PowerPoint embedded video does not play visibly. Sometimes audio can be heard

Question

On a company-issued PC (Dell Latitude D630 running Windows XP SP3), using PowerPoint 2003 (11.8324.8324) SP3. If I embed a video of any supported type (WMV, AVI, MPEG) using a Media Player OLE object, the video does not visibly play when the presentation is in Slide Show mode. It also does not play if I right-click and select "Play". Sometimes, but not every time, you can hear the audio from the file, but the video never plays.

This can be reproduced on every PC in my department, all Dell laptops of various vintages running the same version of Windows and Office.

Embedding itself works. For instance, I can embed a SWF file as a Shockwave Flash object and it works perfectly.

We can hyperlink to the same videos and they play fine, but it's clumsier and not as elegant or useful.

Any suggestions on how to proceed would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

This issue may occur if any one of the following conditions is true:

• The hardware acceleration setting of the display device is too high.
• The required codec is missing or damaged.
• Conflicting third-party video software is installed on the computer.
• The video acceleration of Windows Media Player is too high.

The solution to all of these issues can be found here.

Answer 2

I have had the exact same problem before, an I have found the solution to be to transcode the video into wmv. The problem is that you are probably missing a required codec. Just transcode the video into wmv and you should be OK. What format are you using?

Answer 3

You should be able to just set it's action to play in the ActiveX properties of the control. Here's an article that shows how to do this programmatically: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa168127(office.11).aspx

Answer 4

I have had this problem as well. I think you should try MPEG-1 (not MPEG-2) video if you haven't yet, that worked for me and should probably always work.

Answer 5

1. I had the same problem. Try this:
2. Insert | Object | Browse for file - your video clip
3. To play when the slide is clicked, do this: a. Slide Show | Custom Automation | Add Effect | Object Actions | Activate Contents
4. If you don't want the warning coming up when you play, then do this: Tools | Options | Security | Macro Security | Low

This process inserts the video clip into the presentation - you then only need the ppt, you don't need to have the file with the video clip also