Knowledge Base

You receive a "QuickTime and a Video decompressor are needed to see this picture" error message when you try to play a movie in a slide view in PowerPoint

Article ID: 198202

Article Last Modified on 1/23/2007


APPLIES TO


This article was previously published under Q198202

SYMPTOMS

When you double-click a movie in slide view, you may see the following caption rather than a bitmap:
QuickTime(tm) and a Video decompressor are needed to see this picture.
When you double-click this caption, no error message appears, and nothing happens.

CAUSE

When you insert a movie on a slide, Microsoft PowerPoint actually creates a link to the original movie file.

The problem occurs for one or both of the following reasons:

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, follow these steps:
  1. When you copy your presentation between a Macintosh-based computer and a Windows-based computer, make sure that you copy all the movie files.
  2. Make sure that your movie files can be played on the destination computer.
  3. Open the presentation on the destination computer.
  4. For each movie object, do the following:
    1. Delete the movie.
    2. Re-insert the movie.
  5. Save the presentation.
NOTE: Windows-based programs can play only QuickTime movies that are saved without dependencies (also called "flattened" QuickTime movies).

MORE INFORMATION

It is possible to convert .avi movies to QuickTime movies and to convert QuickTime movies to .avi movies. Several third-party utilities are available that can do this.

Additional query words: ppt2000 m_powerpt w_powerpt quicktime quick time avi mov movie cross platform

Keywords: kbgraphic kbslideshow kbtshoot kbprb KB198202