5/11/13

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

Ke Colin Zheng
Home
Research
Course
Gallery
Blog
Unlocking Secured PDF

Jan 17 2009

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint 03/07

Posted by: Colin in Technology, tags: powerpoint, video

If you want to play high-quality videos in your powerpoint slides, this is a must-read to avoid embarrassing black box during your
presentation.
How does Powerpoint play videos?
Powerpoint doesnt uses windows media player for video playback by default. Instead, It uses Media Control Interface (MCI). That
means even if your videos play fine on windows media player, it has nothing to do with whether they will render fine in your presentation.
Take-away message: So you should always test your videos on MCI first!
Microsoft has an article explaining the How in details here.
How to test videos on MCI?
You may test your machine set up by manually starting the MCI player and playing the media file. To do so, for Windows XP, click Start
> Run and type mplayer2.exe in the command line box and click OK. This will start the MCI player (Not the Windows Media
Player) used by PowerPoint. You may then open your media file in the normal manner and play it. If the media fails to play in the MCI
player it will not play properly in PowerPoint. (Note, Microsoft removed the MCI executable from Windows Vista, however the
functionality is the same in PowerPoint.)
Crap, my files dont play on MCI, now what?
Solution 1: Convert videos to .wmv and disable Hardware Acceleration!
Convert all your videos to the powerpoint-friendlier windows media format(.wmv). To do so, you may download Windows Media
Encoder, which is a great tool that does the convertion for free.
However, .wmv isnt the entire magic solution. When your videos are encoded at a high bit-rate for quality purpose, MCI might fail to
render properly. This is partly due to the DirectX technology MCI uses. To work around, you need to disable or turn down Hardware
Acceleration.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Click on Start > Control Panel.

In the classic view, double click on the Display icon.
Select the Settings tab and click on the Advanced button. The Advanced Settings dialog box appears.
Click on the Troubleshoot tab.
You can disable the hardware acceleration completely by dragging the slider to the extreme left of the scale. Or you can also
choose to turn down the hardware acceleration by selecting an intermediate value.

Now your videos should play fine in MCI, thus Powerpoint.

Solution 2: Convert videos to .mpg using QuicktimePro and thats it!
MCI doesnt support quicktime .mov files, but it supports MPEG-4 very well. So this solution uses QuicktimePro to convert all videos
into MPEG-4 format. Notably, Im using H.264 codec as its currently one of the best codecs out there. Here are the detailed steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Open your video in QuicktimePro

Select export under File
Choose Movie to MPEG-4, and click Options
Choose H.264 for Video Format
Set Data Rate to 4000 kbits/sec (this is suffice quality for most videos)
Set Image Size and Frame Rate accordingly
Hit OK to convert
Change the file extension from .mp4 to .mpg so that Powerpoint can recognize the file as video for insertion

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

1/8

5/11/13

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

Once converted, there is no need to disable hardware acceleration, and the .mpg videos should play properly in MCI.
I personally recommend Solution 2, as no performance needs to be sacrificed, although you need to have QuickTimePro.
Solution 3: Bypass MCI & just Embed Windows Media Player
If the aforementioned MCI trick doesnt work for you, there is another route: bypass MCI and just embed Windows Media Player in a
PowerPoint slide full-screen. Here are the detailed steps:
1. Go to the slide where you want your video to appear.
2. You will need the control toolbox to be displayed. Click View > Toolbars > Control Toolbox, click on the last icon which should
be More Controls. (For PowerPoint 2007, Click Developer tab. Under Controls, click on the icon More Controls.)
3. Scroll to the bottom and click Windows Media Player. Cursor changes to crosshairs.
4. Start at the top left corner and draw a box that covers the entire slide. Right click in the middle of your slide and select Properties.
This will bring up the properties dialog box.
5. Double-click fullscreen so it is set to True. In the URL setting, enter the filename of your video (include the path if its in a different
directory).
6. Close the dialog box and you are done.
If you have many videos to show in your slides, this solution could become tedious as you have to embed the windows media player for
every slides you wanna play video on.
To this end, I would really hope Microsoft to step up and solve this. MCI issue has been there for over 10 years, and the success of
PowerPoint urges MS to really perfect it.
If the solutions dont work for you, feel free to comment/email me.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 17th, 2009 at 3:21 am and is filed under Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

57 Responses to A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint 03/07

1.

jill says: January 24th, 2009 at 7:12 pm

Wow! I have been searching for this answer for three weeks and even took my laptop in twice to get the BLACK SCREEN
problem fixed. Your advise fixed all my video conversion problems in 3 minutes! Thank YOu Thank You Thank YOu! I have a
huge presentation to do to 100 doctors in a week.. now it will be a success because of you!

2.

Bala says: February 20th, 2009 at 10:13 am

Thanks a million for your note! Ive been stressing out since my perfectly working presentation presented me with a black screen
when I copied it over and ran through it on my newly set up Windows XP laptop. And I thought it was going to take me days to
get this worked out. Instead, with your step by step solution, it took only seconds! Thank you again !!!

3.

John says: February 24th, 2009 at 5:37 am

I ran mplayer2.exe and an old version of Windows Media Player appeared, version 6.4. I have version 11, and it is wmplayer.exe.
mplayer2 will play .mpg files but only after an error message is cleared. Still no good in Power Point, got the black screen.

4.

Evan says: March 18th, 2009 at 7:42 pm

@John, the point of this is that PowerPoint doesnt use the Media Player that your are used to seeing. It uses a very old media
player classic that uses a very simple way of playing wmvs. Very simple also means not much you can do beyond what is posted
here. MS describes them as:
* Media Control Interface (MCI) is the default media player that is installed as part of the Microsoft Windows operating system.
<what PPT uses.
* Microsoft Windows Media Player is a full-featured, stand-alone media player that you can install as part of the Windows
operating system or download separately.
If you have Office 2007 and most likely 2003 you can insert an actual media player into your powerpoint. You can Google for a
how as it would take to long here in the comments but it does offer the advatage of having a complete player with volume and
playback control right in you slide but some would argue it doesnt look as nice as a clean slide with a borderless video playing.

5.

Amy says: March 21st, 2009 at 10:35 am

I am have the same issues that John above is having. The exact same thing happens when I run mplayer2.exe. Additionally, I have
downloaded a simple program called GSpot that tells you if you have the needed codecs for a certain video to run it, and I have
done this and the program says that I do indeed have all these codecs. I have been wrestling with this for 3 days and have a big
presentation on Monday in which I might have to drop my videos from if I cant figure this out. Im supposed to be practicing my
talk not figuring out video issues!

6.

Luis says: June 1st, 2009 at 3:33 pm

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

2/8

5/11/13

6.

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

Luis says: June 1st, 2009 at 3:33 pm

I am having the same problem as Amy and John. My video plays on MCI but still shows as a black box when it is played on
PowerPoint. Im using office 03 and cant seem to find the solution to this!

7.

Arnaud says: June 8th, 2009 at 3:54 am

Same here again. I have an AVI file encoded with the Indeo 5 codecs. It does play in mplayer2, but not in PowerPoint (am using
Office 2007).

8.

Roger says: June 18th, 2009 at 1:27 am

I had these problems trying to play .avi within Powerpoint and also using OpenOffice Impress. Almost gave up but found
VirtualDub (www.virtualdub.org). This can do lots of video manipulation, but I loaded the avi and then saved as old format avi
and hey presto, it worked in mplayer, Impress and Powerpoint!
Good luck!

9.

Mark Petereit says: July 14th, 2009 at 5:44 am

I just bypass the whole MCI issue and embed Windows Media Player in a PowerPoint slide full-screen.
1. Go to the slide where you want your video to apper.
2. You will need the control toolbox to be displayed. Click View > Toolbars > Control Toolbox.
3. In the Control Toolbox, click on the last icon which should be More Controls. (For PowerPoint 2007, Click Developer tab.
Under Controls, click on the icon More Controls.)
4. Scroll to the bottom and click Windows Media Player. Cursor changes to crosshairs.
5. Start at the top left corner and draw a box that covers the entire slide.
6. Now, right click in the middle of your slide and select Properties. This will bring up the properties dialog box.
7. Double-click fullscreen so it is set to True
8. In the URL setting, enter the filename of your video (include the path if its in a different directory)
9. Close the dialog box.
One minor irritant Ive noticed. If you press Escape while youre testing the video in your presentation, it flips the fullscreen flag
back to False. Make sure you right-click, select Properties and flip fullscreen back to True before you save your project.

10.

Rosa Mendez says: July 17th, 2009 at 12:12 am

Thank you very much for your help. God bless you. I perform ultrasound studies in a GE machine. In my power point
presentations, the video clips used to get dark when I click on them. I had had this problem for long time. I had asked help but
nobody reallu knew what was the problem. Today I found your great page. I followed your instructions to disable the Hardware
Accelerator and the problem dissapeared. The video clips look fine Thank you

11.

Lukasz Slowinski says: July 22nd, 2009 at 2:24 am

@ Mark Petereit
Thank you for posting your solution. It saved us a lot of time.

12.

Rich B says: July 30th, 2009 at 8:56 am

Thanks so much for posting this fix. I tried EVERYTHING except your fix to no avail. Your fix got me up and running.

13.

bahskar says: August 9th, 2009 at 9:31 am

thanks man, your hack worked well

14.

Tina says: October 14th, 2009 at 9:07 pm

I am so glad i found this note tonighta million thanks!

15.

Gregdude says: November 2nd, 2009 at 11:20 pm

I can play the video on my laptop and it looks fine, but when I connect the projector its the black screen on the projector and
video on my laptop. When I loaded my presentation on an XP laptop, no problems. Any help for VISTA platform???

16.

Ryan Ray says: November 4th, 2009 at 1:43 pm

Mark Genius!! Thank you so much for the solution! MCI wasnt even loading on my machine (probably why regular video
doesnt work).. Microsoft can be so screwy sometimes..

17.

achyuth vishwamithra says: November 10th, 2009 at 8:19 am

ill explain u a simple way..1)right click on the desktop
2)click properties

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

About Me
Colin Zheng

3/8

5/11/13

18.

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

2)click properties
3)press settings tab
4)press advanced
5)press troubleshoot tab and disable the acceleration by dragging the pointer towards none
Peter says: November 17th, 2009 at 4:07 pm

Well neither of these worked and I have had this problem many times before. Simplest thing to do if you dont mind having to click
once the slide is up is:
insert your movie, just for a backdrop..
create a text box with the name of the video.
Right click the text box name and choose hyperlink
then just link to the file you want. It will play anything that windows media player can play.
this sounds silly but it works,
19.

Helen says: November 26th, 2009 at 5:46 am

Thank you so much I chose the option of inserting the whole media player I can now do school assemblies without having to do
video clips separately. Helen.

20.

romanc009 says: January 17th, 2010 at 1:24 am

Colin Zheng
recently finished
his Ph.D in
Computer
Science from University
of Washington.
His research involves
tackling how humans
could better perceive and
interact with the world
through light.
He has pursued a
Technology
Entrepreneurship
Certificate from Business
School of U.W, as he has
always been interested in
bringing research to the
next level.

Thank you very much for help. In Microsoft help page they just mentioned set down drive accelerator, but not mentioned how to
do itthanks a lot.
21.

Anneke says: January 21st, 2010 at 5:32 am

Hi,
At least in Powerpoint 2007 I found that it suffices just to change the file extension from avi to wmv. It seems Powerpoint acts on
the file extension and starts media player which in turn understands what the format of the file really is. ?!
Anneke

22.

Colin likes to take

photos, watch movies,
and go backpacking. He
also blogs.

Pages
Blog
Course
Gallery
Research

Eric says: February 9th, 2010 at 8:17 am

I did some research, read all of the various solutions to resolve this issue and then took a moment of pause. There is a simple
solution to getting your videos to play.
From the Slide Show Tab select resolution and lower the resolution incrementally until your video file will play. Thats it.

23.

Search

Chris says: February 16th, 2010 at 5:35 am

Excellent article! My companys quite odd security settings were blocking the installation of codecs needed to use MCI, so the info
on embedding the WMP has made my life ever so much easierthanks for the great help.

24.

Stuart says: February 17th, 2010 at 3:11 pm

I have windows 7 and powerpoint 2007 and have the same annoying black screen issue during the looping of avis. I bought the
quicktime pro as on solution 2 and followed the instructions however all I get is a black screen when I insert the mpg into
powerpoint. If I keep the file as an mp4 as opposed to mpg it continues to have a black starting screen however does play the
movie once and then stops despite asking powerpoint to loop until stopped. This issue is seriously affecting my quality of life do
you have any suggestions?

25.

T says: March 16th, 2010 at 7:49 am

Thank you!

26.

Jul
Business
Harvard Business
Review
McKinsey
Quarterly

Jeremy says: January 4th, 2011 at 11:20 am

A free alternative to QuickTime Pro that worked for me is Windows Movie Maker, which came standard with my WinXP
installation and can also be downloaded for free. Id created an AVI video using the Linux MEncoder program, and it played fine
in Windows Media Player but appeared as a black box in Powerpoint. I imported it into Windows Movie Maker and saved it as a
.WMF file (bit rate 2.1 Mb/s), and the embedded WMF played fine in Powerpoint. Good luck all.

28.

1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Candy Lefthand says: December 9th, 2010 at 5:41 am

Thank you so much, I couldnt figure how to get it right. I tried this and it works for me. Thanks again!

27.

May 2013
MT WT F S S

Qasem says: May 3rd, 2011 at 6:35 am

Hi
I have the same issue with black boxes, but its with images,a power point file was created using office 2003, it shows black boxes
in powerpoint 2007 for some images, is there a solution for that?

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

Life
Guys Fashion
Living Social Daily
Photography
Reviews
Research
4/8

5/11/13

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

in powerpoint 2007 for some images, is there a solution for that?

your suggestion is highly appreciated.

Research
CG/Viz Papers
Grail Lab, U.W
Online CG/CV
Journal

THanks
29.

Ashley says: May 25th, 2011 at 7:01 am

I have windows vista and when I was trying to follow your instructions to finally get rid of the black screen, I couldnt find so of the
stuff you said to click on. I can not find a settings tab. Please help me, this presentation is worth 20% of my grade.

30.

Social Networks

WenLi says: July 14th, 2011 at 1:09 pm

My Facebook
My HFLS911
My Linkedin
My Twitter

I cant say how much I thank you for resolving my problems. I am now able to play the Movie Maker files using either embedding
Windows Media Player within the developer control or simply insert an .avi file. thank you, thank you
31.

Tony says: October 28th, 2011 at 5:11 am

Technology

Hi Colin, nearly 3 years on since you posted this article and its still providing help. Its 12:11am and Im helping my Son with a PP
presentation and the clip would only show up as a black box. Thank you very much. I can now go to bed.
32.

Tony says: October 28th, 2011 at 5:12 am

BTW, Im in Australia

33.

Meta

haitham says: December 25th, 2011 at 1:39 am

hi, i`m still in a very beginners mode in PP presentations , I tried solution 3 but the enter the filename of your video (include the
path if its in a different directory) thing I couldn`t get
I still have the black box!
help!

34.

Slashdot
Startups in China
Tech Crunch

Log in
WordPress
Mandigo theme

Bill Volcjak says: January 18th, 2012 at 8:19 am

Im pretty ignorant regarding the inclusion of video clips in PP (2007). Im able to down load some 20 second clips into my
Window XP based PC, get them into a Power Point and play them naturally fine etc. Unfortunately, I like many others am unable
to get them onto a stick and play them back on another device / laptop. Depending on what I do, I either will see the all too familiar
black slide or just see the video without audio.
Im thinking that I need a better understanding of processes that preceeds the in-depth steps listed above.
Essentially, Im copying and pasting my pp pres. and video files (either Real Player or VLC Media Player, tried it differently) into a
folder, copying and pasting that folder onto a memory stick and attempting to play everything back on a secondary laptop. So, my
question is should video clips be embedded or linked in order to play back in other devices? Can someone explain how I link
them?

35.

Steve says: January 31st, 2012 at 2:22 pm

Just download and install a codec pack: http://filehippo.com/download_codec_pack/
Be sure to make sure you check the box for MPEG2, not sure if you need to, but I did and mine works. Lack of MPEG2 support
for Power Point is the root cause, added the codec to your PC fixes the issue (at least in my case).

36.

Kirby Bakken says: February 5th, 2012 at 12:02 pm

Using the imbed windows media player method. Works fine, EXCEPT that the first time you play the video, its full-screen. Any
key (esc, forward, backward) does nothing except drop the video back to non-fullscreen mode. Then a second esc, forward,
whatever will stop the video, but at that point, the video has been changed to non-fullscreen mode. Doesnt matter if you save it or
whatever. The setting for fullscreen is now false.
Is there any fix for this? Id like to set the PPT to permanently save the fullscreen state as TRUE.
Kirby

37.

Jenni says: February 8th, 2012 at 3:25 am

Thankyou Kirby! I too would like to know the answer to this question. Anybody?

38.

Jenni says: February 8th, 2012 at 3:39 am

Hi Kirby,
I have found the solution on another website: http://www.pptalchemy.co.uk/PowerPoint_WMP.html.
See below:

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

5/8

5/11/13

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

To put this right you need a little code.

Right click the WMP Object and choose View Code You will see some code already there. You can delete this.
Now copy the code below and paste it in.
Private Sub WindowsMediaPlayer1_PlayStateChange(ByVal NewState As Long)
With Me.WindowsMediaPlayer1
If .playState = wmppsPlaying Then
.fullScreen = True
End If
End With
End Sub
Note if your object does not have the default name (WindowsmediaPlayer1) you will need to correct the code.
save as a macro enabled presentation i9f you have 2007 onwards and make sure macros are enabled.
39.

Ehsan Asghar says: May 25th, 2012 at 4:24 am

Dear you are great. You have solved my problem with in no time. Thanks

40.

Avinash says: June 12th, 2012 at 2:06 am

Im adding a movie in my powerpoint presentation, and when Im playing the slideshow, Im playing the animated video in the
presentation. But, as the movie ends, a black screen comes, instead of remaining at the last scene of the video.
So, is there any solution to how to avoid that black screen and remain at the last scene of the video.
Please reply asap.

41.

keith stclare says: June 23rd, 2012 at 4:58 am

Im a senior (67) attending U of Houston Victoria Texas.I prepare my assignments which describe chapters of a Child
Development textin PPT. The slides (graphics, clip art, text, animation, and youtube (mostly) video look greatexcept that
when for the viewer (usually the professor) I save it as a make-a-video, I get great audio over a black box. Ive seen a bunch of
solutions, but most are for 03, 05, 07and I have 2010. What shall I do? Thanks, Keith

42.

Nitin says: June 25th, 2012 at 10:54 am

Thank you very much for the solution you provided. We were struggling to fix this problem since last 3 days. Now, it is fixed and
working, Thanks so much.

43.

Brigitte Iten says: September 25th, 2012 at 2:33 am

Thanks a lot! I already tried out your solution #3 and it worked perfectly!

44.

hitendra says: September 25th, 2012 at 11:04 pm

Thanks a lot!

45.

fRisNasienpfyhd says: October 7th, 2012 at 12:57 pm

http://eucalyptusoil.co/ I consider I will alter to this blogengine program as its a good deal nicer than mine.

46.

yhBlueTreeekng says: October 11th, 2012 at 10:29 am

What a super website! to significantly info and a really short existence hehehehe retain it up, good deliver the results

47.

vikram says: November 8th, 2012 at 4:24 am

The issue is the video plays on my system.but when the same ppt is mailed with the video embedded it fails to play on the other
systems. Is there a way to ensure that it will play on every system

48.

rAJESH says: January 3rd, 2013 at 9:32 am

thanks a million Colin

49.

Tharanga says: January 4th, 2013 at 6:07 am

I tried to insert mp4 video using this method, but it doesnt play saying it has a file extension like (.) and doesnt recognize by
window media player

50.

stolen says: February 8th, 2013 at 3:55 pm

Seriously had to say thank you for posting this. After researching and hitting about 15 other sites, (including microsoft), spending
hours trying different solutions, updating shit and installing SP3 etc. ad nauseum, nothing worked including changing file extension.

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

6/8

5/11/13

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

hours trying different solutions, updating shit and installing SP3 etc. ad nauseum, nothing worked including changing file extension.
I followed your solution 3 and it works! )) I now have to ensure it will also play on other laptops as this is a major training
presentation which will need to be distributed to other people including the trainer.
thanks again, much appreciate your helpbtw has this even been fixed by microsoft after all these years? it must be my computer
idk.
51.

software build engineering says: February 17th, 2013 at 5:44 am

That is very attention-grabbing, You are a very professional blogger. I have joined your rss feed and stay up for looking for more
of your excellent post. Additionally, I have shared your website in my social networks

52.

scanner says: February 25th, 2013 at 9:53 am

Heya im for the primary time here. I found this board and I to find It truly helpful & it helped me out much. Im hoping to offer one
thing again and help others like you helped me.

53.

Rob DAvis says: March 24th, 2013 at 12:40 pm

There is an elegant solution to playing MP4 files in Powerpoint 2003 or 2007.
Powerpoint cant play MP4 video files? Yes it can, with a little magic!
I use Powerpoint quite a lot and having recently bought a video camera which produces High Definition (HD) 1080p video footage
in MP4 format, I found to my dismay that Powerpoint cant play these files. However, I have found a fix for this problem.
1) Download the free VideoPad Video Editor video file converter and editor, this allows you to load your video clips in their
original format and then edit / splice them together to assemble your movie, adding captions, sound files, narration etc.
2) Save the result using Preset HD1030 as an AVI movie file. This does not result in pixellation and loss of video quality.
3) Download and install the XP Codec Pack.
4) And now the very easy part rename mymovie.avi to mymovie.wmv and Powerpoint should be able to play it. It really is that
simple!

54.

pat says: March 24th, 2013 at 8:02 pm

i have windows 8 and power point 2010. suddenly, my embedded videos have stopped working. i can play them if i click on the
link that i always put at the bottom of each slide,and go to the video in firefox, but the embedded video just shows a black box on
the slide. this is a recent problem which just began about a month ago. before that i didnt have a problem. when i look at
presentations i made 2 years ago that worked fine then, they dont work fine now. i ran kapersky and removed some strange
toolbar, but that is the only thing i could find that was different on my computer. i put the videos on a flash and took them to school,
and the same thing happens.

55.

Zulfiquer says: April 7th, 2013 at 10:38 am

Thanks all for your kind suggestions. Inspite of all the ways mentioned, I have measurably failed to add a video in my ppt
presentation. Can any one give me a way out, simple and easy to understand? (In the URL setting, enter the filename of your video
(include the path if its in a different directory)-How to do it?

56.

Click This Link says: April 16th, 2013 at 3:52 pm

Its appropriate time to make some plans for the future and it is time to be happy. I have read this post and if I could I wish to
suggest you few interesting things or tips. Maybe you could write next articles referring to this article. I want to read more things
about it!

57.

Media Codec says: May 8th, 2013 at 11:17 am

A person automatically create appreciably articles or blog posts I would declare. This is the very first time We seen your site site so
considerably? My spouse and i shocked with the research you have made in making this unique publish wonderful. Superb
employment!

Leave a Reply
Name (required)
E-mail (will not be published) (required)
Website

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

7/8

5/11/13

A Solution to Black Screen Video Playback in Powerpoint | Ke Colin Zheng

Submit Comment

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.
Powered by WordPress, Mandigo theme by tom.
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).

www.colinzheng.com/?p=36

8/8