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 video from the site
2. Convert .avi 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:

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, Copy the URL
4. Got to Vixy.net
5. Paste the video URL in to the URL box and select .AVI for Windows
6. Press Start and wait for the file to convert.
7. You will be prompted to save the .AVI file. Give it a name you will remember and save in 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!