Creating Picture-In-Picture Inset Video In PowerPoint 2010 Web Video

The heading may seem a bit confusing, so let me at the outset mention what exactly this video article aims to show:

1. First of course is creating ‘PowerPoint to video’. There may be no special term such as this but let me use it to differentiate from the usually known ‘PowerPoint slideshow’.

    

   A PowerPoint to video like the one you’ll see below or elsewhere in this site is a lot different from a presentation or a slideshow made with PowerPoint. We often make same PowerPoint videos in different sizes with same quality for clients’ needs.

 

2. In PowerPoint 2010 (now in beta) it is easier than before to insert an external video clip (avi/wmv/mpeg) anywhere on a presentation. This can either be from your computer itself or sourced from video sharing sites like YouTube.

 

3. To have a video inserted in your PowerPoint 2010 presentation is one thing. But to have it play unhindered through the full presentation even as the slides continually change is a different thing altogether.

    

   PowerPoint 2010 as such doesn’t make it possible though this can be done attractively with the help of other means.

Many Uses

The video you’ve just seen above is an example of an inset video on a PowerPoint slideshow-cum-web video. It fades in at the third slide and fades out at the last but one slide. The video is made a bit fast-paced mainly for the purpose of demonstration. Viewers may require seeing it twice to watch how the presentation and the inset video parts are working in tandem.

There can be many practical uses of a picture-in-picture inset video in a PowerPoint to video for online viewing. Some of these can be as under:

• In an online teaching course, you can have the lessons explained in PowerPoint slides while including an inset video that will show the instructor giving verbal narration.

 

• Professional PowerPoint web videos can similarly include the finance/marketing/sales representative in the inset video even as the slides actually explain the things being told.

How To Do It

One important point to note is that PowerPoint 2010 doesn’t have the wherewithal to deep-edit a video. In other words there is no way you can introduce or cut out any video or audio effects inside the video.

You can however indulge in altering the look and feel of the video like cropping, trimming, rotating, resizing, fading in/out, triggering (the video at a certain point), and so on.

The best way to know all that is by trying out yourself. The how-to steps are briefly explained in my last article on making animated lines with PowerPoint 2010. The feature of video triggering another video is well explained here.

Slide Ends, Video Ends

This is irksome. In PowerPoint 2010 the video stops when the slide in which it is inserted has to move on to the next slide. This is unlike an audio clip that can be made to last for as many slides as you want.

To overcome this problem a theoretical solution is using the Trim Video function. The Start Time and the End Time can be specified therein so that the video plays only for that time in a particular slide. For the next slide the earlier End Time will be the new Start Time while fixing a new End Time for the duration of the slide, and so on.

In actual practice it is difficult to make the video run smoothly without any hiccup as the slides change from one to the next.

The Solution

The way to work around this problem is to make the PowerPoint video separately and then insert the inset video onto it with the help of other software. This is how it is done in the video shown below.

The upside in so doing is that both the PowerPoint video and the inset video can be made to retain the best viewing quality before being combined.

The downside is that the technique calls for skills for not only knowing and using different software, but also to be able to properly synchronize the 2 videos – the narration in the inset video and the slideshow in the larger PowerPoint to video.

Interested viewers are welcome to contact us here for their needs of web videos.