Videos Creating Large PowerPoint Presentations

Issue

Let’s look at file sizes in terms of Megabytes (aka MB.) To put it simply, a 3MB PowerPoint + a 500MB Video = a 503MB PowerPoint.

When adding a video file into a slide, the PowerPoint (pptx) file will increase in size with the respective video file size. This will result in some massive PowerPoint files that make downloading, viewing, and/or sharing copies difficult under certain circumstances.

Solutions

You can resolve this issue with a few approaches:

• Embed / Link from YouTube, Vimeo, SharePoint, OneDrive, etc.
  • Adds no additional file size to the PowerPoint.Just be aware that a video embedded from an external / third-party source can be removed (leaving your PowerPoint slide with a broken embed link).
• Compress before adding the video
  • Video files can be compressed to a much more manageable size through open-source software such as HandBrake.
  • In many cases, you’ll see a video file size reduction of 70% or higher.
  • Just be mindful of usage rights and permissions where applicable.
• Hybrid approach
  • You can also consider compressing the video file, then uploading it to OneDrive or SharePoint.
  • Once in OneDrive or SharePoint, you can embed/link the video into your presentation, which will result in no additional file size to the presentation.
  • By using OneDrive or SharePoint, you can circumvent the issue of a third-party broken embed link, because the video is now hosted in our controlled environment.
  • Just make sure to set your videos to public access (anyone with the link) when using this approach.