Presentation Problems
Most of the big problems with PowerPoint material stem from the fact that the original presentation was not designed with video in mind. Observation of safe area is a perfect example.

What is "safe area"? On a computer, you can see the edges of the screen images on the monitor- there's a little black border around the image. The entire image is "safe"- you know the viewer will be able to see it.

Video on a TV set is another matter. To avoid having a border, the image is projected larger. The viewer never sees about 10-15% of the image area around the edges. Every TV set is different, and many aren't even centered properly. If you want to be sure a line of text can be read, it can't go to the edge of the screen as it does on a computer. It needs to fit in a smaller rectangle that's centered on the screen. This is the safe area. Will many of your PowerPoint slides need to be reformatted? Yes.

Clip art can be another problem. It's often small and designed with very few colors, making it look blocky and jaggy. Overuse of clip art clutters up slides and makes the presentation look less professional. Many users freely copy clip art from multiple sources, ignoring copyright considerations. Even if you have permission to use a piece of clip art in a PowerPoint presentation, don't assume permission includes video use.

The biggest problem with PowerPoint presentations results when presenters try to place too much information on one slide. A single PowerPoint slide should have no more than four or five bullet points. Text, charts, and illustrations are often too small to be seen clearly in video. A simple test is to print the slide on 8-1/2 x 11 paper, place it on the floor at your feet, and stand up. Any text you can't read easily is going to be unreadable on video.

It's also important to remember the proper role of PowerPoint slides in your presentation. Keeping a single slide on the screen for 30 seconds while the presenter discusses one of the eight bullet points on the slide is not good video. Plan on each slide being on screen for 4 to10 seconds. Ideally, each slide should only contain material that is directly discussed during the time it is on screen.

Slides containing multiple points are appropriate for an overview of points to be discussed or summation of a section of the video. If the total number of slides is low, then the presenter should be on screen most of the time. Otherwise, the PowerPoint presentation needs to be broken into many slides, each making a single point.