Tell engaging stories with video in PowerPoint

Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Peter Wu from the PowerPoint team. In honor of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, I'm excited to share with you several updates that will ensure that your content is accessible and inclusive while also taking your storytelling to the next level. Read on to find out more!

Tell engaging stories with video in PowerPoint

Have an important message to communicate in your next presentation? Incorporate video into your presentation to engage your audience. Video is everywhere! From traditional media like movies, TV, and news, to streaming services and social media. People are watching more videos than ever, and more people are producing their own videos.

Recent improvements in PowerPoint make it easier than ever to use videos in presentations.

Harness power of closed captions

• Need to make your presentation inclusive of people with disabilities and people who speak another language? Insert closed captions and subtitles for your videos and audios in WebVTT or SRT format.
• In PowerPoint for the web and PowerPoint for Mac, you can quickly generate closed captions using speech recognition, review and edit for accuracy, and translate in additional languages, all within PowerPoint.
• When you use Compress Media, Optimize Media Compatibility, or Document Inspector in PowerPoint for Windows, the inserted closed captions for videos and audios are preserved. 
• Presenting remotely? Use PowerPoint Live in Teams, so that audience members can stream the videos smoothly without going through screen sharing. They can even pause, resume, adjust playback speed, and turn on closed captions for themselves without anyone else in the meeting knowing.

Improved performance and compatibility make it easier to use video

• Can’t get everyone together at the same time to attend the presentation due to schedule conflicts and team members in different time zones? Use Recording Studio to create a video of your presentation and design yourself into the slides using Cameo. And now in PowerPoint for Windows, exporting the presentation as a video is faster than ever, and fewer people are cancelling before it is done.
• Does your team use a mix of PowerPoint for Windows, macOS, and the web? PowerPoint now guides you better in using the video and audio formats that have the best compatibility across operating systems and web browsers. PowerPoint for Windows automatically converts videos in formats other than MPEG-4, QuickTime, and WebM to MPEG-4 upon insertion if it can and automatically converts audio in formats other than MPEG-4, MP3, AAC, or WAV to MPEG-4 upon insertion if it can. And Optimize Media Compatibility goes further by converting all embedded video and audio to MPEG-4 format.
• PowerPoint for Windows no longer uses the deprecated DirectShow technology. A very small percentage of video and audio in use in PowerPoint will no longer insert or play. We recommend converting these video and audio files to MPEG-4 before inserting them into PowerPoint. You can use the Save Media as command to get the file for a video or audio that was inserted earlier. Music in MIDI format no longer plays in PowerPoint. While MIDI is great for composing music, we recommend recording it in MPEG-4 format to distribute it and use it in PowerPoint.

NOTE: If you have any PowerPoint presentations with videos or audios that were inserted in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows or PowerPoint 2008 for Mac, Upgrade Media Object will automatically run when you activate them so that they will be compatible with newer versions of PowerPoint.

Availability

• Performance improvements for export video are available starting in PowerPoint for Windows Version 2409 (Build 18025.20000), with more improvements rolling out now.
• Automatic conversion of video and audio upon insertion for better compatibility in PowerPoint for Windows is available in Beta Channel in Version 2504 (Build 18626.20000) and later.
• The Closed Captions pane in PowerPoint for macOS is available in Beta Channel in Version 16.98 (Build 25050401) or later.
• Not using DirectShow and automatic upgrade of media inserted in PowerPoint 2007 for Windows or PowerPoint 2008 for Mac upon activation is available in PowerPoint for Windows in Beta Channel in Version 2505 (Build 18812.20000) and later.

Other features mentioned here are available to all Microsoft 365 subscribers running the latest versions.

Don’t have it yet? It’s probably us, not you.

Features are released over some time to ensure things are working smoothly. We highlight features that you may not have because they’re slowly releasing to larger numbers of Insiders. Sometimes we remove elements to further improve them based on your feedback. Though this is rare, we also reserve the option to pull a feature entirely out of the product, even if you, as an Insider, have had the opportunity to try it.

Feedback

We want to hear from you! Please click Help > Feedback to submit your thoughts about this feature. 

We’re excited to hear from you!

Learn about the Microsoft 365 Insider program and sign up for the Microsoft 365 Insider newsletter to get the latest information about Insider features in your inbox once a month!