Exporting to video takes FOREVER!

[Greg Edwards]

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!

[#2]

Hey 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. 🙂

[#3]

Same here, 3h workshop, unfortunately forgot to share the presentation when recording with Skype for Business. Now I only have the audio and synced that to the slides to export everything to a 1080p video.

Three hours later now and the progress bar is at most at 20 %. I don't think this will finish within a full workday. So, what is going on here? There must be vast room for performance improvements for whatever algorithm is being used. Please take care of that!

- best, tb

[#4]

Ok, my issue was quite another. I totally got timing wrong and was putting the absolute time at each slide, not the relative one from the last slide. Mea culpa.

Eventually I used some macro voodoo to recalculate that time and waited for about as long as the presentation itself was for the video to be finished.

-tb

[#5]

I have the same problem trying to save the video as .mp4.  Would this be faster in another format?

[#6]

Alas, no more Mix

[#7]

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 

[#8]

Just 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.

[#9]

@Greg EdwardsThanks for the reply. I have a Toshiba with an Intel Core i7 but this just started a day ago. Before that, I was saving MP4s left and right with no issues. I'm beginning to think it might be an add-in. If that doesn't work, I'll have to reinstall 365. 😞

[#10]

I've got an i5 7400 and a GTX 1080 GPU, it's taken 20 minutes to reach about 95% on a video a little under a minute long. Thing is the CPU usage isn't going above 30% and GPU usage barely reaches 10%, which is probably from Chrome anyway.

EDIT: it's finally exported and half the video is broken, what an absolute joke.

[#11]

@Dan_of_MarsdenThanks for your reply. There's clearly something wrong with the way this works. When, one day I'm working along famously with no problems but the next day...it's a slow boat to China! PIus, it has nothing to do with my system. My system is fine or it would be if I could avoid about 90% of the Microsoft updates. For instance, this last update now has everything downloading into a NEW download folder that I didn't create so I have to copy and paste everything I download now...nice! LOL! A couple of weeks ago after an update I had to start signing into Microsoft every time I used a document from OneDrive. There's always something... I've been using Microsoft products since their inception and there's-always-something! 🙂 Happy New Year!

[#12]

This 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.

[#13]

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.

[#14]

@Greg EdwardsThank you for your reply and for the information. That's the way it goes sometimes. I do have a subscription to the adobe product so maybe I'll take a look at that. 🙂

[#15]

@Greg Edwards 

To everybody who's following and reading this thread: it might be useful to use some kind of screencasting software to capture the Powerpoint. I think this is faster than the internal converter of Powerpoint.

I'm using Screencast-o-matic, it has a free version for videos under 15 minutes.*

A) If your Powerpoint already has narrating (and annotations) embedded

1) Then you open up your screencasting software (I'm using Screencast-o-matic, it has a free version for videos under 15 minutes)

2) Replay the Powerpoint in fullscreen while recording using Screencast-o-matic. Don't forget to add the system audio. This way the embedded audio in your Powerpoint-file will be captured by the screencasting software.

B) If your Powerpoint doesn't have narrating (and annotations) yet

1) Then you open up your screencasting software

2) Play the Powerpoint in fullscreen while recording the full screen using Screencast-o-matic. This time, you'll be speaking in the microphone.

https://screencast-o-matic.com/

* No, I'm not affliated to Screencast-o-matic, but I do have a subscription.

[#16]

I had the same problems using MP4 format as it is very large of course it will take forever so a friend of my ages ago told me if you wane have the same resolution of DVDs or any formats or your personal from the phone Mp4 vids you need to download DivX or Xvid software it should be free but it will make a big difference in size and no video quality loosing it is same as cd or wave file to Mp3 so that's it, there is all sour of different formats u can choose and give it time first convert and share over network   @Greg Edwards 

[#17]

I've been having problems with slow PowerPoint video export, and I've observed something not mentioned in the original discussion:

PowerPoint (both Windows and Mac) stops exporting when the PC goes to sleep; it does not, as Zoom or Teams video do, prevent the PC from sleeping. In these energy-conscious days we tend to set our computers to sleep within half an hour, which means that a long video export can appear to take forever.

So disable automatic sleep mode while exporting video.

[#18]

I suspect that the video export engine in PowerPoint isn’t able to take advantage of multiple cores/threads especially on Windows.
That’s why you don’t see more that 30% resources utilisation.
I’m guessing that this won’t change until MS updates this component and is such a marginal part of the system they’ve probably forgotten that it exists.
Just as an example the same single slide export in PowerPoint vs Keynote takes 1:30 vs 10 seconds.
It’s all about optimisation.

[#19]

Same here, 3h studio, sadly neglected to share the show when recording with Skype for Business. Presently I just have the sound and matched up that to the slides to send out everything to a 1080p video.

After three hours now and the advancement bar is all things considered at 20 %. I don't think this will complete inside a full business day. All in all, what is happening here? There should be immense space for execution upgrades for whatever calculation is being utilized. Kindly deal with that!

[#20]

@Greg Edwards 

Hi All....I have been through this 🙂

Its best if u use other free desktop recording software like VSDC which saves the ppt video or anything instantly as soon as u hit the 'stop recording' button

Follow is the download link. Hope this helped.

Download VSDC — Free Screen Recorder for Windows PC (videosoftdev.com)