For some university lectures, I'd like to play clips from movies such
as "The Matrix".  The ideal way to do this would be to play them from
a DVD on my (Windows 2000) laptop, which will already be projecting
Powerpoint.  Ideally, I'd like to set things up in advance so that
certain clips from the movie will play directly, e.g. selected by time
of start and finish.

Question: How can I do this?  Is there software that will handle this
sort of preprogrammed playing of selected clips from a DVD?  Is there
an easy way to integrate this with Powerpoint?

Hi there philosophe!

I've found one company which is currently shipping a piece of software
to do what you wish: Spinware, who are offering iControl PE, which
permits the embedding of DVD segments into PowerPoint presentations.
They specifically mention the function you're interested in, stating:

"You can play slices of your DVD based on either the movie's time
code, or according to its chapters."

To view more information about this software, download a demonstration
version, or purchase it, please visit the URL below, click "Products",
and click "iControl". You'll need Flash enabled in your browser:

http://www.spinware.net/index2.html

If time is not of the essence, you may also wish to track the progress
of OnStage DVD for Powerpoint: as yet unreleased, but it looks
promising.

http://www.visiblelight.com/onstage/products/powerpoint/

I can also suggest an alternative solution to your problem. This
involves copying and converting the relevant clips to the hard disk as
normal AVI files, ahead of time. You can embed these files in
Powerpoint without any problems. While this will require a small
investment of time, it will avoid you spending $129 on iControl!

Make sure you're aware of the legal implications of doing this,
however. Most countries support the doctrine of fair use, so assuming
that you're showing short clips, you should be fine - but I would
still advise checking with someone who's legally minded.

The software I would recommend for this is called DVDx, and is
available at the link below. It's fairly complex to use, but
essentially it will allow you to copy segments of the movie to the
hard disk, saving them as AVI files.

http://www.doom9.org/Soft21/Decoders/DVDx_2_0.zip

You can gain a brief overview on how to use this here:

http://www.vcdhelp.us/html/tutdvdx.html

And here:

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/dvdx-svcd.htm

To embed these files, refer to the penultimate section in this page:

http://www.techsmith.com/products/studio/tutorials/embedinpowerpoint.asp

I hope that one of these solutions meets your needs. If anything's
unclear in this answer, or requires further explanation, then please
feel free to use the request clarification feature before rating this
answer.

Thanks, and good luck

--seizer-ga

Search strategy was a combination of personal knowledge, and these
search terms:

Powerpoint DVD
Powerpoint DVD embedding
DVD encode AVI
Powerpoint embed AVI

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Request for Answer Clarification by philosophe-ga on 05 Dec 2002 13:30 PST

Thanks, that's just the sort of information I was looking for.  One tiny
clarification: what's the quality of AVI files compared to the original DVD,
and how much memory do they take up (a very rough answer is fine).

---

Clarification of Answer by seizer-ga on 05 Dec 2002 17:34 PST

Hello again - my apologies for the delay in replying to your
clarification.

The quality and size varies massively, depending on which method you
use to create these AVI files. The topic is broad enough to justify a
whole new question, but let me give you a short overview:

AVI (and other media) files are created with "codecs" - short for
COmpressor / DECompressor. There is a codec for the video, and a codec
for the audio. You get to select these codecs at the time of AVI
creation, using software such as DVDx. I recommend using DivX for the
video, and Radium MP3 for the sound. Software and some instructions
are available at the following sites:

DivX: http://www.divx.com
Radium: http://www.riphelp.com/downloads/radium_codec.html

In answer to your quality/size question, with these codecs you'll
probably find that approximately ten megabytes per minute will store
full screen video with no particularly noticeable quality issues -
although your mileage may vary depending on the amount of detail in
the scene, the camera panning, and audio complexity. Note that the
DivX codec is particularly hungry for fast computers, so if your
laptop does not have a processor rated at over 500mhz, it might be
best to select another codec. You'll see a list of the built in ones
when you use a program such as DVDx.

I hope this helps!

Regards,

--seizer-ga

Thanks -- very useful information!