What other options for putting Powerpoint with audio online?
April 23, 2020 2:57 AM Subscribe
This is more of a question asking for ideas. I have a number of powerpoint files - with audio in them - which some students are having difficulty downloading and viewing. So I'm looking for ways to help them out.
Now my first thought was to just convert them to video (which you can do directly through powerpoint) and upload them alongside the original files. The resulting mp4 files however are quite big: 300+ mb from 60-90mb powerpoint files, with video compressors only reducing them by 20-30mb or so. And although I haven't asked yet, I suspect suggesting to put them up on youtube for all to see will not be accepted. So I'm now trying to think whether there are other options. Any other ideas, solutions, alternatives?
Now my first thought was to just convert them to video (which you can do directly through powerpoint) and upload them alongside the original files. The resulting mp4 files however are quite big: 300+ mb from 60-90mb powerpoint files, with video compressors only reducing them by 20-30mb or so. And although I haven't asked yet, I suspect suggesting to put them up on youtube for all to see will not be accepted. So I'm now trying to think whether there are other options. Any other ideas, solutions, alternatives?
In case you are in a Victorian government school, don't forget about the department sanctioned platform ClickView.
posted by freethefeet at 3:27 AM on April 23, 2020
posted by freethefeet at 3:27 AM on April 23, 2020
Can you break each presentations up into sections so students can download smaller mp4 files separately? Slides 1-10 become Part 1, slides 11-20 become Part 2, etc.? You could do this to the mp4 files directly, depending on the software you're using for the compression, rather than rerecording through PowerPoint.
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:12 AM on April 23, 2020
posted by SuperSquirrel at 5:12 AM on April 23, 2020
Firstly, why is your ppt 60 Meg? That's really big, are you compressing the images in it? (don't forget to compress images in the master slide, the default compress option only does the image you click on)
You can save some space by recording timings and narration,, rather than saving as a video, save it as a pptsx file, this is a ppt show, it will be dramatically smaller than video and your audio will be embedded on each side.
Ab hour long presentation with reasonably sized images that are fine for screens shouldn't be more than, 50-60 Meg's, absolute max. I'd be expecting closer to twenty. Compress those images!
posted by smoke at 5:54 AM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
You can save some space by recording timings and narration,, rather than saving as a video, save it as a pptsx file, this is a ppt show, it will be dramatically smaller than video and your audio will be embedded on each side.
Ab hour long presentation with reasonably sized images that are fine for screens shouldn't be more than, 50-60 Meg's, absolute max. I'd be expecting closer to twenty. Compress those images!
posted by smoke at 5:54 AM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
Note, if the audio isn't you narrating, the above will still work, just ensure that autoplay is enabled for the audio. Additionally, if the audio files are more than 128kps, compress the shit out of them too.
posted by smoke at 5:56 AM on April 23, 2020
posted by smoke at 5:56 AM on April 23, 2020
Powerpoint has quality options when you export - see point 3 of this list. If you go for Internet or Low quality, you should end up with smaller files. After that, you can use a tool like HandBrake (free) to shrink the files further.
posted by Grinder at 6:41 AM on April 23, 2020
posted by Grinder at 6:41 AM on April 23, 2020
Response by poster: Thanks for the feedback everyone. Very useful.
smoke, yeah it's the audio in the files that makes them big. They are m4a files and they make up the bulk of it. Since these are not my own recordings (I'm just doing some tech support on the side for our professors) I think the audio files are basically at the max bitrate of whatever the prof used to record them. I could compress them I suppose, but it's like 20-30 separate clips per lecture. I'll look into bulk conversion, otherwise i's gonna take forever.
Other option I'm seriously considering is the private youtube uploads. Seems like the least hassle, letting youtube do everything. I just wish there was a presentation streaming service (SlideShare has no private option far as I can tell).
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:06 AM on April 23, 2020
smoke, yeah it's the audio in the files that makes them big. They are m4a files and they make up the bulk of it. Since these are not my own recordings (I'm just doing some tech support on the side for our professors) I think the audio files are basically at the max bitrate of whatever the prof used to record them. I could compress them I suppose, but it's like 20-30 separate clips per lecture. I'll look into bulk conversion, otherwise i's gonna take forever.
Other option I'm seriously considering is the private youtube uploads. Seems like the least hassle, letting youtube do everything. I just wish there was a presentation streaming service (SlideShare has no private option far as I can tell).
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:06 AM on April 23, 2020
You can batch compress in audacity, I'm not sure how you'd get all the audio out of the ppt, though.
posted by smoke at 6:07 PM on April 23, 2020
posted by smoke at 6:07 PM on April 23, 2020
Response by poster: That's the easy part actually, ppt is just a wrapper which can be opened with any file compression app, like 7zip etc. And the files are just there inside. Same with doc, epub and probably many others.
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:03 PM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 9:03 PM on April 23, 2020 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by ouke at 3:24 AM on April 23, 2020