How to use PowerPoint content

Introduction

PowerPoint presentations files (PPT / PPTX) are using a Microsoft proprietary format and because of that, these type of files cannot be used directly as HMP content. Nevertheless, PowerPoint content can still be used through one of the solutions presented below.

Export from PowerPoint

Export as video

The recommended method of using PowerPoint content is to export the PowerPoint presentation as a video - this option is present within Microsoft PowerPoint starting with 2010 version.

Note:

The presentation should be exported as a MPEG-4 Video (.mp4).

Export as images

Another method of using PowerPoint content is to export the PowerPoint presentation as a collection of PNG or JPEG files. Of course, when using this method, the transitions & animations are not kept. Once the export is done, import those images into Elementi and use them within a playlist or display them using one of the media widgets.

See how to change the export resolution of a PowerPoint slide.

Import into Elementi 3.x / HMD

This section has been kept for historical reasons; exporting the presentation directly from PowerPoint should be used instead.
Also note that the support for converting PowerPoint presentations into videos has been removed from Elementi 2015.

Elementi 3.0.x & 3.1.x, as well as HMD, are able to convert PowerPoint presentations into MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 videos (up to 1080p resolution) depending on the target HMP.

• A PowerPoint presentation can be imported only if the two rules below are met!
• An external component of the software, called ppt2svg.exe, plays silently the PowerPoint presentation (PPT / PPTX) in the background using the PowerPoint Viewer (2003 or 2007) application installed on your computer and records the output into a video file (.avi). Note that the viewer does not simulate any mouse clicks or key presses (see rule #1) and any audio within the presentation is ignored.

Rules

1. The PowerPoint presentation (PPT / PPTX) must run from start to finish without requiring any user interaction.

   This means that all the slides / transitions are set to advance automatically after a certain amount of time (not by mouse clicks!).

2. PowerPoint Viewer 2007 must be installed on your computer.

   If you have Microsoft Office 2007 installed, then you also have the PowerPoint Viewer 2007. If you have Microsoft Office 2010 or newer installed, then you need to manually install the PowerPoint Viewer 2007 since only the 2007 version can be used by the import mechanism.

Video conversion

Project type	HMP200	HMP100 / HMP130
Codec	MPEG-2	MPEG-4
1080p	1080p@30fps	720p@15pfs
720p	720p@30pfs
SD	480p@30pfs
High
Fastest

The video resulted after importing a PowerPoint presentation depends on the HMP model (i.e. the project type) and on the "Import Quality" setting, as detailed inside the table on the right.

• You can change the "Import Quality" setting by opening the menu "Settings", go over "PPT/Flash Conversion" ("Import Quality" in HMD) and choose one of the following options:
  • 1080p - works only for HMP200 and outputs 1080p@30fps; should be used when the imported presentation will be displayed full-screen on a 1080p screen.
  • 720p - outputs 720p@30pfs for HMP200 and 720p@15fps for HMP100/HMP130; should be used when the imported presentation will be displayed full-screen on a 720p screen.
  • SD (High in HMD) - outputs 480p@30pfs for both players; should be used when there are a lot of details in the presentation, because it will be scaled to a higher resolution before being encoded into a 480p video.
  • Fastest (HMD only) - outputs 480p@30pfs for both players, without scaling.

• Files are converted differently based on the project type (target player) - PowerPoint presentations converted for HMP130 / HMP100 are encoded using the MPEG-4 codec, while for HMP200, MPEG-2 codes is used (due to differences in video optimization). When changing from one type of project to another, you should re-import the original PowerPoint presentation(s) to get the most suited video file for each type of player.

Troubleshooting

• Elementi / HMD freezes on "importing SLIDE1" or there's an error message saying "Converter did not output any frames" and the conversion do not move forward - this means that the slides are not set to advance automatically (see rule #1).
• When using a version of HMD lower than 2.2.5 and trying to import a presentation without a landscape orientation and a standard aspect ration (4:3, 16:9, 16:10), then one of these two situation will happen:
  1. HMD cannot import the file and there's an Windows' error saying that ppt2svg.exe has stopped working, followed by an HMD error box with the message: Converter error code: -1073741819 .
  2. HMD can import the file, but the resulted video displays only a continuous black frame.
  • The solution is to update the HMD to the latest version or to change the presentation design.
• PPS(X) files cannot be imported.
  • Only PPT(X) files can be used during import.