enjay Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Can anyone recommend me a good PowerPoint viewer for Linux? The slideshows would contain all the "usual" wizziness, animations and transitions, as well as video (ideally .wmv format, but could be something less proprietary if need be) so it would need to be able to handle all that.
localzuk Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Try using open office impress, it should be able to handle PPT's fine. If not, try using Wine with the Microsoft Powerpoint Viewer. 1
enjay Posted February 10, 2011 Author Posted February 10, 2011 Yes, totally forgot about Open Office Impress - thanks! One slight problem with it though. I've created a PPT which includes a .wmv file, and it doesn't play in Impress. If I open Impress, and go to add a video, it doesn't include .wmv under "all video files". If I then go to "all files" and select the .wmv, I can add it and it will play. Weird, huh? Not insurmountable, as I doubt we'll be using videos all that much in the slideshows, but I would rather people could create them in PowerPoint than have to do it in Impress (one less thing to learn how to use).
localzuk Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Yes, totally forgot about Open Office Impress - thanks! One slight problem with it though. I've created a PPT which includes a .wmv file, and it doesn't play in Impress. If I open Impress, and go to add a video, it doesn't include .wmv under "all video files". If I then go to "all files" and select the .wmv, I can add it and it will play. Weird, huh? Not insurmountable, as I doubt we'll be using videos all that much in the slideshows, but I would rather people could create them in PowerPoint than have to do it in Impress (one less thing to learn how to use). That's a tiny bit odd, yes! I'd suggest using something more 'standard' for videos though. MP4 for example.
enjay Posted February 10, 2011 Author Posted February 10, 2011 I'd suggest using something more 'standard' for videos though. MP4 for example. WMV is hardly non-standard, plus it is the only format which Windows Movie Maker produces. Really needing something as simple as possible here, otherwise the display screen won't get used (plus I want to minimise the number of support calls this generates!)
Arthur Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Would it be possible to convert the PowerPoints into SWFs?
enjay Posted February 10, 2011 Author Posted February 10, 2011 Would it be possible to convert the PowerPoints into SWFs? Possibly, although converting the video to something else is probably easier. Starting to think I'll just pay the extra and get a Windows netbook for this project anyway - less support all round that way.
somabc Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 [RANT] WMV is not a 'Standard' it is a proprietary video compression format from Microsoft (ie designed for Windows), MP4 aka MPEG-4 14 or to give its full title ISO/IEC 14496-14:2003 is most definitely a 'Standard'! [/RANT]
Arthur Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 WMVs can contain VC-1 encoded video which definitely is a standard (see SMPTE 421M).
somabc Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 Legal status Although widely considered to be Microsoft’s product, there are actually fifteen companies in the VC-1 patent pool (as of August 17, 2006). As an SMPTE standard, VC-1 is open to implementation by anyone, although implementers are hypothetically required to pay licensing fees to the MPEG LA, LLC licensing body or directly to its members, who claim to hold essential patents on the format (since it is a non-exclusive licensing body) And that is why it is not included by default with most Linux distros.
mac_shinobi Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 google docs ?? Google Docs - Viewer Assuming the document is located on the web, if not if its an attachment in a gmail account you can use google docs
Arthur Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 And that is why it is not included by default with most Linux distros. What about MP3 and H.264? Aren't they the same? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264/MPEG-4_AVC#Patent_licensing https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats
somabc Posted February 10, 2011 Posted February 10, 2011 (edited) Yes you are indeed correct, try Ogg Theora or VP8 for one that is not. Edited February 10, 2011 by somabc
enjay Posted February 11, 2011 Author Posted February 11, 2011 [RANT] WMV is not a 'Standard' it is a proprietary video compression format from Microsoft (ie designed for Windows) [/RANT] You're arguing semantics now. Fully accepting it is proprietary, WMV is default to an OS used on high-90s % of all computers, and is the only format produced by what for your average user is the one video editing program they've ever used (i.e. Movie Maker). What's more, if you're looking for something which any ten people at random can use (which I am, in this instance), it needs to be Windows-based and using for videos, that means WMV. Hence my word "standard, although I accept "common" or even "prolific" would have been a better words. I meant "standard" not in the sense of standards-based but in the sense of widely-used, the same way you would say that Photoshop is an industry-standard editing package, even though that is also proprietary, or that Word is an industry-standard word processor. Again, I concede that WMV is proprietary not standards-based, however any product out there which plays video files but can't handle WMV is missing a trick, somewhat.
localzuk Posted February 11, 2011 Posted February 11, 2011 You're arguing semantics now. Fully accepting it is proprietary, WMV is default to an OS used on high-90s % of all computers, and is the only format produced by what for your average user is the one video editing program they've ever used (i.e. Movie Maker). What's more, if you're looking for something which any ten people at random can use (which I am, in this instance), it needs to be Windows-based and using for videos, that means WMV. Hence my word "standard, although I accept "common" or even "prolific" would have been a better words. I meant "standard" not in the sense of standards-based but in the sense of widely-used, the same way you would say that Photoshop is an industry-standard editing package, even though that is also proprietary, or that Word is an industry-standard word processor. Again, I concede that WMV is proprietary not standards-based, however any product out there which plays video files but can't handle WMV is missing a trick, somewhat. Your market share is a bit off there now. It is somewhere around 85%ish now for Windows. Also remember that devices are no longer restricted to desktop PCs, with videos being played on various ones. When you take that into account, WMV is simply a bad choice of video format. If you want to use cross-platform stuff, you have to stop thinking in a Microsoft-centric way, and that means in many cases stopping using MS proprietary formats like WMV. Open source platforms are not going to support such formats because they involved patent issues, copyright issues, trademark issues and the like.
enjay Posted February 11, 2011 Author Posted February 11, 2011 Fair point, my market share numbers probably are a bit outdated (they were off-the-top-of-head numbers). To be fair though, I'm not looking for a cross-platform video delivery system here; I'm looking for a simple, easy-to-use, low support way of non-technical teachers putting together a presentation which includes video for use on our plasma screen (perhaps I should have said that earlier!). You can praise the open source world and talk about hand-held devices all you want, but here and now, for this project, I need PowerPoint.
somabc Posted February 11, 2011 Posted February 11, 2011 To be fair though, I'm not looking for a cross-platform video delivery system here You asked for showing video on Linux via PowerPoint, definitely sounds like a cross-platform delivery system. You might be better using a Windows netbook much more straight forward.
localzuk Posted February 11, 2011 Posted February 11, 2011 Fair point, my market share numbers probably are a bit outdated (they were off-the-top-of-head numbers). To be fair though, I'm not looking for a cross-platform video delivery system here; I'm looking for a simple, easy-to-use, low support way of non-technical teachers putting together a presentation which includes video for use on our plasma screen (perhaps I should have said that earlier!). You can praise the open source world and talk about hand-held devices all you want, but here and now, for this project, I need PowerPoint. I don't think you're going to find a simple answer for videos in Impress - it just isn't designed for it. Have you tried the wine/powerpoint viewer option? You should be able to do something via that.
enjay Posted February 11, 2011 Author Posted February 11, 2011 You might be better using a Windows netbook much more straight forward. You're probably right, I was just trying to save a few pennies on a Windows licence. By the time I factor in the additional training Linux, Impress/Wine generate, it probably isn't a saving though.
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