Flash Video

• The Flash video format (SWF) is an extremely common format for use in Internet video transmission. Flash videos are generally fairly small, and therefore can be sent quickly and easily. Within PowerPoint, Flash videos are well suited for short animations and other undemanding video applications. For larger files with higher-resolution video, other formats are likely more appropriate.
  
  

Advanced Systems Format

• Advanced Systems Format (ASF) files incorporate a variety of streaming media; this is a Microsoft proprietary format. They are containers for the transport of multimedia data. They can contain video, audio and even scripts. ASF files are optimized for Windows Media Player, so you may encounter compatibility issues when attempting to open them with other software.
  
  

Audio Video Interleave

• Audio Video Interleave (AVI) is another Microsoft container format. These files are used to contain both audio and video components. Like other containers, they contain videos that are rendered with a specific codec, so make sure that the video component is in one of the supported PowerPoint formats.
  
  

Moving Picture Experts Group

• Moving Picture Experts Group (MPG or MPEG) files are containers for audio and video files. MPG/MPEG files are quite common, and the standards behind them are often revised and developed. While the evolution of MPGs is relatively rapid, they are still widely supported. In fact, MPEG-2 (a type of MPEG) is the primary format used in DVDs.
  
  

Winows Media Video

• Windows Media Video (WMV) is a compressed audio/video format that uses a specific codec. Because of their compression, these files are fairly small and their quality is often inferior to that of less-compressed files. Furthermore, the proprietary nature of WMV files can cause some compatibility problems.
  
  

Quicktime Formats

• Apple Quicktime supports a variety of other video file formats (MP4, MOV and QT). These can be used in PowerPoint as long as the Quicktime software is installed on the computer using PowerPoint. If you are unsure about the presence of Quicktime on a computer, it is best to avoid these formats.