Just my 2 cents -

From Poser you should render an uncompressed AVI , which is not the final product but the intermediate format you use as source material for your encoder or video editor. Uncompressed AVI is essentially the same thing as rendering individual stills, it just packages them in a single file. Many video programs can handle the stills, but they can ALL handle an AVI.

If your Powerpoint will be used only (or primarily) on Windows, then you should look into the Windows Media Encoder, which is a free download from Microsoft. Use it to convert your uncompressed AVI to a compressed WMV file for embedding in Powepoint. It produces very good quality files at small sizes/bitrates.

Another option is to compress the video to x-platform Flash video, which can also play back inside a Powerpoint. Flash is geared to web delivery, but it's not limited to that - it's a good general purpose video platform for local playback as well. Turbine Video Encoder is a free FLV compressor that doesn't require you to buy Flash. (Scroll to the bottom of the linked page for the free version download.) You might also find something on osflash.org, the open source Flash resource. (The SWFTOOLS package listed there has an AVI2SWF converter if you don't mind using command-line software.)

Quicktime is another option, but you must pay for Quicktime Pro to use it. However, at about $30 it's a bargain if you are going to be showing on both PC and Mac, and the quality is generally better than Flash video.

If you have a video editor program, it may natively support one or more of these formats. For example, I have Sony Movie Studio and it has a licensed Quicktime encoder that lets me create MOV files even though I don't have Quicktime Pro.

Good luck!

• Jimdoria  ~@>@