Thomas Wallace: Lectures and Resources - A collection of website design lectures and resources

Extracting and Converting Internet Video

The goal of this exercise is to allow you to use video from internet sites like YouTube.com in PowerPoint Presentations. There are many ways to achieve this goal, but I wanted you to be able to do this without the purchase of any additional software for your computer. In order to embed video in PowerPoint we'll need a video clip in the .wmv format. this is the standard Windows Media Player format and is the only format I have found to run consistently in PowerPoint. Unfortunately, most internet video sites do not use this format for their video. Most popular internet video sites use the .flv format (Flash Video), so in order to use these videos we'll need a way to extract this video and then convert it to the .wmv format so we can use it in PowerPoint. Here is an overview of the steps in this process:

1. Find an Internet Video clip we would like to use and extract the .flv video from the site
2. Convert .flv video to the .wmv format
3. Embed the video in PowerPoint

Find an Internet Video clip we would like to use and extract the .flv video from the site:

There are several methods for saving video clips from YouTube. I prefer using a Firefox extension called Fast Video Download to download clip from popular video sites. You can download and install this extension from this web site. (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3590) You'll need to close and re-open you browser to complete the installation.

To use the extension simply click the icon in the bottom right hand corner of the browser when you are on a page that has internet video embedded on it.

If you do not want to use FireFox you can download and convert the video from http://vixy.net/ but the instructions in this tutorial will use the Firefox extension to extract the video.

NOTE: The vixy.net service has reduced the number of steps in this process. Unfortunatetly this is a new service and is not as reliable as it will be in the future. Feel free to give it a try and use the process below as a fallback option. If you do use the VIxy service you can skip to Convert .avi to .wmv

1. Browse to YouTube.com
2. Use the Search Feature or Browse by Category to find the video you would like to use.
3. When you have found the video you want to use, click the Fast Video Icon in the bottom toolbar of your browser window.
4. You will be prompted to save the .flv file. Give it a name you will remember and save in a location where you can find it.

Convert .flv video to the .wmv format

(.flv to .avi)

There are many ways to convert .flv format files to .wmv format but most require additional software that you must purchase, download, and install. We're doing this project on a budget so we want to be able to do this for free and without installing anything on our computer. We will first convert the .flv video file to a format that Windows can understand. Here is the process:

1. Browse to http://media-convert.com/
2. Browse to the .flv file you downloaded in the first section

3. In the Output Format section (further down the page) set the Video to Audio Video Interleave (.avi)

4. If you would like you can adjust other settings in the box below the output format selection box
5. With your settings set the way you like them, check the "I accept the terms" and press ok.
6. Wait for the file to process until you see a screen that says "File Successfully Converted"

7. Click the download button and save to a location where you can find it.

(.avi to .wmv)

At this point you have a working video file which can be edited (with a video editor), viewed on your desktop, or burned to a CD. In many cases that may be all we need, but in order to ensure playback from within PowerPoint we'll need to take an additional conversion step to the .wmv format. In order to do this we'll use an application that comes with Windows named Windows Movie Maker.

1. Open Windows Movie Maker (Located in the Programs > Accessories Menu)
2. From the Movie Tasks Menu on the left select Import Video from Capture Video Submenu.
3. Browse to the .avi file we converted and downloaded in the last step and press import. Your screen should now look like this:

4. Drag the clip from the collection window to the timeline.

5. From the Finish Movie Menu on the left select save to my computer.
6. Name the file and browse to the location where you would like to save the file. Press next
7. On the next screen leave the default settings checked (Best quality for playback on my computer) and press next.
8. Click Finish.

You now have a file you can embed in a PowerPoint Presentation!