Resource/Misc

Ever noticed how a crystal-clear 4K movie can stream to your TV without endless buffering? Have you wondered how your phone stores an hour of high-definition video without instantly running out of space? Or how a PowerPoint presentation can have lots of videos embedded in the presentation file, but still be a manageable file size?

The magic behind this is an unsung hero of the digital world: the video codec. A video codec is the process an app uses for “compression/decompression” (“co-dec”). Raw, uncompressed video files are enormous (remember huge .AVI video files? – even those had some level of compression, and they were huge!). A codec intelligently compresses the video for storage, and then your device’s video player instantly uncompresses it for viewing. 

In this post, we’re diving into one of the most important codecs in modern video: H.265, also known as HEVC. 

Let’s break down what it is, why it’s a huge leap forward from its predecessor (H.264), and when you should – and shouldn’t – use it. And let’s also see if PowerPoint can use it.

What is H.265 (HEVC)? 

H.265 stands for High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). It is a video compression standard that was finalized in 2013. It was designed as the direct successor to the incredibly popular H.264 (also known as AVC, or Advanced Video Coding), which had been the standard for HD video during the previous decade.

The great news is, PowerPoint can use and playback H.265 videos!

Side note for context: .MOV is generally the 2nd most used video file type, behind .MP4.  And yes, PowerPoint on a Windows computer can play .mov videos, although they run through an additional layer of processing, so .MP4 videos are recommended.

There are different file types; .MP4, .MOV, .AVI. These are the “container” and what we see when we receive a video file. Inside the container are the many parts of the video; the video picture part, the audio part, the instructions for what CODEC is needed to uncompress it for playback, and more. Just know that the file type (aka container) and the codec (aka H.264, ProRes, VP9) can be mix and matched – which is why sometimes a .MP4 will not play on a computer, but other .MP4 videos will. PowerPoint’s built in Video Optimization tool is super efficient in that it converts all videos to .MP4 using a standard CODEC that is recognized by all modern video players.

Back to H.265. The primary goal of H.265 is simple but powerful: to deliver the same level of video quality as H.264 but with half the file size.

The Big Showdown: H.265 vs. H.264 

So, what makes H.265 so much more efficient? It uses a more sophisticated and intelligent compression method and is smarter than H.264 in how it analyzes and packages video data.  

• Compression Efficiency: H.265 offers about 50% better compression than H.264. This means a 10 GB file compressed with H.264 would be roughly 5 GB when compressed as an H.265 file, with the same visual quality. 

• Bandwidth Usage: Because the files are smaller, H.265 requires less internet bandwidth, meaning when you stream 4K videos, they play more smoothly with less buffering. 

• Supported Resolutions: H.264 was designed for up to 4K, while H.265 was built for up to 8K (8192×4320). 

• Processing Power: This is the main trade-off. H.265’s complex algorithms require more processing power to encode and decode. This can be a challenge for older devices, but modern computers and even phones can handle this processing without any issues. And since PowerPoint does not actually handle video playback (but instead relies on the device that PowerPoint is running on to do the heavy lifting) processing power isn’t an issue! Any modern laptop, computer, tablet, or phone is going to let PowerPoint play the newer H.265 video (yay!). 

• Compatibility: H.264 is universally compatible and plays on almost any device from the last 15 years. And while the newer H.265 is widespread on modern hardware, it should be tested if someone is using a 15+ year old device.  

In short, H.265 gives us two amazing options: 

1. Same Quality, Half the Size: Perfect for storing video or for viewers with limited data plans.
2. Same Size, Better Quality: Perfect for delivering a more vibrant, detailed image without increasing bandwidth costs.

When Should You Use H.265? (The Sweet Spots) 

H.265 is the go-to choice for modern, high-quality video applications. Use it for: 

1. Live Streaming: For streamers on platforms like Twitch or YouTube, using H.265 (if the platform supports it) means you can send a higher-quality stream to your viewers without needing a faster internet connection. 
2. 4K and 8K Content: Streaming and storing ultra-high-definition video is now practical because of its better file size and coding efficiency. For example, Netflix, Disney+, and Apple TV+ rely heavily on H.265 for their 4K HDR content. 
3. Modern Mobile Video: Most newer smartphones now record video in H.265 by default. This enables the tiny device to shoot those long 4K, 60fps videos without filling up the phone’s storage in a few short minutes. 
4. Security Camera Systems: Because H.265 creates smaller video files, while still being full resolution, the 24/7 recording needs of security cameras quickly adopted the new file format. 
5. PowerPoint: As noted above, H.265 works for PowerPoint. And it works well, so long as it is a modern device. In addition, the smaller video file sizes will be appreciated. But there is a caveat currently: if PowerPoint’s compress/optimize video is used, videos will be converted to H.264 (and file size will most likely get larger).  

When Might You Stick with H.264? 

Despite its advantages, H.265 isn’t always the right tool for the job. The main drawback is its higher processing demand. Here are two scenarios where it may not be the best choice today: 

1. Maximum Compatibility is Your #1 Priority: If you’re creating a video that needs to be playable by everyone – on old laptops, budget tablets, or corporate computers with limited software – H.264 is still the safest bet. It has large file sizes, and does not support super high resolutions, but it is the universal language of video. 
2. You’re Working with Older or Low-Power Hardware: Encoding (creating) an H.265 video takes longer and uses more CPU power than encoding an H.264 video. Likewise, trying to play a 4K H.265 file on an old device could result in a choppy, unwatchable mess. 

The Verdict 

H.265/HEVC is a technological marvel that makes our modern, high-resolution world possible. It’s the newest workhorse codec that balances stunning quality with manageable file sizes.  

While the tried-and-true H.264 still has its place for ensuring maximum compatibility, H.265 is the clear winner for today’s devices, and the future. For PowerPoint presentations, H.265 works flawlessly for embedding and playback, but there are a few “gotchas” to know about. More on those in upcoming blog posts. 

-The TLC Creative Team 

In this episode of “The Presentation Podcast,” the hosts, plus guests Julie Terberg and Lori Chollar, dive into the art of typography in PowerPoint slide design. We discuss the differences between fonts and typography, share practical tips for font pairing, and address PowerPoint’s limitations compared to professional design software. We also explore sources of design inspiration, have advice on spacing and alignment, and recommend resources for improving typographic skills.

Listen on your favorite podcast app, or at The Presentation Podcast site here

New episode of The Presentation Podcast now available!

Our latest episode of The Presentation Podcast dives deep into the role of typography in PowerPoint presentations. The hosts discuss font selection, line and paragraph spacing, alignment, visual hierarchy and more. Plenty of practical tips and frustrations of typography formatting within PowerPoint are shared, along with comparing PowerPoint’s features to other advanced design and desktop publishing tools. Solutions to common text formatting challenges in PowerPoint are also a big part of the conversation…because effective typography is essential for clear, professional, and engaging presentations.

Listen on your favorite podcast app, or at The Presentation Podcast site here.

New episode of The Presentation Podcast now available!

In Season 10, Episode 224 of The Presentation Podcast, hosts Troy Chollar (TLC Creative Services), Sandy Johnson (Presentation Wiz), and Nolan Haims (Nolan Haims Creative) take a deep dive into customizing PowerPoint. Their discussion is a goldmine for anyone looking to streamline their PowerPoint workflow, leverage hidden settings and features, and create more in less time. Listen on your favorite podcast app, or at The Presentation Podcast site here.

New episode of The Presentation Podcast now available!

Ever wondered how those stunning ultra-wide presentations you see at big corporate events, concerts and trade shows come to life? In the latest episode Troy Chollar is joined by Lori Chollar for an all TLC Creative Services conversation. And the topic of the day? Ultra-wide presentations! These presentations are becoming increasingly common, as more events use LED walls along with multi-projector setups, the opportunity to use PowerPoint for content that is beyond 16:9 grows. Troy and Lori share their biggest insights when it comes to creating these kinds of templates and presentations, with many tips for setup and design in this unique presentation format! Listen on your favorite podcast app, or at The Presentation Podcast site here.

If you’ve been designing presentations for a while, you’re already familiar with Morph transitions.  It’s the PowerPoint transition that creates animations to smoothly move objects from one slide to another. It can be a shape or color change, words and text that magically rearrange, or photos and tiles that fly in across the screen, doing whatever you tell them to. Whether it’s changing location, becoming other objects or shapes, rotating, or spinning, Morph transitions can make it happen!

Since 2016, PowerPoint has been offering this amazing feature that simplifies the old tweening process between objects. 

What is Tweening? 

For years, tweening – short for “in-betweening” – was the way to animate graphics in video, games, and presentations. The term actually goes back to the early days of hand-drawn animation.

It’s the process of creating images that go between keyframes – a keyframe being the start or end rendering of an animation. In hand-drawn animation, the main artist would draw the keyframes, and the start and end looks. Then the “inbetweener” artist would draw several frame-by-frame animations to create a smooth movement connecting the start and end looks (aka Keyframes).  

Today, the legacy term “tweening” is still in use. Adobe Flash (now Adobe Animate) adopted the term and process pre-2000. It is also used in Adobe After Effects. With Flash, the artist set the start and end keyframes, and the software accomplished the “in-between” animation frames. 

Furthermore, Flash had three different types of tweens, depending on what type of motion animation you needed.  

• The Classic Tween: Just a basic move, scale, or rotate.  

• The Motino Tween: Added additional motion and effects within the move, scale, or rotate.  

• The Shape Tween: Changed one shape to another. The definition of this is literally Morph! 

What is Morphing? 

So how does PowerPoint Morph compare to tweening? Well, basically Morphing is a form of advanced tweening: a simple-to-use transition effect that animates smooth movement and transformations of objects, photos, and text between slides. 

For those with old-school Flash experience, the one thing PowerPoint’s Morph is missing is the ability to see the “in-between” frames and modify them (with additional keyframes). It’s the cost of simplification, where more of the software is empowered to make the decisions.

Essentially, with PowerPoint, the motion is smooth because Morph understands structure, whereas tweening uses numeric values. Think of it this way: Tweening says, “Move from A to B.” Morphing says, “Become B.” 

Why is Morphing the New Tweening?

Well, first, Morph just feels more natural. It’s simple to use. And it fits into presentations seamlessly. When things Morph from one shape to another, you’re not jumping from slide to slide or screen to screen; you’re watching things actually change.  

This enhances presentations because it’s easier on the brain. Sudden changes on screen can be kind of jarring and distracting. Morphing helps ease you into what’s coming next by showing the transition, not just the end result.  

The best part is that moving content with Morph just looks really cool. For PowerPoint, Morph adds a modern, professional vibe without making things overly flashy. It gives presentations a “wow” factor with minimal effort. 

Here is an example of PowerPoint Morph (aka tweening) by the TLC Creative presentation design team. Only 4 slides, each is a keyframe. Slide 1 is the start keyframe. Slide 2 is the end keyframe for the slide 1-to-2 animation, AND the start keyframe for the slide 2-to-3 animation. Slide 3 is both an end keyframe and start keyframe, and slide 4 is the end keyframe for the slide 3-to-4 animation (This is probably the most complex aspect of Morph, and all you really need to do is set up the 1st slide, adjust on the 2nd slide, set to Morph transition, done). 

A few years of use and improvement is always fun to review and compare the before-and-after! We are reflecting on our December 20, 2021 post series, “Teams – Presenting with PowerPoint”, which was a 4-part series on Teams PowerPoint Presenting. 

This was Teams in 2021: 

And this is Teams in 2025 (pretty much the same interface, although I have updated my preference from the Teams dark mode to light mode):

Overall, it’s the same UI and layout with several feature updates. Here are our summary notes on Teams PowerPoint Presenter View improvements and newer features.  

Edit Speaker Notes Directly in Presenter View 

We can now edit speaker notes during a presentation; something very recently added to most builds of Desktop PowerPoint. Presenter View continues to (only) have basic text formatting, including keyboard shortcuts like bold (Ctrl+B) and italics (Ctrl+I). 

Teleprompter View with Auto-Scroll 

In Teams PowerPoint, speaker notes can auto-scroll like a teleprompter, something also available in Desktop PowerPoint’s record feature, but not available while actually presenting. The adjusted Presenter View layout and speaker notes auto-scrolling is great for the smooth delivery of presentations! 

Enhanced Magnify Capabilities 

Zoom, as in to enlarge, into parts of your slide while presenting. Desktop PowerPoint Presenter View has a zoom/magnify icon that magnifies the slide content at a fixed 200% larger. Teams Presenter View makes the magnification adjustable, up to 400%! 

Cameo Integration 

Presenter View now shows a live preview of your camera feed when using the Cameo feature embedded into slides. Cameo is a really great PowerPoint multimedia feature that has not received enough attention, or use, yet. The Teams Presenter View integrates Cameo into a seamless experience, and coordinates with the actual Teams meeting with the option to remove/turn off the Teams webcam of the presenter so attendees see the Cameo-enabled webcam directly in the slides. 

Private View Button Now Visible and Prominent 

The Private View button, previously hidden or buried in settings, is now clearly accessible in Presenter View. 

▶️ Tip: USE THIS FEATURE. It prevents meeting attendees from advancing through slides on their own or downloading the full deck—a security must for confidential presentations. Go to Slideshow > Set Up Slide Show and ensure the checkboxes for “Browsed by an individual” and “Allow viewers to navigate” are unchecked. 

“Present in Teams” Button Now Built Into PowerPoint 

PowerPoint now includes a Present in Teams button directly in the desktop app and web version. This lets you present slides natively in Microsoft Teams without screen sharing, launching into Teams Presenter View automatically. 

▶️ Bonus: Your audience sees crisp slides, while you keep full Presenter View control 

Present in Teams Button in Desktop App 

Provides full Presenter View, including access to speaker notes, slide thumbnails, and upcoming slides. 

Present in Teams Button on Web Browser 

In a Teams meeting go to “Share” and a list of available presentations is seen in the “PowerPoint Live” section, which means the presentation will open up in Teams Presenter View.

In PowerPoint desktop app the top right corner has a “Present in Teams” button which opens up in Teams Presenter View. 

In PowerPoint Online click the “Present” dropdown and select “Present in Teams” to open the presentation in Teams Presenter View. 

That’s our observations on Team Presenter View updates and improvements. Overall, many good things as Microsoft Teams continues to mature. 

-The TLC Creative design team 

Our “Look Back” series has brought to the surface blog posts and topics from 4, 6, even 15 years ago! This one is a look back to just this past December’s post “TLC Welcomes Teams Phone!” as technology is moving fast! 

Let’s talk about something that every graphic designer, and company, needs, but no one really talks about today – telephones! We all need phones to quickly communicate with clients, field new projects, and hunt for work. 

And for over 20 years, TLC Creative Services has maintained the same company phone number – even as it transitioned through multiple business phone providers! Six years ago, everyone at TLC Creative had a corporate phone with their own extension – sitting on their desk. It was a setup that seemed essential for many years. 

Yet as business communication evolved, we noticed something: our phone call usage was in free-fall, but projects and work were increasing. Where we once logged thousands of minutes in phone conversations each month, during an audit we discovered that we now averaged less than 50 minutes of monthly calls – total, for everyone! 

The lack of phone call minutes did not mean that communication within our team, or with clients, shrank – we were now talking in Microsoft Teams or Zoom for meetings, chat, and email. Phone calls, using an actual phone, have become rare occasions. 

Going Fully Virtual 

Now, after lots of planning and testing, TLC Creative officially ditched the desk phones and has gone virtual! Our longtime company phone number remains active, but now incoming calls ring to an auto-attendant that directs inquiries, provides key information, and connects callers to the right team members.  

The major shifts? 

• All calls happen through the Microsoft Teams Phone, which is an add-on service to Business M365 accounts.  

• Incoming calls, outgoing calls, voicemails, call transfers, and all traditional phone functions remain – just accessed via the Microsoft Teams app instead of a physical phone. 

• Plus, all the telephone services work through the desktop Teams app, or the mobile Teams app. We are no longer tied to our desk – or even our computer! 

Honestly? This transition has been smooth for us, given how heavily we already rely on Teams calls for internal and client meetings. Using Microsoft Teams as our primary phone system was simply an adjustment to our daily workflow and learning how to use the Teams app phone tab when it became active. 

Something New! 

One missing piece to the TLC Creative phone system has always been text messaging —until now. 

Two months ago, Microsoft released SMS functionality for Teams Phone, allowing users to send and receive text messages directly in the Teams app! After working through the technical setup (something our IT manager needed 3+ weeks to accomplish – with the assistance of the Microsoft Teams Phone people), TLC Creative now has SMS capability on our business phone lines – yay! 

This update is especially important because it means we no longer need to use personal cell numbers for business communication. Now, all client interactions via text remain within our professional environment, further centralizing communication. 

What’s Next? 

While SMS is a welcome addition, it’s still a “Short Message Service”, so text only. We are hopeful that MMS (“Multimedia Messaging Service”) will be integrated, so photos, emoji’s and videos will be supported  

Overall, this shift to a virtual phone system has streamlined our workflow, cut costs, and aligned with modern business communication trends. Traditional phone calls are becoming increasingly rare, replaced by email, chat, and video meetings. And yes—our accounting department is happy with the cost savings! 

-Troy @ TLC