Forum Discussion
Greg Edwards
Sep 21, 2016Iron Contributor
Exporting to video takes FOREVER!
I'm trying to use PowerPoint as the basis for developing some e-learning courses and instructional videos. My initial strategy was to use Mix (and I'm still exploring that), but in the meantime, I'm interested in exporting my decks as MP4 videos that I can post to our Office 365 Video portal or Screencast.
The presentation is around 50 slides, some of which contain conventional narration over animation, while the others (probably half) contain a screen recording as a video object. The videos within the deck auto-play, and every slide has timing so they auto-advance.
Here's the problem: when I go to export this presentation as a 1080p video, it takes a FREAKING AGE! I've been sitting here watching it export now for about an hour, and it's only 50% complete. It seems to get exponentially slower as it goes. There shouldn't be much to do here, just sequence the slides into a video stream and save it to a file. I can do the same thing in Camtasia in 6-8 minutes. Any ideas? Thanks!
- Kidd WongBrass ContributorHey Greg, you are not alone. I did a few tasting/trying for making a tutorial-ish video. I had very similar experience as yours.
I believed it is caused by format converting with such video quality we wanted, as 1080p. So this is not only about how many slides, also about screen recording.
My advise would be:
1) "Mix" Instead of Video Converting
If video and audio is not necessary in your presentation, means your audience maybe able to swipe through the presentation themselves on their devices. Then you may consider having it share as "Mix" into your own space in office mix site or docs.com personal page. Be reminded you can always setup how private you preferred. And share as Mix actually way less time-consumed is for sure.
2) Split the Presentation Into Smaller Parts
Like my latest tutorials I produced. Instead of one long videos, I created one 30 mins video and it was taking like one hour and I gave up on the converting. I re-record the videos in section like 5 mins each, so it takes about approximately 5-10 mins for each video converting, how fast or slow it goes really depending on the specs of your machine, also how many other applications you running the same time.
I can understanding these maybe not the best solutions for yours case, but I guess this workaround could let you make things done at least. Mix is not yet a perfect a finished product, that's why they name it Beta still, but more people using it, more issues we found and solve, this way will make this useful (and free) tool going perfect.
In fact, compare to a lot of other MS product, Mix team does actually listen. I raised my using issue to the Mix team about a year ago by email, they actually ask me for details and providing solutions (the process take sometimes to test). My point is, if we like the product, let's use it, tell it, then we will have what we expected.
Thanks for reading. Hope it helps. :)- SusanD369Copper ContributorThis is actually very helpful to me because I didn't realize the video I had inserted in my powerpoint had to convert as well as the presentation itself. Plus, it looks like I need to research more about "Mix". Thank you.
- Greg EdwardsCopper Contributor
Hey SusanD369 , I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Mix has been discontinued for some time. My recommendation would be to use a third-party product, such as Camtasia or Adobe Premiere Elements. Both are excellent choices for creating video content that you can publish anywhere you like. Maybe PowerPoint will get there someday, but currently it just has too many limitations to make it a viable option for producing video.
- SusanD369Copper Contributor
The same scenario is happening to me with FOUR slides. Each has a video on the slide. The first time I saved it, it went through smoothly and quickly, but after that, it's a slow boat to China, in fact after four hours, it was barely 1/4 of the way through saving...I've restarted, removed add-ins, etc. Nothing seems to help. Do you have any suggestions for me? Kidd Wong
- Greg EdwardsCopper ContributorJust curious, what kind of hardware are you using? On my ThinkPad T480s Core i7, it seems to be noticeably faster than on my Surface Pro 4 Core i5. Granted, neither of them are exactly powerhouse computers, but I'm thinking that PowerPoint's video rendering process is probably not super optimized for speed. So the hardware may be the limiting factor. Just a guess.
- becca_floraCopper Contributor
Alas, no more Mix