I have a slide show I’ve created in PowerPoint 2013 that I want to burn to a DVD so we can run it on a DVD player/TV combo during an open house tomorrow.* We don’t particularly want to run it on a laptop for security reasons–bunches of people will be parading through the facility. But if push comes to shove, we can do that, (and who really cares that much anyway, if the truth be known?)
However, I would like to know the answer to this anyway. What format does the PPT have to be saved in or converted to so that the (oldish) DVD player will read it as a movie and play it on the TV?
I converted it to a .wmv using Windows MovieMaker, but the DVD player did not recognize it. I also converted it to an mp4, but the DVD burning program would not let me burn that one to the DVD as a “video.”
If I haven’t given enough info, please ask me questions. Thank you.
*I gave it to the people who wanted it ages ago, but they waited until today to test it, and I didn’t know they wanted to run it on a DVD/TV combo… don’t even get me started.
No, to play on a DVD player it has to be in DVD format. You will need (someone with) a DVD mastering tool that will take video files and write them to the disc in the proper format and organization. There are a lot of tools, pro/pay and freeware, but none are particularly small or easy to use. Let me check…
Windows Movie Maker SHOULD do the job. The DVD player likely did not recognize the physical format - the burn itself. Many tools default to too fast a burn speed and create coasters.
Try again with the WMV and be sure to limit the burn speed to the slowest speed available - not 1X, but no more than 8X. Burning faster (16, 24, 48X) is just a recipe for failure on any but a proven setup.
If it’s making a DVD, it should make an ISO disk image containing DVD-Video data. Ideally, Windows Movie Maker would write to the DVD drive directly, so that you never see the disk image. But if for some reason you want to save a DVD-compatible file, that’s what the disk image is.
Windows just lurrrvvves its native formats, so WMV should work fine. I don’t know what other formats PP supports but that one should read and convert (to MPEG-2, the DVD standard) pretty smoothly.
Creating an image file (.ISO or .IMG) is an efficient step in making multiple copies. Use a slow, clumsy app to create the image file, then a speedy, reliable disc-burner to churn out identical copies from that.
No need to do it for a single copy, although sometimes you can get around a crummy burn feature by writing to an image and then using a reliable tool to handle the disc burn.
After burning disks and testing the formats WMV, MOV, MP4 on my DVD player-- none of which were recognized by the player-- I uploaded the file to one of those online conversion* sites and got back a “movie clip.” What is that? Whatever it is, it worked-- the slide show plays fine on my DVD/TV.
Thanks for the advice.
*It was a full immersion conversion, complete with white robe, gospel choir, and dinner-on-the-grounds afterward. Ummm, sweet potato pie. Unfortunately, no booze.
It sounds like the files were not being correctly converted and organized in DVD format. For a DVD to play, it’s not just a matter of putting a file on the disk. It has to be the correct format (a variant of MPEG-2), named correctly (FILE.VOB), in the right folder (\VIDEO_TS) and I think there is some kind of boot or ID track as well.
Any of those source file types should have been converted and played correctly IF the correct process was followed. But I dunno, Win applets just fight back pointlessly some times.
Just out of curiosity… open one of the disks that didn’t work. It should have a \VIDEO_TS folder and maybe an \AUDIO_TS folder as well. In the \VIDEO_TS folder should be at least one *.VOB file and a few others. Is that what you see, or is it just one file burned to the disc’s root folder?
If your DVD will show a slideshow of jpg’s then save all the slides as jpg’s, (that is a matter of a couple of clicks in powerpoint), then burn these to a data dvd and show those via the dvd player.
Data dvd’s are normally much less hassle than burning video.
