We have instructors who like to embed their videos (that is, cause their
videos to play within the PP interface and linked to the original video file)
in powerpoint (2003), but they often come up against a small problem on our
instructor stations:  the powerpoint works just fine, and the video in it
plays on the PC screen, but comes up blank on the projector, or in theatre
mode it sometimes takes over the whole screen, over the powerpoint in lieu of
within it.  Many of our instructor stations (though not all) are dual monitor
stations, so we don't generally use clone for the setting on the video card.  
All are Dell PCs that are relatively new GX series (620s or 280s).

Here are a couple of the solutions we've used:

Option 1 (less desirable) click the video card control panel and change the
display mode for this presentation to "clone" this would give the exact and
often desired appearence. Difficulty is many of our instructors do not have
knowledge of  how to do so, and they want IT to make it seamless. A varaint
to this option would be a VGA splitter at each instructor station, thus
removing the benifit of the overlay (theatre mode)

Option 2 Create the .ppt with no embedded "auto playing" video and only have
vvideos play when selected by the presenter, now the .ppt will display and
duplicate as the cloned set up will and also when a video is played it would
play in an often desired theatre mode with no media player showing and the
.ppt covered up by the video only for the video play portion.

What I would like to do is come up with a more elegant method of doing this
-- either by suggesting to the instructors an alternate method of embedding
the video link with their power point presentation, or an alternate setup of
the video display settings that I may not be aware of at this point.

Your expertise and suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

jj