Advice on movie file format to use cross platform

[William Hambleton]

Currently we use Office X. Have Office 2004 in house but have hesitated to
deploy due to the shoddy playback of Quicktime files. Ultimately most PPTs
created here will need to be used cross-platform. Does that essentially only
leave the .avi format? I can't guarantee that Quicktime will be installed on
destination computers so .mov is out, right? That leaves mgpeg-4 which I
would like to use, but Windows does not seem to have a default media player
that can handle the format. Or am I wrong? Any direction is greatly
appreciated.

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Currently we use Office X. Have Office 2004 in house but have hesitated to
deploy due to the shoddy playback of Quicktime files. Ultimately most PPTs
created here will need to be used cross-platform. Does that essentially only
leave the .avi format? I can't guarantee that Quicktime will be installed on
destination computers so .mov is out, right?

..mov is out, yes.

That leaves mgpeg-4 which I
would like to use, but Windows does not seem to have a default media player
that can handle the format. Or am I wrong? Any direction is greatly
appreciated.

This should answer most questions re multimedia on PCs
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/multimedia.htm

It might be worth having a look here as well:
http://www.pfcmedia.com/


================================================
Steve Rindsberg, PPT MVP
PPT FAQ: www.pptfaq.com
PPTools: www.pptools.com
================================================

 

[Jim Gordon MVP]

Hi William,

You can experiment, but essentially I agree with you. The avi format has
worked best for me cross-platform. The mp4 format's dramatically
smaller file size makes me year for it, but Windows isn't ready for that
yet.

-Jim