Regarding Chimera movies in PowerPoint: I'm not sure exactly what the end result is like on a Mac, but using a standard Windows setup, PowerPoint will degrade the quality of any movie that you just drop into it. I haven't investigated exactly why this occurs, but it is noticeable. I was able to restore the full quality by embedding a Windows Media Player object into the PowerPoint file, with VB code that loads the movie of interest by default. This might not be an option for a Mac, but perhaps someone else might find it useful: I can give details on the method if anyone would like. As a useful secondary effect, by using an absolute pointer to the movie file rather than an embedded (and relative) link to the directory and file as PowerPoint usually stores, you can place movies in a central repository via http server: this makes it possible to have smaller, more mobile PowerPoint files that don't require a full copy of every included embedded movie. Regarding the quality of output from Chimera, it is possible to composite movies from individual frames. It's not a simple method, but it does remove all limitations on resolution, sampling, etc, and simplifies post-processing as well. One example of a Chimera-produced movie that might not have been possible another way can be found on our server (11MB, mpeg-4): ftp://guest@dratz2.chemistry.montana.edu/capsid_visuals/movies/non-capsid/20060401_both_02.zip Jonathan

Hi

We have just installed Chimera on a MacPro running OS X 10.4. I would like to be able to record simple movies of rotating peptides for use in PowerPoint ( 2003) presentations.

I have been able to record and insert the avi format into PowerPoint and the movie does play correctly. But I am noticing a considerable loss in resolution as compared to the original molecule in Chimera.

Is there some adjustment I should be making in Movie Recorder to improve the image resolution?

Should I be running POV-Ray on these files?

Thanks for any suggestions.

Gene

(Eugene Coats)