparently allows me
to select only Applications this way, not arbitrary files. Specifically, all
but applications are grayed out. Interestingly, even valid Mac executables I
create myself are grayed out. How does Powerpoint define what an
"Application" is? Failing that, I have tried inserting text myself. I have
tried relative links: "../videos/crowd0-sap.mov", or several kinds of
absolute links, like "/Users/levoy/videos/crowd0-sap.mov" or
"Macintosh HD:/Users/levoy/videos/crowd0-sap.mov". None of these work;
they all produce the same "Can't locate or start..." error message.
What is the magic syntax?

On Q4, for showing scientific data, I often want to scrub the video back and
forth interactively during a talk. The QuickTime external player lets me do
this. It would be nice if Powerpoint's movie controller did too (during the
talk).

On Q7, in lieu of a preference, these warnings could come up the first time
you
lick on a file, typically during a practice talk, rather than every time you
click on the same file. That would also solve the problem.

-Marc Levoy
Stanford University


.

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