On an Acer I5 ultrabook with windows8 I have a PowerPoint project where each slide is a MP4 movie.
The slides do not advance consistently, either advancing during playback or at the end of a slide. Using the spacebar, arrow, or mouse/trackpad, sometimes the slides advance correctly and sometimes they do not. It is random.
I even put the onscreen keyboard over the PP controls and used it to advance the slides (so we could hear the 'click' when we hit the virtual space bar) and it was not consistent.

The project is large in file size, each move is HD res.

This is the ultrabooks only function: to play this power point project. It is not even hooked up to the internet.

I optimized the hard drive today, but the problem persisted.

How can I make sure the slides always advance when prompted?
Could it be a hard drive problem? Is there a way to put the whole project in memory?
This is part of an interactive live show, so we really need consistent slide advances.