[dentriki]

I recently purchased a new HP Pavillion dv6500t laptop with Intel Core 2 Duo 2.00 GHz processors, 4 GB RAM, and an NVIDIA graphics card. My main use for a laptop is to give presentations via PowerPoint. While I like Vista overall, I have had some very annoying difficulties using PowerPoint as I used to on XP. The following problems have been encountered in both ppt2003 and ppt2007, and both are related to inserted movies (.avi files) in ppt presentations: Problem 1: Movies "inserted from file" will play, but the playback I initially encountered was unbearably sluggish. After several hours troubleshooting on the web I happened across this website: The PowerPoint FAQ. It indicated that ppt "likes" to have a printer installed, and will not work properly without one. So, I installed my new printer, and sure enough my movies began playing perfectly! As instructed on the website, I made sure that the new printer was set as my default. Only problem is.......while things work great at home while physically connected to my printer, things revert to the slower-than-$#@! playback when my laptop is independent (as it will be during any conference I'll be presenting at). Why is this happening, and is there a way around it?!?!?!?Problem 2: I also insert some movies (again, all that I use are .avi files) as "objects". The advantage of doing so is that you can then edit the object and insert a "control bar on playback". This allows for real-time interactive review of the movie file during the presentation. Specifically, I present data sets from CT scans, MRIs and 3D reconstructions, and this function allows me to interactively review each data set during the presentation. I've done this hundreds of times in XP on ppt2003. However, now when I try to insert a movie as an object, a non-functional icon appears on my slide. While I can link this icon to the movie file and get it to play on Windows Media Player, the WMP does not allow for the same level of interaction with the file (i.e., I can scroll from point A to point F, but I do not see points B, C, D, and E along the way). This is of no use to me......I want my old XP back!! Is there a way to make this work the way it used to?Any help with either of the above problems would be greatly appreciated!

[smax013]

[quote name='dentriki']I> > > > Problem 1: Movies "inserted from file" will play, but the playback I initially encountered was unbearably sluggish. After several hours troubleshooting on the web I happened across this website: The PowerPoint FAQ. It indicated that ppt "likes" to have a printer installed, and will not work properly without one. So, I installed my new printer, and sure enough my movies began playing perfectly! As instructed on the website, I made sure that the new printer was set as my default. Only problem is.......while things work great at home while physically connected to my printer, things revert to the slower-than-$#@! playback when my laptop is independent (as it will be during any conference I'll be presenting at). Why is this happening, and is there a way around it?!?!?!?> > > > One thought is to install some sort of "print to PDF" software (if you have the full Acrobat, then great...if not, then there are some free alternatives) that installs "PDF printer" and then set the PDF printer as the default printer. I don't know if this will work or not.If that does not work, then a "brute force" method could be to just buy a small travel or photo printer that you can carry with you and setup when doing the presentations. Certainly not an ideal solution and I would pay a buck to hear you explain to someone at a presentation why you have a printer setup...but it should work.

[dentriki]

Thanks for the advice smax013. Unfortunately, in trying to follow your advice, it has only added to the problems that I'm having with my computer. I tried to install the PDF printer (which I realized was oddly not active on this machine) and came to recognize that Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (only a few months old) is not fully supported on a 64-bit OS. So, paid the $159 for an upgrade to 8.0 which does run on Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Unfortunately, though I was able to pay for it, and able to download it, the installation software is stalling not allowing me to complete installation. I'm sure there's some incredibly simple explanation to this ridiculousness, but right now this is yet one more reason why I regret ever getting Vista.......

[smax013]

[quote name='dentriki']Thanks for the advice smax013. Unfortunately, in trying to follow your advice, it has only added to the problems that I'm having with my computer. I tried to install the PDF printer (which I realized was oddly not active on this machine) and came to recognize that Adobe Acrobat Professional 7.0 (only a few months old) is not fully supported on a 64-bit OS. So, paid the $159 for an upgrade to 8.0 which does run on Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Unfortunately, though I was able to pay for it, and able to download it, the installation software is stalling not allowing me to complete installation. I'm sure there's some incredibly simple explanation to this ridiculousness, but right now this is yet one more reason why I regret ever getting Vista.......Is there some partcular reason that you are running the 64 bit version of Vista? The problem might not be with Vista per se, but rather the 64 bit part. You might not be having this problem if you were running 32 bit Vista Ultimate. From what I understand, 64 bit OSs tend to have issues with some programs.Or it could be just a problem with Acrobat's installer...:roll:

[dentriki]

Got Acrobat Professional 8.0 installed correctly (I had previously changed the "Documents" folder to "My Documents" to mimic what was in XP and apparently the installer didn't like the switch). I set the PDF printer as default, AND!!!.....no success. My movies playback as slow as before. Not only that, but now when I reestablished the HP Laserjet as the default and run ppt2003 while physically attached to the printer, it is running slow. It's driving me nuts. Should've bought a Mac, or at least a second rate PC that they'll still sell you XP on. As for why I'm running the 64-bit OS, it's because that's what they offered to sell me as a part of the package. I had no idea it could potentially cause so many issues. I'm giving Virtual PC 2007 a try to see if I can at least regain some functionality from ppt while running XP on the laptop simultaneously. It is cumbersome and a real pain in the ass......wish me luck.

[smax013]

[quote name='dentriki']Got Acrobat Professional 8.0 installed correctly (I had previously changed the "Documents" folder to "My Documents" to mimic what was in XP and apparently the installer didn't like the switch). I set the PDF printer as default, AND!!!.....no success. My movies playback as slow as before. Not only that, but now when I reestablished the HP Laserjet as the default and run ppt2003 while physically attached to the printer, it is running slow. It's driving me nuts. Should've bought a Mac, or at least a second rate PC that they'll still sell you XP on. > > > > As for why I'm running the 64-bit OS, it's because that's what they offered to sell me as a part of the package. I had no idea it could potentially cause so many issues. > > > > I'm giving Virtual PC 2007 a try to see if I can at least regain some functionality from ppt while running XP on the laptop simultaneously. It is cumbersome and a real pain in the ass......wish me luck.There ya go! Thanks for doing my "shameless Mac plug"[TM] for me! :wink:BTW, I was kind of suspecting that the PDF printer bit would not work, but it was worth a try.

[dentriki]

After one hour on the phone with the Microsoft technical help today I've learned the following:With regard to problem #1: There is no good reason why movies "inserted from file" run slow.....they just do. However, you can insert an "object", leave "create new" selected and specify a "windows media player object", then right click on the object and edit the "properties". This brings up a complicated and cryptic box on the right side of the screen. Near the top, left click on the "(custom)" tab, then click on the "...." next to it. You can then locate your movie file to link it to the WMP object. Once you do so, there will be a popup box that appears that allows you to modify the functionality of the object. If you want it to play without the control bar, you must specify this under the "controls layout portion of the interface". By doing this I am able to play numerable movies (I'm running .avi files) on one slide and they run seamlessly!!Unfortunately there appears to be no immediate solution to my problem #2 (see original thread). As I demonstrated for the techincal support specialist, when you simply insert a movie as an object a nonfunctional icon comes up. Following the steps in the above paragraph you can however insert a WMP object with controls. However, unlike with XP running PowerPoint 2003 where WMP 5 was running (so I'm told), now on Vista WMP 11 is running and the realtime playback control is no more :-( If you don't quite get what I'm talking about, think about a movie with 100 frames in it. The way I used to be able to control it was realtime, and if I scrolled from frame 1 to 100 I would see: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - .... - 98 - 99 -100. Now on the "upgrade" I've recently purchased I simply see: 1 & 100. This is completely nonfunctional for my purposes. Microsoft informed me that there was no way around this with WMP 11. The tech guy actually inferred that I could download SDK software from Microsoft.com and attempt to modify the code of WMP 11 to do my bidding........I'm sorry but I simply don't have the time or the know-how to do what the brainiacs at Microsoft should have achieved in their new and improved software.Is anyone aware of an applet that may address this issue in WMP 11?