Weird PowerPoint 2008 audio glitch

[pkhata]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)
Processor: Intel

I have a 25 minute self-running PowerPoint presentation (i.e., it uses timings I rehearsed) with 8 audio files that each play across 3-4 slides. Everything works great EXCEPT at about the 2 minute mark of the one of the longest audio segments, the audio briefly skips similar to a scratched CD. It drops out for a half second then comes back.

There is no problem with the audio file itself--it plays perfectly outside of PowerPoint in a pro audio editor such as Peak or even iTunes. Thinking it might be a hard drive issue with the 5400 rpm drive in my Unibody MacBook Pro, I moved the entire presentation to a fast 7200 rpm FireWire 800 drive. Same glitching in the same place. Thinking it might be throughput issue, I compressed all the audio files to 256K mp3s. Same glitching in the same place. This sure sounds like a file problem, but moving the presentation to the external drive and creating mp3s both created brand new files (and they all play fine outside of PowerPoint).

I also tried changing the optimization from "high" to "smooth playback" in the Movie Options dialog of the Preferences. Same problem.

This is using PowerPoint 12.1.0 (2008). Do I need to install a later update (like 12.2)?

Thanks for any insight!

 

[pkhata]

I forgot to mention one other potential key: this glitching never happens on the 1st or 2nd playing of the presentation, but on the 3rd or 4th playing. Is this some kind of cache problem?

 

[Priyanka]

I forgot to mention one other potential key: this glitching never happenson the 1st or 2nd playing of the presentation, but on the 3rd or 4th playing. Is this some kind of cache problem?

Hi,

Can you share this file?

Thanks,
-Priyanka

 

[pkhata]

Priyanka,

Thanks for replying, but unfortunately, it's a huge file not sendable electronically. Also, it's a copyrighted presentation for an organization.

Actually, I did manage to make a Quicktime movie using Snapz Pro (video capture), but had to play the whole thing several times and finally on the last pass, the glitch did not happen. But this is not an ideal solution, since encoding a movie at 30 fps takes a long time, and I think even at highest quality, video capture seems a little less crisp than the original. I'd rather play the presentation in PowerPoint itself, so I'm still interested if anyone has any workarounds.

 

[pkhata]

Just in case someone else has this problem in the future, here is one workaround:
Since the audio glitch only happened maybe every 3rd time or so, and because the presentation was to be a self-running show (i.e., it was more like a movie that a typical lecture presentation), I used the excellent app, SnapZ Pro2 (w/video capture), to capture the entire PowerPoint presentation into a high-quality Quicktime movie. If you set SnapZ Pro to its highest setting, 30 fps, and high-quality rendering, the resulting movie is indistinguishable from the presentation. Plus, now you can make a DVD of it if you so choose.