Powerpoint Presentation

I have a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation with a video clip in it. The clip is only 1.5MB and in WMV format. But when I move on to the slide that contains the video (the video is set to play automatically) there is about a 7 second delay before the video starts playing. And this is running from my hard-drive, not from the USB stick I will be using for the presentation!
Is this normal? How can I remove this lag and get the video to play instantly?
I’ve checked the transitions; it’s not that. My computer has 1GB of RAM so that shouldn’t be the problem. Does anyone else have this problem or do your videos play instantly? If so, then it could be something else to do with my computer.

I inputed a video clip on my powerpoint presentation, but when I send it to others they can’t view it. I understand that it’s probably because it’s linked on my hard drive. So how can I do it where they can also open and play it.