Videos "Staggering" or "Stuttering" in Powerpoint Presenter View

Question

I am using the Office for Home version of the software, and in particular, Powerpoint. I use it for talks or presentations I give to audiences.

I am using a MacBook Air computer and just recently updated the operating system to Tahoe 26.3.1. Ever since I updated to Tahoe, any videos I play seem to "stagger" or "stutter" every second or so. The audio plays fine, but the videos stop, then play, then stop, then play, etc. about every second.

This only happens in Presenter View mode. Is there a correction or a solution to this? I have an older MacBook that uses the Safari operating system, and the videos play fine there. They also played without problems on my current MacBook. This problem only surfaced when I updated to Tahoe. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks, JimVan

Answer 1

You’re understanding it correctly, but there is also a specific setting to control it. When I said “turn off Presenter View”, I meant both:

• Starting slide show normally (works fine)
• Then clicking presenter view → causes the issue

Yes, not clicking presenter view effectively keeps it off.

There is a toggle switch for this behavior inside of Microsoft PowerPoint:

Turn presenter view ON/OFF:

1. Open PowerPoint
2. Navigate to the Slide Show tab
3. Look for the option to “Use Presenter View”
4. Uncheck the option → Presenter View will be disabled
5. Check the option → Presenter View will be enabled automatically

If you want to keep using presenter view (try another work around)

1. Disable hardware graphics acceleration

• File → Options

Advanced

• Under Display

Check “Disable hardware graphics acceleration”

Restart PowerPoint

Again the main issue here is when you upgrade to Tahoe it caused GPU related incompatibility with rendering components. There is no definite time yet about a patch for PowerPoint.

Answer 2

Can I confirm if there is no improvement even if you tried to turn OFF presenter view? (this is the best workaround)

You can also try this:

Instead of full Presenter View:

1. Go to Slide Show → Set Up Slide Show

Choose:

Browsed by an individual (window)

Then manually manage notes separately. This reduces GPU load significantly.

Answer 3

Hi!

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A forum.

This is a known type of issue on macOS updates affecting Microsoft PowerPoint presenter view. To confirm this we will do a test.

This test is to turn off presenter view (quick test)

Try running the slideshow without Presenter View:

Go to Slide Show tab

Uncheck Use Presenter View

Note: If the video plays smoothly → confirms it’s a Presenter View rendering issue (OS upgrade related)

Let me know once done if stuttering is still there.

Answer 4

The issue appears after a macOS Tahoe update and only in Presenter View, which aligns with known media-related issues on Mac builds of PowerPoint. The available guidance is to ensure PowerPoint is updated to a build that includes fixes for video issues on Mac.

Update steps:

1. Open PowerPoint on the MacBook Air.
2. On the menu bar, select Help > Check for Updates.
3. Install the latest available updates for PowerPoint (and the rest of Office for Mac).
4. Restart PowerPoint and test Presenter View video playback again.

A prior Mac-specific video issue in PowerPoint was mitigated in build 16.67; keeping PowerPoint fully updated is the supported mitigation path for video/export problems on newer macOS versions.

If the problem persists after updating, test the same presentation on another Mac and consider using standard Slide Show (not Presenter View) as a temporary workaround while monitoring future Office for Mac updates.

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References:

• PowerPoint issue with Export to Video on some Mac Devices
• Are you having video or audio playback issues?
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