Inserting SWF to play FLV in Powerpoint

[D1g1tal_0ne]

Ok, so ive got a major problem. For the last few months my company has been
using FLV files streamed through a SWF which is inserted into powerpoint with
no problems. Now out of the blue everything is broken. I can open a new
powerpoint and insert the activeX control just fine, preview it and it works.
AS SOON as i save it and re open it i get a blank slide. Every now and then
it will play but without the playback controls. The outcome is different
almost every time which is odd for computers. Has anyone ever experienced
this or can help me in any way? Thanks.

 

[Echo S]

I may be wrong, but I think that the latest Flash control released by Adobe
causes the problems. I suspect that's also why you see difrferent behavior
on different systems -- one system has a different Flash control than
another. You might try downloading and installing an older control and see
if that works.

 

[Carmen Ferrara]

I may be wrong, but I think that the latest Flash control released by Adobe
causes the problems. I suspect that's also why you see difrferent behavior
on different systems -- one system has a different Flash control than
another. You might try downloading and installing an older control and see
if that works.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007?http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyanceshttp://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kithttp://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

Ok, so ive got a major problem. For the last few months my company has
been
using FLV files streamed through a SWF which is inserted into powerpoint
with
no problems. Now out of the blue everything is broken. I can open a new
powerpoint and insert the activeX control just fine, preview it and it
works.
AS SOON as i save it and re open it i get a blank slide. Every now and
then
it will play but without the playback controls. The outcome is different
almost every time which is odd for computers. Has anyone ever experienced
this or can help me in any way? Thanks.

Have you considered converting the flv files to Windows Media -
PowerPoint is less likely to have issues embedding Windows Media
content? Then you won't have to worry about Flash ocx version
incompatibilities. Just a thought.

Carmen-

 

[D1g1tal_0ne]

We are actually moving from WMV's to FLV's because of the smaller file sizes
and higher quality video.

I may be wrong, but I think that the latest Flash control released by Adobe
causes the problems. I suspect that's also why you see difrferent behavior
on different systems -- one system has a different Flash control than
another. You might try downloading and installing an older control and see
if that works.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007?http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyanceshttp://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kithttp://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

Ok, so ive got a major problem. For the last few months my company has
been
using FLV files streamed through a SWF which is inserted into powerpoint
with
no problems. Now out of the blue everything is broken. I can open a new
powerpoint and insert the activeX control just fine, preview it and it
works.
AS SOON as i save it and re open it i get a blank slide. Every now and
then
it will play but without the playback controls. The outcome is different
almost every time which is odd for computers. Has anyone ever experienced
this or can help me in any way? Thanks.

Have you considered converting the flv files to Windows Media -
PowerPoint is less likely to have issues embedding Windows Media
content? Then you won't have to worry about Flash ocx version
incompatibilities. Just a thought.

Carmen-

 

[Carmen Ferrara]

We are actually moving from WMV's to FLV's because of the smaller file sizes
and higher quality video.

I may be wrong, but I think that the latest Flash control released by Adobe
causes the problems. I suspect that's also why you see difrferent behavior
on different systems -- one system has a different Flash control than
another. You might try downloading and installing an older control and see
if that works.
--
Echo [MS PPT MVP]http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007?http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyanceshttp://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kithttp://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

Ok, so ive got a major problem. For the last few months my company has
been
using FLV files streamed through a SWF which is inserted into powerpoint
with
no problems. Now out of the blue everything is broken. I can open a new
powerpoint and insert the activeX control just fine, preview it and it
works.
AS SOON as i save it and re open it i get a blank slide. Every now and
then
it will play but without the playback controls. The outcome is different
almost every time which is odd for computers. Has anyone ever experienced
this or can help me in any way? Thanks.

Have you considered converting the flv files to Windows Media -
PowerPoint is less likely to have issues embedding Windows Media
content? Then you won't have to worry about Flash ocx version
incompatibilities. Just a thought.

Carmen-

That's interesting. I think Flash has caught up with Windows Media in
terms of file size and quality with the latest On2 VP6 codec. But,
playback requires Flash 8 player or greater. Windows Media 9 codecs
and a above still do a great job in terms quality and file size
IMHO.

Don't get me wrong - moving to FLVs for web video is a great idea as
the near ubiquitous playback across platforms is a strong argument.
However, in controlled environments (like embedding in a PPT or across
desktops in an enterprise) Windows Media is still a great choice.

 

[D1g1tal_0ne]

Ive tried installing flash and shockwave player 8, no difference. The video
always plays perfectly the first time you play it but once you close and
reopen its dead. Ive tried the flash rewinding thing but thats not the
problem as i can save the PPT directly after setting it up before i play it
and if i close and re open it wont play the first time. Its not only
different from computer to computer but its different ont he same computer
too. Sometimes it works soemtimes it dosent. The best example of this is in
slide 36 i insterted SWF A on my machind and it works. I insert the same file
the same way into slide 37 but from another machine and it dosent work.
Theres no difference in implementation.

 

[Echo S]

I have seen this, too, so it's not you, and you're not crazy. I don't
know if it's a PowerPoint issue or an issue with the Flash control, though.
I was doing a training video, actually, and the Flash file wasn't
cooperating. It embedded fine when I went through it during practice, but
then later I realized it wasn't embedding consistently, and I don't know
what the difference is/was. Best I could do in the video was to tell users
to be sure to test the file to make sure the SWF was embedded....

This will sound odd, but you might try saving the file as a 97-2003 format
file and see if that embeds it or not. I recall there were some PPT
presentations on Office Online that had embedded Flash files. If you open
those files in PPT 2007, the Flash is "missing," but if you open them in
2003, the Flash works fine. The irony of it is, the files were "2007
training" files. heh. Anyway, so the Flash is really there, but 2007 makes
it seem as if it's not -- so that makes me wonder if there's some kind of
security something - or - other going on when you try to embed a SWF
directly into a 2007 file.

I know this isn't really an answer, but I don't have anything else....

 

[Echo S]

Oh, in addition to the comment I just posted, try making sure both SWFs are
located in your trusted locations before you insert them into the file.
(Rereading your post, I noticed you mentioned inserting a SWF that's on a
different drive, and that made me think about this.)

 

[D1g1tal_0ne]

The swf and the video files are all in the same folder on our public server.
The ppt linking to them is one level up int he folder above the video folder.

 

[Echo S]

The swf and the video files are all in the same folder on our public
server.
The ppt linking to them is one level up int he folder above the video
folder.

Okay, then I guess I don't understand what you said here:

Its not only
different from computer to computer but its different ont he same computer
too. Sometimes it works soemtimes it dosent. The best example of this is
in
slide 36 i insterted SWF A on my machind and it works. I insert the same
file
the same way into slide 37 but from another machine and it dosent work.

So you're not inserting SWFs that are in different locations, you're
inserting SWFs by opening the PPT file on different computers? If that's the
case, then ignore what I said about trusted locations. Or, wait, maybe not.
Could be that the trusted locations for the computers are different.

 

[Echo S]

For what problem? You've apparently started a new thread, and we can't see
the post you're responding to.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx


in message news:[email protected]...

 

[Vladi]

For what problem? You've apparently started a new thread, and we can't see
the post you're responding to.

--
Echo [MS PPT MVP] http://www.echosvoice.com
What's new in PPT 2007? http://www.echosvoice.com/2007.htm
Fixing PowerPoint Annoyances http://tinyurl.com/36grcd
PowerPoint 2007 Complete Makeover Kit http://tinyurl.com/32a7nx

Anyone ever figure out a fix for this problem? My presentation are doing
the same thing. It is very frustrating.

Apparently, no solution has been found yet. I've tried any conceivable way
to beat a "run once" problem with no luck though.

Clearly, there are only two codec families which can be viewed on almost any
system - flash and wmv.
Flash doesn't work reliably in PP. Therefore, the only option is to use wmv.
Conversion of flv to wmv is a big problem though. I've tried about a dozen
of share- and freeware converters.
Most of them make a video so aliased that it cannot be presented on a big
screen. The ONLY solution I've found is to convert flv into wmv by using
SUPER (freeware conversion program).
However, there are two traps not documented anywhere:
1) If you try to convert a flv file, SUPER either gives an error or makes an
unreadable file. To make it work, you need to inject metadata into flv file.
This can be done by a program located here - http://www.buraks.com/flvmdi/.
2) If you covert a 320x240 flv into 320x240 wmv8, SUPER at times distorts
picture. To avoid this, convert 320x240 flv to 960x720 wmv8. This conversion
produces a smoothed undistorted picture. Though some loss of quality is
still noticable.

To edit a resulting wmv8 file you can use Windows Movie Maker. However,
there is another trap - it won't let you save the resulting wmv9 file in
high resolution. To do this, you'll need to install Windows Media Encoder
and create a custom profile for high resolution saves.

In the end, you'll be able to demonstrate your videos on almost any computer
and almost full screen.