How to Add Various Videos to PowerPoint Presentation

PowerPoint presentations can be spiced up further by adding visual movies. Video movies can provide plenty of and reliable information besides slide bullets.
We can get videos from Websites, DVDs, cam-recorders, cameras, Web cameras, Capture Devices and so on.

How can we add various videos to PowerPoint presentations? We will explain it one by one.

All in all, PowerPoint can only understand WMV, AVI, MPEG video if we have Windows PC. Hence, to add various videos to PPT, we need to transfer the videos from different resources to WMV, AVI firstly. We do not often choose MPEG to add to PPT as MPEG-2 movies usually are not that easy to play in PowerPoint - they are more reliant on both hardware and software and usually may not work in PowerPoint even if they do play correctly in Windows Media Player.

Add Youtube video to PPT
Youtube video is FLV format and located at other server. Hence, you need to download and convert the Youtube video to WMV or AVI and then insert it to PPT.
There is another tutorial which explains how to add Youtube video to PPT step by step. You may refer to this tutorial How to Put Youtube Video Clip to your PowerPoint Presentations.

Besides Youtube, there are also Teachertube or Godtube and other video sharing Websites you can find videos.

Add digital cam-recorder video to PPT
Digital camcorders with USB 2.0 output interface are gaining wide popularity. If you have one such USB cam like Cannon, Sony, Nikon ETC, you can easily save the video to your computer with AVI or WMV extensions. Then you can add them to PPT.

 

Add camera video to PPT
We sometimes use our camera to shoot mini footage for fun. If you have Cannon A570 like me, you can save the footage to AVI on local computer like me. And then you can insert it to presentations directly.

 

Add VHS or analog video to PPT
If we have VHS or analog video, we need to use Video Capture Devices and software to save the video to digital videos and save as AVI or WMV and then we can add them to PPT.

 

Add newly recorded video with Web camera to PPT
We may not have video at hand and we just want to add a talking head to tell the audience some information with funny faces. At this situation, we can record it right now with the Web camera which comes with our laptop or buy separately if we have a desktop.
I have a web cam which comes with my TOSHIBA. I can save the recorded video clips to AVI directly. Then I can add it to PowerPoint presentations.

 

To Insert Video to PPT
If you have PowerPoint 2007, go to Insert -> Movie –> Movie from file… to insert the video in the very slide you want.
If you have PowerPoint 2003, select Insert menu, point to Movies and Sounds, and then click Movie from File.
Then, browse and choose the movie you want to add and click OK. Then you will be prompted to choose how you want the movie to start in the slide show, Automatically or When clicked. Automatically is recommended usually.

Done! You can run current slide to preview it.

 

If you want to transfer your PowerPoint presentation with video clips to another computer, you’d better save the video in the same folder with your presentations and then insert the video to your presentation. And then you copy then both to your flash drive and then save them to another computer.
Or if you also want to save your PowerPoint presentations to DVD for further distribution, you can choose on method to save your PPT to DVD for viewing on DVD.

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