5. Video

It is sometimes better to use a video to show something happening rather than trying to explain it in words.

Modern computers are easily powerful enough to run video sequences within a presentation. The video can be started and stopped manually with a mouse click or it could be set to automatically loop once it has reached the end.

Typical uses of video in a presentation are:

• Showing a company advert
• Letting someone make a statement, the chairman perhaps
• Showing how a process works

Some of the problems of using videos in presentations are:

• that they may make the presentation file size large and thus take up a lot of storage space
• presentations containing videos are not easily emailed due to their large file size
• you may need a specific player installed on your computer - without it you may not be able to watch the video
• if you move the presentation or video to another folder, the link to the video on the slide might be lost
• Too many video clips in a presentation are as much of a problem as too many images or sounds. Use them sparingly to maintain the impact required.