Tweet authorSTREAM launches lead capture and organization plans

Presentation sharing platform authorSTREAM, yesterday rolled out new pro plans targeted at enterprise customers. Team and Enterprise  plan would enable small and large organizations to set up their corporate teams on authorSTREAM .The plans provide organizations with better user management, greater control over their content, flexibility to expand team, easier collaboration amongst members and secured sharing.

 

Once an admin sets up the team account, he/she can add new users to his/her team or invite already existing authorSTREAM members to join the team. Each team member gets an individual premium business account with features like unlimited private uploads, unlimited HD video conversions, lead capture, passcode protection, advanced Presentation Analytics, branded embeds, sharing within team and more.

 

authorSTREAM also introduced Lead Capture for all premium plans: Pro, Business, Team and Enterprise. Lead Capturing feature enabling individuals and organizations to generate qualified business leads from their presentations

 

Users can now publish a customized lead capture form on their presentations and also run multiple lead campaigns simultaneously.

 

The platform recently supported direct uploading and sharing of Apple Keynote files and announced that it’s working on supporting more presentation formats.

Given the fact that SlideShare is no more accepting new sign-up for their Pro plans, authorSTREAM's new offering along with lead capturing feature can be a big relief for presentation professionals looking for such service.

 

Tweet How to play presentations on Facebook and Twitter timeline?

Thanks to online presentation sharing websites, lot many people now use presentations to share the information with the world. It's a well known fact that in comparison to video, presentation creation is much easy task and now with availability of  platforms like Slideshare and authorSTREAM which help you reach masses, presentations are also being used as marketing or branding weapon.

Though creating marketing material in presentation is technically easy as compared to a video ad, yet most viral distribution channels aka social media platforms only support videos and photo uploads. However, off late most of the popular social media platforms like G+, Pinterest, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have enabled presentation embeds of SlideShare and authorSTREAM on the timeline or newsfeed. So if you want to play your presentations on these social media platforms, just upload your presentations on authorSTREAM or SlideShare as public upload and share the link on Twitter or Facebook.

While SlideShare presentations play on Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter, they fail to play on Facebook. Presentations uploaded on authorSTREAM play on Facebook as well as Twitter timeline. Upload your content on these platforms, share the web link and get more accolades (views, comments, shares, re-tweets) since your audience need not to leave the platform to see your worthy masterpiece.

Tweet PowerPoint templates and diagrams for just $3.99 @authorSTREAM Templates Marketplace

The scattered PowerPoint templates industry is all set to touch new heights of business with authorSTREAM launching PowerPoint Templates Marketplace. Now you need not to browse through tens of different websites to get the right template for your next presentation. authorSTREAM is offering 20,000 plus PowerPoint templates and diagrams at a price of just $3.99 which is almost half the price of other popular templates websites.

Since launch, authorSTREAM has been focusing only on PowerPoint users. While others like SlideShare, Scribd let you upload and share documents, excel files or videos, authorSTREAM allows only presentations. Be it conducting free webinars on presentation tips, authorSTREAM Desktop plugin, PowerPoint to video feature or PowerPoint templates marketplace, focus of all is on one thing i.e. help presentation creators create and share great presentations without any hassles.

This is a welcome move by authorSTREAM towards making authorSTREAM one stop shop for all the needs of presentation creators. Started with one template provider, authorSTREAM is soon going to get more providers on-board. Given the user base and traffic of authorSTREAM, it should be win-win situation for templates providers and buyers since sale is not all about price but about volumes and who knows in future you get a PowerPoint template for just $2.

Tweet authorSTREAM brings new embed for blogs that work on all devices

Two most popular ways to showcase your wonderful presentations on your website or blog are i) to upload it to online presentation sharing websites like Slideshare or authorSTREAM and use their embed code ii) convert it to a video, upload the presentation video to your blog or send it to YouTube and use the YouTube embed.

In case of Flash embeds of authorSTREAM, your readers on iPad would be able to read text but would not be able to view the embedded presentation and  if you use Slideshare, you're set to lose all those animations, videos and sound.

YouTube as we know, already handles this situation by streaming compatible player so that your audience get to see the video even on non flash devices. authorSTREAM too has come up with a new embed called Dynamic embed which automatically renders Flash or a HTML player as per availability of flash player on viewer's device. Only disadvantage with this embed is that while your blog readers on Flash compatible devices would enjoy all animations and media, those on iPad would see only static slide images without any sound or video. Presentation below is embedded using authorSTREAM's new dynamic embed and you should be able to view it on all devices. What you use to share your presentation on your blogs and website and why?

Memorial Day- Reel honors real heroes

More PowerPoint presentations from anuj malhotra

Tweet Now upload and share PowerPoint presentations in Facebook

authorSTREAM, the presentation sharing platform, today announced upload functionality in its Facebook app. Using authorSTREAM's Facebook app, Facebook users can upload PowerPoint presentations from within Facebook and share them on their wall or with Facebook friends.

authorSTREAM is the second largest presentation sharing platform with capability of handling animations and media in presentation output. authorSTREAM also launched sync functionality where any presentation uploaded on your authorSTREAM account would be available on Facebook app and the those uploaded via Facebook app on authorSTREAM.

Best thing about is that the presentation shared via authorSTREAM plays like a slideshow or YouTube video on Facebook wall. As Facebook only allows you to upload and share photos and videos, authorSTREAM app is certainly a big relief to those who wanted to share PowerPoint presentations on Facebook.

Tweet SlideShare Vs authorSTREAM: Which one fits the bill

SlideShare and authorSTREAM are two top PowerPoint sharing platforms in terms of user base, traffic, reach and feature set. Both the companies are being run by Indian entrepreneurs.

Both were started at a gap of almost a year. SlideShare was started in the year 2006 while authorSTREAM was started in 2007. Since then Slideshare saw tremendous growth in terms of traffic and content. Slideshare has always been marketing focused. Starting from day one they made sure that each big or small release creates the buzz and get covered by reputed tech blogs and websites. Slideshare known as world’s no. 1 presentation sharing platform few years back experimented with lot of things over the time and emerged as World’s Largest Content Marketing Platform. Slideshare now allows uploading of pdf, documents, videos and presentations.  SlideShare’s Silicon valley  connections, huge traffic and user base made it easy for them to have exclusive partnerships with WordPress, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google and other platforms. Today SlideShare has more than 29 million monthly unique visitors, more than 7.4 million presentations and 16 million registered users. SlideShare recently got acquired by Linkedin.

authorSTREAM on the other has been bit inactive in terms of marketing.  Though they have been continuously improving the product and are solely focused on PowerPoint, yet their growth story is somewhat like Vimeo and SlideShare’s is that of YouTube.

Just so you know, authorSTREAM was the first to launch premium plans in 2009 and later SlideShare followed the suit and Launched their Pro plans. authorSTREAM was the first to launch the presentation meeting solution Present Live. Later SlideShare too launched similar tool called Zipcast. authorSTREAM supports basic elements of PowerPoint like animation effects, narrations, audio, transition effects etc. in online output. authorSTREAM’s output is like PowerPoint slideshow replicated online. authorSTREAM also let users convert PowerPoint presentations to video much before Microsoft even thought of having it as a feature in PowerPoint 2010. Today, authorSTREAM has 3 million registered users, 1.3 million presentation uploads and around 5 million monthly visitors.

After 5 years where these two presentation sharing platforms stand and which one is best suited for your needs and offers real value for money, here is a comparison to help you decide:

	authorSTREAM	SlideShare
Private Storage	Yes (unlimited)	Yes (unlimited)
Larger file uploads (per upload cap)	1 GB	300 MB
Analytics	Yes (with Instant read receipts)	Yes
Private meetings (webinars)	Yes (chat only, no audio/video)	Yes( video and chat)
Convert PowerPoint to video	Yes	-
Video uploads	-	Yes
Capture Leads	-	Yes
Turn off ads and other elements	Yes	Yes
Branded or white labelled embeds	Yes	-
Domain restriction for embeds	Yes	-
Branding	Yes	Yes
Put own AdSense ads on your content	Yes	-
Download Flash files for hosted solution or desktop	Yes	-
Facebook App	Yes	Yes
Mobile website	Yes	Yes
Linkedin App	-	Yes
Starting price	$29.95/ Year	$190/ Year

Given the fact that SlideShare has huge traffic, your presentations are bound to get more views on SlideShare as compared to authorSTREAM but if you care about animations, narrations, want to get your presentations places by converting them to HD  videos or pricing is a concern for you,  authorSTREAM can be the best bet.

Tweet authorSTREAM upgrades PowerPoint to video engine: claims to be better than PowerPoint 2010

Online presentation sharing website authorSTREAM has announced an upgrade to their PowerPoint to video conversion engine. authorSTREAM lets you convert your PowerPoint presentations in WMV, AVI, FLV and MP4 video formats. Once converted videos users can send share them on YouTube via 'send to YouTube' option or download on desktop to burn on DVD.

Prior to PowerPoint 2010, authorSTREAM was the only online option for converting PowerPoint presentations in video format. authorSTREAM's PowerPoint to video engine now supports embedded videos and slide transition effects.

Here is the comparison put up by authorSTREAM between PowerPoint to video capabilities of authorSTREAM and PowerPoint 2010:

Features	authorSTREAM	PowerPoint 2010
PowerPoint to Video conversion support	Supports video conversion for most PowerPoint versions (2002(XP)/2003/2007/2010)	Supports video conversion only in PowerPoint 2010
Audio support in video conversions, created out of any PowerPoint presentation version	Yes	Audio compatibility issues are more often
Playing sound across selected slides	Yes	Yes, but when more than 1 audio file is inserted in a presentation and selected for specific slides, audio overlapping problems crop up
Transition sound effect	Yes	No
Preference to rehearse timings set for each slide (in case when slide contains some media)	Yes	No
Video formats support	AVI, FLV, MP4 and WMV	WMV video format only
Share presentation videos on YouTube	Send directly to YouTube (no need to download)	Upload manually

Tweet Record and share synchronized presentations online with Present.me

Present.me is another product which lets you create synchronized multimedia presentations and share it online. Using Present.me you can create presentations with audio/video of presenter playing along with slides. There are already products like Articulate Presenter, authorPOINT from authorSTREAM and Microsoft Producer which lets you record and share synchronized presentations.



The major difference between Present.me and other products is that Present.me lets you do all the recording, synchronization and editing online on Present.me website. The whole process from uploading the PowerPoint presentation, recording, synchronizing the video or audio to sharing is quite simple.

Few shortcomings:

• You can't synchronize pre-recorded audio or video with PowerPoint slides
• You can't download the output and share it via DVD
• Maximum 90 minute limit to recording even in paid account which costs $100 /month

Though the idea of creating synchronized presentations online is superb, yet  it seems to bit costly as far as monthly subscription is concerned. You can get life time access of Articulate Presenter for $699 or authorPOINT for just $299 with an option of $99 for education use. Present.me should also come up with pay as you go payment model say $3 per such  recording.


By and large authorSTREAM + authorPOINT seems to be a better option since it allows you to create synchronized presentations with live or pre-recorded media both and also lets you share the synchronized  output via DVD, email or through authorSTREAM.com. You should give a try to Present.me and decide yourself depending upon your own user experience.

Tweet Insert Vimeo, Youtube videos in PowerPoint slides with authorSTERAM Desktop 2.0

authorSTREAM the online presentation sharing platform has released the second version of their free PowerPoint add-in called authorSTREAM Desktop. As compared to authorSTREAM Desktop 1.0 which was launched almost two years back, the latest version lets you search and insert videos from Vimeo in addition to YouTube. It also lets you search images from Flickr and Bing right from within the PowerPoint.

Most amazing thing which authorSTREAM has done is its advance search and filters. authorSTREAM not only allows you to search images on different parameters like color, size or type but also on the basis of  licensing information. You can search creative commons stuff from Flickr and that too without leaving the PowerPoint. authorSTREAM also inserts the attribution text in the slides along with the images to help users get rid of some of the copyright worries.You can also create a collection of selected images or videos to be used later in the slides.



authorSTREAM Desktop with the addition of more video and image search APIs should help PowerPoint users create effective presentation with just few clicks.

Tweet Top 5 compelling reasons to share presentations online

In last few years more and more people have started using online presentation sharing platforms like authorSTREAM, SlideShare to share their presentations with their friends, family  and colleagues. In this rapidly changing tech era where some use MAC, some are on iPads and mobile devices and rest on desktops and laptops, it make more sense to share a presentation the way it is easily accessible to everyone on all platforms.

Top 5 compelling reasons to share presentations via online presentation sharing platforms

1)No bulky email attachments:   You can share presentations of size up to 1GB via authorSTREAM and 100 MB via SlideShare as compared to 10 MB limit for most of the email services.

2)Good tools to replicate the slideshow experience online: If you are very concerned about animation effects, in-slide audio/video or narrations used in PowerPoint and that's the reason you prefer sending PowerPoint files via emails, use authorSTREAM for sharing your presentations. authorSTREAM retains most of the animation effects along with other media elements inserted in slides. authorSTREAM has also created a free PowerPoint add-in named authorSTREAM desktop which lets you search and insert YouTube videos and images in your PowerPoint slides from within the PowerPoint software.

3)Less dependence on client software: When you share your PowerPoint presentations via email, you are not sure whether the audience have the required software to view the PowerPoint presentation you shared. Since most of the presentation sharing websites convert your presentations in flash, so no MS office/MAC office or PPT viewer required at audience end to view the presentation. No fear of compatibility issues of file format (PPT, PPTX) with presentation software installed at audience's computer.

4)Security and control: With online presentation sharing websites you get the privilege of allowing /disallowing download of raw PowerPoint file, you get the freedom of password protection of permalinks of the presentation, you get the freedom of granting or revoking access rights at any point of time.

5)Additional benefits: Online presentation sharing websites apart from sharing offer lot more features  like Live broadcasting, PPT to video conversion, presentation embedding options on blogs, Facebook and track stats related to the views,  popularity etc. If the presentation was meant for public viewing, your presentation get mass audience, feedback and comments which is not possible when you circulate such presentations via emails.

Do you still share presentations via old email way? Time to grow up :)

Tweet Create cool presentations with VisualBee

VisualBee is a Microsoft PowerPoint plugin (add-in) which helps you create awesome presentations with cool graphics and stunning templates with much ease and in less time.The plugin not only lets you select style and templates for free but also smart enough to analyze the text of slides and automatically enhances it with relevant graphics. The biggest advantage is that you need not to go outside of PowerPoint software to search for pictures, templates etc.

Once you are done with your presentation, just click the VisualBee addin in PowerPoint ribbon and click 'Enhance Presentation'. After this step, "Enhance presentation' wizard will just take few seconds to enhance your presentation. See demo below for details:

Though visualBee takes care of most of the things a  presenter would need, yet of late audio and video has also become an integral part of the presentations. As of now, VisualBee has no video or audio library available. There is a workaround for this problem too. For image and video search you can use authorSTREAM desktop- a free add-in for PowerPoint. authorSTREAM desktop lets you search and insert images from Bing and videos from YouTube from within the PowerPoint.

VisualBee do have a premium plan which allows users access to wide range of exclusive templates and graphics. Download VisualBee here and start creating great content.

Tweet authorSTREAM re-launches premium plans

The presentation sharing platform, authorSTREAM has re-launched its premium plans. New plans known as Pro and Business are priced at $29.95 /Year and $299 /Year respectively.

With this launch authorSTREAM has gone very aggressive against Slideshare. authorSTREAM is offering more features and better presentation output (authorSTREAM retains animations, sound etc)  for a price which is 80% less than that of SlideShare's.

• authorSTREAM Pro ($2.5/month compared to SlideShare's Silver plan at $19.95/month)
• authorSTREAM Business ($39.95/month as compared to SlideShare's Platinum plan at $249.95/month)

authorSTREAM has done very nice job by creating a authorSTREAM Vs. SlideShare comparison page which provides full insight into the features and pricing being offered by two PowerPoint sharing giants.

authorSTREAM Pro vs. SlideShare Silver

Feature	authorSTREAM	SlideShare
Unlimited Private uploads	Yes	Yes
Analytics	Yes	Yes
Webinars (Conferencing tool)	Yes	Yes
Convert PPT to Video	Yes	--
Download presentation as Flash	Yes	--
Price	$2.50/month	$19/month

authorSTREAM Business vs. SlideShare Platinum

Feature	authorSTREAM	SlideShare
Unlimited Private Uploads	Yes	Yes
Presentation Analytics	Yes	Yes
Branded channels	Yes, (5 Channels)	Yes, (1 Channel)
Ad free	Yes	Yes
Webinars (Conferencing tool)	Yes	Yes
Turn off commenting and Transcript	Yes	Yes
Full Branding	Yes	Yes
Secure embeds (Allow on selected domains)	Yes	--
Own branding in embeds	Yes	--
Private sharing with selected people	Yes	--
Download presentation as flash	Yes	--
Unlimited PowerPoint to video	Yes	--
30 day free Trial	Yes	--
Price	$39.95/month	$249/month

authorSTREAM - There's just no competition

More PowerPoint presentations from AdminauthorSTREAM

Tweet Presentation meeting solution from SlideShare

Image via CrunchBase

SlideShare the presentation and document sharing platform today announced the launch of their web conferencing tool- Zipcast. It's a presentation meeting solution where you can chat, control navigation of slides and stream live video.

Slideshare has been testing this feature for quite sometime in the form of Meet Now and has been strengthening the webinar keyword. Below are the features available to free members:

• Personalized meeting rooms
• Use any presentation: yours or someone else's
• Streaming live video
• Group chat
• No downloads
• Unlimited meetings & participants
• Facebook & Twitter integration
• Private or Public

As a pro member you can password protect the Zipcast session or dial in a conference number. Presentation players like authorSTREAM, Zoho, Google, MightyMeeting along with others like WebEx, GoTo meeting and WiZiQ also offer similar conferencing tools. authorSTREAM's Present Live and WiZiQ's Virtual Classroom are also free to use and require no download at user end to start a web meeting. It's will be interesting to see how SlideShare makes its presence as a webinar service?

Tweet Now pay for private uploads on SlideShare

SlideShare, world's largest presentation sharing platform which adopted fermium model with the launch of  premium pro plans couple of months back has been experimenting different things to monetize SlideShare. Latest in the list is private upload and sharing. Now one has to go pro in order to share presentations privately. Private sharing was launched by SlideShare in 2007 declaring it absolutely free. In past SlideShare experimented with Job broad as well.

To pitch Pro accounts, SlideShare now has two different upload buttons for private and public uploads.

authorSTREAM, SlideShare's competitor still offers 50 private uploads to free members.

Tweet Former Microsoft MD invests in authorSTREAM

authorSTREAM the world's second largest online PowerPoint sharing platform and a Slideshare competitor has closed its first round of funding. This funding round was led by Rajan Anandan, former Managing Director of Microsoft India, and one of India’s most active angel investor. Rajan Anandan has also joined authorSTREAM’s Board of Directors.

authorSTREAM which is far ahead of Slideshare in terms of  presentation output and provide unique features like PowerPoint to video, Present Live with a support for narrations, videos and animations has once again stressed that their main focus is on presentations and this funding will help them achieve near 100% replica of PowerPoint slideshow on the web. "This funding will help us grow authorSTREAM bigger and faster, provide seamless PowerPoint sharing experience on desktops and mobile devices, both asynchronously and in real-time. It will also help us engineer near 100% replica of PowerPoint slideshows on the web - the way their authors intended them to be with animations and multimedia elements.",  said authorSTREAM CEO – Harman Singh.

In term of numbers, every month more than 100,000 presentations are uploaded on authorSTREAM. Read full press release here.

Tweet Brainshark announces PowerPoint to video

Brainshark, the on-demand presentations service and content marketplace has announced “Brainshark for YouTube” – a new capability enabling users to easily share their Brainshark presentations as YouTube videos for free. This functionality is available to Brainshark’s enterprise customers, as well as users of the free myBrainshark.com site. Brainshark for YouTube allows users – with only a PowerPoint deck and phone in hand – to immediately create high-impact business content that’s ready to post on YouTube.

After authorSTREAM, Brainshark is the second presentation sharing platform to offer online PowerPoint to YouTube functionality for free.

Here is a sample PowerPoint video on YouTube.

Tweet Win an Apple iPad every week

PowerPoint sharing platform authorSTREAM has crossed  the magic number of 1 million registered users. To celebrate this big time achievement, authorSTREAM has launched a gala contest - 'Win an iPad- Every week'.

authorSTREAM will be giving away an iPad every week for four weeks as prizes. To participate in this contest, the members just need to sign in and upload spectacular presentations and tweet them with #authorSTREAM and # PowerPoint. A draw of lots will be held every week for all uploaded outstanding presentations.

You can find more details like eligibility and rules at authorSTREAM's contest page. authorSTREAM has also released some interesting stats.

Tweet Brainshark, the on-demand presentations service and content marketplace

Brainshark, which has been providing the on-demand presentations service to businesses for quite long, last year with the launch of my Brainshark entered into the domain of free PowerPoint sharing- an area which  already have players like authorSTREAM and Slideshare. Brainshark's main use case is content selling and not the content sharing. You can buy licencing rights for the presentations you like. Brainshark's latest stats are quite impressive. They have got worldwide adoption of their services and

• Nearly 90 years’ worth of Brainshark content viewed by users and their audiences worldwide in the first half of 2010
• 1 Brainshark presentation viewed every 3.5 seconds; Brainshark presentations were viewed more than 4.3 million times
•  New offerings and updates, including support for more than 100 video file types
• 111 new enterprise customers

Like authorSTREAM, Brainshark also retain the animation and sound inserted in your PowerPoint slides. So your PowerPoint file works the same as it would be in the slide show mode of PowerPoint.

Brainshark has also released  Brainshark Mobile, enabling smartphone and iPad users to view Brainshark-delivered communications on their mobile devices. The other PowerPoint sharing platform, authorSTREAM too has gone iPad compatible recently.

Brainshark presentations combine voice narration, PowerPoint slides, video and more for a multimedia experience that is proven to maximize knowledge retention and viewer interest. The presentations play as streamed video files when viewed on mobile devices. Through Brainshark’s analytics capabilities, users can see when their presentations were viewed, who viewed them, if content was viewed on a mobile device and what type of device was used. Platforms and devices supported by Brainshark Mobile include the BlackBerry, Palm Pre, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android; all must support streaming video. 

A Quick Tour of myBrainshark

Keeping all aspects in mind, my Brainshark is worth trying. For those who were looking for a content marketplace to monetize their presentation content, Brainshark can be a  better option.

Tweet Why use PowerPoint 2010 to insert videos?

If you've ever inserted videos in your PowerPoint, you must have felt the pain when your friends or audience reported that video didn't play in the slide show you shared on email. Those who are well versed with PowerPoint know that video files are always linked. This means that PowerPoint always play the video file from the path it was lying when it was inserted. Smart PowerPoint users have been following the practice of keeping the PowerPoint file and videos in a common folder, zip it and share the zip file on email. This way the video inserted always refer to the path of the folder.

Lately, PowerPoint users have started using online PowerPoint sharing websites to share their presentations. Tools like authorSTREAM Desktop, which automatically ship video/audio along with PowerPoint file to their servers make sure that the online version of PowerPoint (Flash output) plays the video and audio. However, original PPT if downloaded, still fails to play the video inserted.

PowerPoint users have always longed for video embedding feature, similar to audio embedding. Finally, Microsoft has fixed the video insertion issue in PowerPoint 2010. With PowerPoint 2010, you need not to worry about the video file path or annoying "Cannot find the specified file.." errors at audience end.

Embed video files in PowerPoint 2010

In PowerPoint 2010, videos inserted from hard-disk are embedded directly into the presentation unless you deliberately choose to link. You just need to insert videos and forget about the rest. PowerPoint 2010 has also got some nifty features of optimizing and editing videos inserted.

Compatibility and Optimization of the file size

As the video files are contained in PowerPoint itself so PowerPoint size can be a major issue when it comes to sharing on the web. Also the non availability of video codec at audience end can be an issue. Optimize Media Compatibility feature of PowerPoint 2010 and Compress Media button takes care of codec and file size issues. Click optimize media compatibility on the backstage to get rid of codec issues. The compress media button available on backstage compresses the media file(s) thus reducing the total size of the PowerPoint file.

Video editing in PowerPoint 2010

PowerPoint 2010 provides many ways and means to edit the video. You can recolor videos, change brightness and contrast, set the bookmarks, change the shape and design of the video inserted. You can also trim unwanted portions of a video which you don't want to show up in the slide show.

Simply insert a video, and select the “Trim Video” option on the Playback tab. Set the “Start Time” and “End Time” either from the time-line or enter the values in respective text boxes. Trimming helps you crop unwanted stuff from the video.

Trim video


So now no more zip folders, no more video file missing errors. No matter how you insert, what's the file size, what video codec you used, with PowerPoint 2010, your videos are gonna play everywhere for sure.

PowerPoint 2010 also lets you insert Flash embeds of video sharing websites like YouTube, Vimeo. Such embeds just store the reference of path and player they are hosted on and require Internet connection to play during sideshow.

Tweet How to create synchronized multimedia PowerPoint presentations?

Do you want to create multimedia enriched PowerPoint presentations or  want to sync a PowerPoint presentation with live audio or video stream so that output can be viewed and shared online or on a DVD? Are you looking for a tool using which you can create class lectures comprised of  video synced with PowerPoint slides and animations? Here are two awesome tools; authorPOINT and Microsoft Producer which let you do exactly the same.

authorPOINT

authorPOINT is a PowerPoint plugin from authorGEN. authorPOINT lets you create presentations with live audio or video from  devices like  webcam, handy-cam, or any other USB or fire wire based device. You can also use pre-recorded audio/video files (AVI, WMV, WAV and WMA) and sync them with PowerPoint.

Output plays video or audio side by side with PowerPoint slides. authorPOINT also lets you annotate on slides. Capture process of authorPOINT is pretty simple. authorPOINT is capabale of creating Flash as well as HTML output which you can host on your server and embed on your website or blog. authorPOINT  retains all animation and sound affects in Flash as well as HTML output.

authorPOINT not only lets you create multimedia enriched presentations but also provides free online hosting and sharing on it's PowerPoint sharing platform, authorSTREAM. authorPOINT is compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000, 2003, XP and Vista and  runs on 32 Bit OS Versions only.

authorPOINT presentation uploaded on authorSTREAM

See more presentations by aplite | Upload your own PowerPoint presentations

Price and discounts

authorPOINT  costs $299 for a single copy. If you are a education customer, you can apply for a special educational discount of $99 on their buy now page.

Player branding

If you want to get a custom player for output created by authorPOINT, you need to shell out $200 more. authorPOINT's Unbranded player has no logo or any other reference to authorGEN. You can buy it for $ 200 from authorPOINT's Buy Now page. You can also send your own logo in gif, png or flash (recommended) format, and they will put that in custom player instead of theirs.

Microsoft Producer

Like authorPOINT, Microsoft Producer allows you to get an existing presentation file, capture and synchronize video and audio narration, add additional media content, and produce a unified set of content ready for viewing in a browser on your intranet , on the web or on a DVD.

Producer is powerful tool for e-learning, corporate communications and sales. You can use Producer to capture video, audio, and still images from a Web camera, a video camera  (digital or analog), or from your computer screen. You can also use Producer to import existing Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, Windows Media files, still images, and HTML files, and then synchronize narrations with your video and PowerPoint presentations. You can learn more about Microsoft Producer here. Microsoft Producer can be used with PowerPoint 2007 or PowerPoint 2010 and  on Windows 2000 Service Pack 3; Windows 7; Windows Vista and  XP.

Unlike authorPOINT which can create Flash output, Producer gives you output only in HTML format.

Pricing
It's absolutely free. You can download Microsoft Producer here.

Using authorPOINT or Microsoft Producer you can create high quality, engaging, Rich-Media business, training  or sales presentations.

Both authorPOINT as well as Microsoft Producer may require you to download 'MS Office Animation Runtime' to view the output. However, authorPOINT' s Flash output do not require 'Animation runtime' but do need Flash player.