PPT98: Movies Do Not Play When Moved Cross-Platform

ID: q188910

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft PowerPoint Macintosh Edition

SYMPTOMS

When you double-click a movie in slide view, you may receive one of the following messages:

This multimedia object is unavailable for playback because it is linked to a file on a different platform.

-or-

The server application, source file, or item cannot be found. You should reinstall the server application.

CAUSE

When you insert a movie into a slide, PowerPoint actually creates a link to the original movie file. For example, if you insert a QuickTime movie into a PowerPoint 98 Macintosh Edition presentation, PowerPoint uses the QuickTime Extension to play the movie.

The error messages occur for one or both of the following reasons:

You copied the presentation to another computer but you did not copy the movie files. Or, you copied all the files, but PowerPoint cannot find the movie files.
The type of link required to play the movie isn't supported by PowerPoint or the operating system. For example, PowerPoint for the Macintosh cannot activate Windows Media Player objects.

RESOLUTION

When you copy your presentation between a Macintosh-based and a Windows-based computer, be sure to copy all the movie files as well.

Make sure that your movie files can be played on the destination computer.

Open the file on the destination computer.

For each movie object, do the following:
1. Delete the movie.
2. Reinsert the movie.

Save the presentation.

NOTE: PowerPoint 98 Macintosh Edition can insert and play QuickTime movies, but cannot insert or play Windows .avi files.

MORE INFORMATION

It is possible to convert .avi movies to QuickTime movies (and to convert QuickTime movies to .avi movies). There are several utilities available, some of them shareware, that can do this.

The following solution assumes you have Microsoft Video for Windows, version 1.1, installed on your Windows computer, or the Video for Windows 1.1 Utilities on your Macintosh:

AVI (Windows) to QuickTime (Mac)

Transfer the AVI file from Windows to the Macintosh.

Start the AVI To QT utility.

Locate the AVI file you want to convert.

Select the AVI file, and then click Add.

Click Convert. You have two options to save the file:
- Save Normally (dependency to AVI file)
- Save Self-Contained Movie

Make sure that Windows Compressors resides in the Extensions folder. The extension currently supports the following compression schemes:
```
      Microsoft Video 1
      Microsoft RLE
      Microsoft Full Frame
      Apple Cinepak 
```

Delete the placeholder from your presentation.

Insert the converted movie.

For additional information, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: Q108804
TITLE : Video for Windows 1.1: Contents of Macintosh Utilities

Additional query words: ppt8 ppt98 m_powerpt w_powerpt quicktime quick time avi mov movie cross platform

Keywords : kbinterop kbole
Version : MACINTOSH:
Platform : MACINTOSH
Issue type : kbinfo