Three questions: Video sound control and counting powerpoint uses

[NickM]

Have been lurking for a couple of weeks and have learnt many useful tips
from this NG.
As a result I've managed to get mpeg1 working fine in PP2000. Thanks.

1) But is there a way to turn off (or even adjust) the sound on individual
videos within PowerPoint?

2) Can I get two or more video clips to run at the same time?

3) On a different and slightly off-topic note, the Museum I work in is
developing a number of PP presentations to be run on a single touch screen
in kiosk mode in Windows 2000. We'd like to count the number of times each
show is launched, and perhaps even track the length of time each show was
used, or how far a
visitor got before they stopped using it.
Can anyone offer any pointers as to how this "web stats" type of approach
can be achieved? I appreciate its not really a question specific to
PowerPoint, but I'm sure some of you experts here must have done this
before.

Nick Moyes
Derby Museum, UK

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Hi Nick

1) But is there a way to turn off (or even adjust) the sound on individual
videos within PowerPoint?

No; actually PowerPoint has no idea what to do with the data in a video or
sound file. It simply hands it off to the MCI media player to deal with. In
consequence, it doesnt' include any features for editing the data (that it has
no idea how to edit).

You'd need to edit the media file in another app.

3) On a different and slightly off-topic note, the Museum I work in is
developing a number of PP presentations to be run on a single touch screen
in kiosk mode in Windows 2000. We'd like to count the number of times each
show is launched, and perhaps even track the length of time each show was
used, or how far a
visitor got before they stopped using it.
Can anyone offer any pointers as to how this "web stats" type of approach
can be achieved? I appreciate its not really a question specific to
PowerPoint, but I'm sure some of you experts here must have done this
before.

I think you'd pretty much need to use VBA to do this. Might be a bit tricky to
track who watched what for how long, though; how would the computer know that
I got distracted by something else and walked off but you (who've been watching
over my shoulder all the while) stepped in where I left off? And like that.