Powerpoint viewer 2010 will not play videos

I have created a presentation that has been saved as a slide show. The videos will not play in the viewer (Powerpoint Viewer 2010). I have tried linking and embedding the videos. They play several seconds then stop. I have also tried embedding Windows Media Play but it does not run at all. Does anyone have any ideas that might help? This presentation is part of a 5 day class which I would like the videos available thru the presentation.

Note: In the full version of Powerpoint 2010 everything appears to work fine. The computers in the classroom only have the view software.

Is there a way to launch a media play externally that could play the videos? That is without stopping the presentation.

Rod

I had a similar problem recently.

A trainer friend gets PowerPoint presentations from his head office, and has to present them on his laptop, or whatever PCs are available at client premises.
On a machine with PowerPoint 2010 installed, the presentation worked fine, and attached video files played correctly when located in the same folder as the PPT file.

Not everyone wants to pay for the full version of Microsoft Office, just to view PowerPoint presentations.
But when he downloaded the latest free PowerPoint Viewer from Microsoft and installed on these machines, running either Windows 7 or Windows 8, the slides would present okay, but the videos would not play!
This was a major problem.

On a hunch, I found a copy of the 2003 version of PowerPoint Viewer, and installed it on these machines.
And I found that this one works perfectly!! plays the videos and presents the slides no problem!
Even though the PPT was created using PowerPoint 2010.

And the PowerPoint Viewer 2003 installer was only a 1.9MB download, compared to the latest PowerPoint Viewer 2010 which is a 61MB download and then won't play the videos!!
Well done Microsoft, make the program 30 times bigger and not as good!!

Okay, PowerPoint Viewer 2003 is only a 32bit app, and it hides itself away in the folder:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Office\PowerPoint Viewer\PPTVIEW.exe

But it works fine on both Windows 7 and Windows 8, including 64 bit versions, and it's not too difficult to set it as the default viewer for PPT files.

whs said:

One thing you could do is to upload the PP file to authorSTREAM and run it from the internet.

Slide Sharing - Share PowerPoint Slides Online on authorSTREAM

May be okay for some people located in major cities areas with full time high bandwidth internet connections.
But no good for the rest of us out in the real world, where high bandwidth internet is too expensive or non-existent!!

You make the other 90% of us who live in the rest of the world very jealous.

But okay, I agree that your solution will suit some people.

To summarise:

PROBLEM: PowerPoint Viewer 2010 will not play videos.

SOLUTION: Users should choose one of the following solutions, depending on their particular situation.

Solution 1: get the full Microsoft Office with full version of PowerPoint.
(cost approx $100-$300 per PC, depending on options and country of purchase)

Solution 2: use an online service such as authorSTREAM.
(streaming requires broadband internet connection, cost from $20/month upwards if available)

Solution 3: use PowerPoint Viewer 2003 instead.
(may be used any time, any where, on any PC, cost $0)
(well okay there may be a small one time cost to access the internet to download the 1.9MB installer file)

I guess I didn't mention in my first posting, but in my case our first choice for PowerPoint presentations was OpenOffice Impress, from which Libre Office Impress derives, and while it showed the normal slides fine, it also did not play the videos.
It was only after OpenOffice failed that we went to the latest PowerPoint Viewer 2010 and found that also did not play the videos.
From our testing only PowerPoint Viewer 2003, or the fully paid version of PowerPoint worked.
I have not tried your online solution, since I don't have the bandwidth.

Yes maybe only 10% of people in "industrialised" nations miss out on high bandwidth internet.
But only a small percentage of the world is located in such countries.
And yes, the people located outside those countries do have PCs and they do want to use them to give PowerPoint presentations.
So I stand by the statement that 90% of the world do not have cheap high bandwidth internet.

If this forum is intended only for people in "industrialised" nations such as USA and Germany, then it should be stated up front so the rest of us will know not to waste our time here.