Convert PowerPoint Presentation to DVD or Video?
Friday, February 22nd, 2008Burning PowerPoint to DVD is a good idea for preserving presentations or extending the use of PowerPoint. You can either burn PowerPoint files to DVD disc directly, or convert it to video or DVD and then burn them to DVD disc. Converting PPT to DVD is different from converting PPT to video. To know the benefits of converting PowerPoint presentation to DVD comparing with converting to video, the best way is to understand the DVD structure.
The DVD menu matters
When we play a video DVD with DVD machine, in most conditions, we see a main menu first, which allows us to decide how the movie will be played: Select subtitle language, choose a conversation language, start from a specific chapter, etc. While playback, we can use navigation buttons on the remote control to rewind or skip through movies. Also, we can back to title menu or main menu to play another movie or chapter. The menu function is not supported by common video files. Let’s back to PowerPoint presentation. When we slide show with PowerPoint, we can advance presentation animation by animation and slide by slide, moreover we can build internal hyperlinks to go to a specific slide and turn back. With DVD menu, all these practical features will be inherited. But a raw video has no way to retain them.
Understanding DVD structure
What does a DVD disc contain? Actually, if you open a movie DVD disc on your computer, you should see two folders: AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. AUDIO_TS is created for storing DVD Audios (for audio DVD only), while the VIDEO_TS contains all data for the movie. Video DVD is what we concerned in this article, so let’s take a look at the data contained in VIDEO_TS directory.
Usually, we should find three kinds of files under the VIDEO_TS: .BUP, .IFO and .VOB. IFO file is the content of the DVD. It tells the player where a chapter starts, where a certain audio or subtitle stream is located, etc. BUP files are just backup files of the IFOs. If the IFO files cannot be read, the player will read the BUP files instead. Next is the VOB file, it is a container that stores video stream, audio stream, subtitles and DVD menu. Video is MPEG-2, audio can be AC-3, Linear PCM, Mpeg 2 multichannel or MPEG1 layer2 two channel audio. It is why the DVD is encoded in MPEG-2 but not a MPEG-2 video.
Things about PowerPoint
Now, let’s back to PowerPoint. If we burn a PowerPoint presentation to DVD disc in manual mode, we can use DVD remote control to navigate the converted video just like we doing so with PowerPoint. A professional PPT to DVD conversion tool should empower users to create and designed DVD menu. The following illustration shows the title menu of a DVD, which is created by Wondershare PPT2DVD.
Tools of burning PowerPoint presentation to DVD
There are many tools out there that are able to convert PowerPoint to DVD. The most famous one is Camtasia produced by Tech Smith, which is the leader in screen capturing field. Converting PPT to DVD is only a special function of the software. It may produce DVD video, but the menu design feature is not as good as Wondershare PPT2DVD, which is the first professional tool in the world that is specialized in converting PPT to DVD. It retains most PowerPoint interactive features to the converted DVD video. Besides, it provides a way to burn PowerPoint presentations to HD DVD, like Blu-ray DVD.
