Embed the Best-Formatted Video into PowerPoint

When you need to make a presentation, PowerPoint is probably the first aid that you may turn to immediately. While PowerPoint Presentation can make your communication more effectively, slide-after-slide scrolling down for a long time will easily drive your audience out of nowhere. In order to make your presentation more attractive and the audience more engaged, fancy sentences and eye-catchy pics are necessary but not enough, you need to embed some illustrative videos too. However, the "PowerPoint cannot insert a video from the selected file" error may pop up when you try to insert some videos in PowerPoint 2003/2007/2010/2013/2016/2019 on Windows or Mac.

Why "PowerPoint cannot insert a video from the selected file"? Because the format of the video you intend to insert is not compatible to PowerPoint. So what are the best video formats for PowerPoint under its different versions? How to convert them to be inserted in PowerPoint? In this post, we will cover answers to above questions. Quick access to the part as you like:

Part 1: Why PowerPoint Cannot Insert a Video from the Selected File

PowerPoint Cannot Insert a Video from the Selected File error may source from various reasons. Causes like:

• QuickTime Error. 64-bit video codec for the QuickTime media formats (.mp4, .m4a, .mov) doesn't exist in your PC, if your PowerPoint is 64-bit version.

Solution: Install the QuickTime player with 64-bit video codec on your computer, then insert an Apple QuickTime movie (.mov, .mp4) file.

• Old-version Error. Versions before PowerPoint 2013 don't support MP4 file format.

Solution: Upgrade your PowerPoint to the later version (at least PowerPoint 2013 or the later).

• Format Error. The format of video is not compatible with PowerPoint.

Solution: Convert the format of the video to wmv or mpeg, which are accepted by all versions of PowerPoint. See how to convert your video to WMV or MPEG.

Part 2: Best Video Formats for PowerPoint 2003-2019 - All Versions Included

Generally speaking, most video formats are compatible with PowerPoint 2013, 2016, and 2019. If you are using PowerPoint 2010 or 2007, videos contained in .mp4 format are not allowed to be played in it. So, how do you successfully insert MP4 to PPT and play MP4 in PowerPoint?

In order to successfully add and play any MP4 files on any version of PowerPoint, a recommended solution is to convert MP4 to PowerPoint more compatible video format like AVI, WMV, ASF, MPG.

If your ready-to-be-embedded video is with the list below, then they will work flawlessly smooth in PowerPoint 2007-2019. Otherwise, you need to find a way to convert them to be compatible in PowerPoint.

Here's a chart for your reference where you can find the best video formats for your PowerPoint.

All video formats listed above are supported by VideoProc. Get to know how to make your video compatible in PowerPoint.

Part 3: Workaround: Convert PowerPoint Incompatible Videos with a Third-Party Media Converter

VideoProc is an all-in-one video editor with advanced video processing utilities and a baked-in screen recorder and online video downloader. Light-weight yet powerful, it is designed to help you cut, trim, crop, resize, record, download and convert videos with full GPU acceleration supported by Nividia/AMD/Intel. Converting video for PowerPoint is 1-click at your finger tip, making this tool extremely novice-friendly and time-saving.

Free download VideoProc now and have a go with it today!

Free Download For Win 7 or later

Free Download For Mac OS X 10.6 or later

After you have downloaded and installed VideoProc on your Windows or Mac , follow simple 4 steps to convert your video to the most compatible format on PowerPoint.

Step 1: Launch VideoProc on your desktop > Click Video on the splash screen.

Step 2: Click +Video on the top toolbar and then load one or multiple videos.

You can also drag and drop videos to the center blank area. If your videos are well-packed into one video folder, you then can click the +Video Folder button next to the +Video button.

Step 3: Choose a target output format at the bottom toolbar in the lower area.

As PowerPoint 2010 is the most popular version among all, and it doesn't support .mp4 video format playing compared to version 2019, 2016, 2013. Here we'll convert the incompatible .webm video format to its supported .wmv video format with the help of VideoProc: Click Video tab on the lower toolbar > pick up WMV tag.

Step 4: Tap Run on the bottom right to start the conversion.

Don't forget to trigger the Nividia/Intel/AMD checkbox and Use High Quality Engine checkbox under the preview window, in which way you can enjoy a rapid editing speed by its Level-3 Hardware Acceleration Technology.

Bonus Tip: Embed Video vs Embed Link in PowerPoint

By embedding a video, the clip becomes a part of your PPT, so there won't be playback issue if the format is right. However, the size of PPT becomes larger.

By linking to a video, you can use a video in your presentation from anywhere on the internet or locally. However, the tricky part is, if you intent to make PPT presentation on another computer, you have to make sure the video is in the right folder as you linked it. Otherwise, you would fail to play the video.

Final Words

Besides being the the best conversion tool for all-version PowerPoint video format, other audio formats, namely, MP3, WMA, AAC, FLAC, etc. are well-supported in VideoProc, too. Actually, over 420 video formats are well-supported by VideoProc. This one-stop video processing software can edit, convert, record, download video with super-fast speed while retain 1:1 quality. It is faster processing, highly intuitive, user friendly, and most importantly, it's 100% safe and clean. Free download VideoProc and convert video in it, then you are free to embed whatever video you want to! Revive your PowerPoint with video now!