Multimedia playback may delay during slide show in PowerPoint

When you play back a Microsoft PowerPoint slide that contains animations and multimedia, the multimedia file may not begin playing when it is supposed to. This behavior occurs when any of the following conditions are true:

• The slide contains multiple animations.
• The slide contains an inserted movie or sound.
• Other animated objects are dependent upon the movie. (The object is set to start with With Previous or After Previous.)

This behavior occurs because MCI (the Microsoft Windows internal multimedia player used by PowerPoint) takes several seconds to load and begin playing the multimedia file. Only the multimedia file experiences this delay. Other dependent animations do not experience the same delay; rather, they behave as if the movie plays immediately. This behavior causes the animations and the multimedia to be out of synchronization.

To work around this issue, use one of the following methods.

Method 1: Adjust the Dependent Animations Timing

Note The amount of delay that you experience before the multimedia file begins to play depends on the processor speed of your computer. You may have to adjust the dependent animations speed more than once to achieve the effect that you want.

1. On the Slide Show menu, click Custom Animation.
   
   Note If you use PowerPoint 2007, click Custom Animation on the Animations tab under Animations.
2. On the Custom Animation task pane, select the dependent animation for which you want to change the timing (in the list of animations).
3. Click Timing in the drop-down list for that animation.
4. In the Animation dialog box, adjust the time value to achieve the delayed effect that you want, and then click OK.
5. On the Slide Show menu, click View Show.
   
   Note If you use PowerPoint 2007, click From Current Slide on the Slide Show tab in the Start Slide Show group.

Method 2: Save and View the Presentation as a Web Page

Note Web browsers do not use MCI to handle the multimedia file.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
   
   Note If you use PowerPoint 2007, click PowerPoint Options.
2. In the Options dialog box, click Web Options on the General tab.
   Note Click Web Options on the Advanced tab in the General section.
3. In the Web Options dialog box, click to select the Show slide animation while browsing check box, and then click OK.
4. In the Options dialog box, click OK.
   
   Note If you use PowerPoint 2007, click OK in the PowerPoint Options dialog box.
5. On the File menu, click Save as Web Page.
   
   Note If you use PowerPoint 2007, click the Microsoft Office Button, point to Save As, click Other Formats, and then select Single File Web Page (*.mht;*.mhtml) in the Save as type drop-down list.
6. Start your Web browser.
7. Navigate to the presentation that you saved.
8. Click anywhere on the presentation to begin.
   
   Note Because the browser plays media files differently from the way that MCI does, the media may not play the same as it does in PowerPoint.

Method 3: Insert Media by Using Windows Media Player

For more information about how to use Windows Media Player, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.