Playing embedded sound?

[Terry Pinnell]

I'm only an infrequent user myself, but presently trying to help my
wife with a problem she has with PowerPoint 2000 (SR-1). She wants to
embed a sound in her presentation. I managed to do this with an MP3,
but she'd prefer to use WMA, as that's the main type she has stored.
After embedding a WMA and using F5 to play the slideshow, the object's
icon is displayed, but the track is not played.

Anyone able to help sort this please?

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

After studying Help, to achieve my aim of embedding a file I used
Insert|Object|Create From File.

OK, that accounts for the file size difference. You don't have an embedded sound per se,
but you DO have an embedded OLE object.

The difference? PowerPoint doesn't know what it is, just that it's an OLE object.
It will never play the sound automatically but you can rightclick the icon, choose Action
Settings and set it to Object Action: [choose an appropriate action - play, activate
contents, whatever]

Then it becomes clickable in slide show view and when you click it, it performs the
requested Object Action. Which may or may not work on other computers. on one PC here
with an MP3 file, clicking the icon brings up PPT's armwaving,hyperventilating "OH NO, MR
HANDS, this may have a VIRUS!" msgbox. When I click "There, there, dear. It's all right.
Daddy's here to protect you from the evil Mr. MP3", I then hear from Windows' "What is
this and what do you expect ME to do with it" dialog box.

Not what I'd call a very digestible user experience. Or a predictable one.

 

[Terry Pinnell]

OK, that accounts for the file size difference. You don't have an embedded sound per se,
but you DO have an embedded OLE object.

Many thanks! From that, and from more studying I've been doing
meanwhile, it's beginning to become a bit clearer. Put it this way:
it's now clear that it's even more complicated than I first thought!
And the more I read the more confused I get.

The difference? PowerPoint doesn't know what it is, just that it's an OLE object.
It will never play the sound automatically but you can rightclick the icon, choose Action
Settings and set it to Object Action: [choose an appropriate action - play, activate
contents, whatever]

OK, understood, and got that working OK.

Then it becomes clickable in slide show view and when you click it, it performs the
requested Object Action. Which may or may not work on other computers. on one PC here
with an MP3 file, clicking the icon brings up PPT's armwaving,hyperventilating "OH NO, MR
HANDS, this may have a VIRUS!" msgbox. When I click "There, there, dear. It's all right.
Daddy's here to protect you from the evil Mr. MP3", I then hear from Windows' "What is
this and what do you expect ME to do with it" dialog box.

It's beginning to look as if our ultimate objective will have to be
compromised. That was as follows:

1) Embed a file, ideally WMA but MP3 is close 2nd best, in a single
slide presentation. (It's for Italian language-teaching. The slide
shows each letter of the alphabet, and they are each spoken
alternately by male and female.)

2) Get it working on home PC.

3) Janet takes it to school on CD or laptop, and transfers to school
intranet network

4) In Janet's unavoidable absence, pass it to Supply teacher for
teaching (tomorrow I think).

5) Encourage pupils to PRACTISE AT HOME. They have restricted access
to school network, so the idea was to keep it really simple by getting
them to download just the *single* PPT file, and playing it.

But the approach using embedding is flawed. (BTW, whether it's an OLE
or a 'real' embedded file seems academic? Could we instead call it a
'non-linked' file? In the crucial sense that it works without the
sound file alongside it?) Anyway, the snags appear to be:

- It doesn't play automatically, which would be desirable

- It can't be paused as far as I can tell. I have to go to WMP (or
whatever music player is associated with it) and click Stop. On
re-focusing on PP, there's a risk of stopping the slideshow. Probably
best to minimise WMP instead, to see PP again.

- The player has to be closed if a second playing is required. If it's
just minimised, some quirk prevents it playing. The player stays
loaded and visible, but the 'now playing' entry vanishes.

Overall, I found it rather clumsy.

So I'm reconsidering linking instead, which PP's UI seems to be
designed for? Not sure of intranet upload and download implications
though...

---------

There's one very odd aspect of this that has piqued my curiosity. My
own player is actually MediaMonkey, but I don't think that's
significant. I had rigorously deleted the original WMA after making
the embedded PPT file, to ensure I wasn't using linking. On then
launching the PPT (either automatically or by clicking the OLE icon or
filename), MM duly played it OK. But when I examined the entry in MM's
Now Playing area, it showed it with this path:
C:\Documents and Settings\Terry Pinnell\Local Settings\Temporary
Internet Files\Content.IE5\0PMBK5AJ\
Puzzled, I deleted that, then played the (deleted!) object again, and
MM now found it here:
C:\Documents and Settings\Terry Pinnell\Local Settings\Temporary
Internet Files\Content.IE5\ETO36HQ9\
Also, the PPT is 648 KB, which is smaller than the combined size of
the original (22 KB) plus the WMA (833 KB). So is it somehow getting
compressed and then filed temporarily after running?

All very confusing! Any insights as to what's going on?

I tried to use Windows Explorer to find that folder, but couldn't do
so. I gather these 'Content.IE5' folders are hidden in some way other
than other 'hidden/system' files that I am configured to see. But why?

Not what I'd call a very digestible user experience. Or a predictable one.

Sure isn't!

Thanks for your interest and patience.

 

[Kathy Jacobs]

Terry,
There is a circumstance in which the file size change you are seeing can
happen: If you have Fast Saves turned on. To find out, go to
Tools-->Options, Save tab. If the first box is checked, you have Fast Saves
turned on. Un-check it, save the presentation under a new name and watch the
file size shrink.

And by the way, when you changed the name, you didn't delete it. You only
broke the link. All of the overhead for the original link is still there.
While that overhead wouldn't normally have caused the file to grow as much
as it did, that point is what told me you probably have Fast Saves turned
on.

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com

I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

Many thanks! From that, and from more studying I've been doing
meanwhile, it's beginning to become a bit clearer. Put it this way:
it's now clear that it's even more complicated than I first thought!
And the more I read the more confused I get.

The difference? PowerPoint doesn't know what it is, just that it's an OLE object.
It will never play the sound automatically but you can rightclick the icon, choose Action
Settings and set it to Object Action: [choose an appropriate action - play, activate
contents, whatever]

OK, understood, and got that working OK.

Then it becomes clickable in slide show view and when you click it, it performs the
requested Object Action. Which may or may not work on other computers. on one PC here
with an MP3 file, clicking the icon brings up PPT's armwaving,hyperventilating "OH NO, MR
HANDS, this may have a VIRUS!" msgbox. When I click "There, there, dear. It's all right.
Daddy's here to protect you from the evil Mr. MP3", I then hear from Windows' "What is
this and what do you expect ME to do with it" dialog box.

It's beginning to look as if our ultimate objective will have to be
compromised. That was as follows:

1) Embed a file, ideally WMA but MP3 is close 2nd best, in a single
slide presentation. (It's for Italian language-teaching. The slide
shows each letter of the alphabet, and they are each spoken
alternately by male and female.)

2) Get it working on home PC.

3) Janet takes it to school on CD or laptop, and transfers to school
intranet network

4) In Janet's unavoidable absence, pass it to Supply teacher for
teaching (tomorrow I think).

5) Encourage pupils to PRACTISE AT HOME. They have restricted access
to school network, so the idea was to keep it really simple by getting
them to download just the *single* PPT file, and playing it.

But the approach using embedding is flawed. (BTW, whether it's an OLE
or a 'real' embedded file seems academic? Could we instead call it a
'non-linked' file? In the crucial sense that it works without the
sound file alongside it?) Anyway, the snags appear to be:

I wouldn't call the difference academic at all. True, the information is embedded in the PPT
file either way, but what PPT makes of it and how it handles the information are wildly
different in the two cases.

- It doesn't play automatically, which would be desirable

- It can't be paused as far as I can tell. I have to go to WMP (or
whatever music player is associated with it) and click Stop. On
re-focusing on PP, there's a risk of stopping the slideshow. Probably
best to minimise WMP instead, to see PP again.

Non-academic difference #2: activating an OLE embedded object is tantamount to doubleclicking
the same file were it outside PPT and sitting on the hard drive. It launches whatever
application is registered in Windows as the "owner" of that type of object. With media files
in particular, this adds to the fun, as any one of a number of apps might have taken over the
association on any given computer - QuickTime, Real Player, Nero, lots of others.

- The player has to be closed if a second playing is required. If it's
just minimised, some quirk prevents it playing. The player stays
loaded and visible, but the 'now playing' entry vanishes.

This may depend on the app that "owns" the media type.

Overall, I found it rather clumsy.
Yup.

So I'm reconsidering linking instead, which PP's UI seems to be
designed for? Not sure of intranet upload and download implications
though...

Again, there's linking and linking. If you mean Insert, Object, From File and Link, then the
results will be pretty much the same, only you'll add file management concerns as well.

If you mean Insert, Sounds...etc then the whole process will, I think, work more smoothly,
file management concerns apart. As far as that goes:

- Put the audio files in the same folder as the PPT
- Then and only then insert/link them
- Keep them in the same folder from then on and all should be well

Consider distributing a ZIP or self extracting ZIP with all the files in it for just that
reason.

There's one very odd aspect of this that has piqued my curiosity. My
own player is actually MediaMonkey, but I don't think that's
significant. I had rigorously deleted the original WMA after making
the embedded PPT file, to ensure I wasn't using linking. On then
launching the PPT (either automatically or by clicking the OLE icon or
filename), MM duly played it OK. But when I examined the entry in MM's
Now Playing area, it showed it with this path:
C:\Documents and Settings\Terry Pinnell\Local Settings\Temporary
Internet Files\Content.IE5\0PMBK5AJ\
Puzzled, I deleted that, then played the (deleted!) object again, and
MM now found it here:
C:\Documents and Settings\Terry Pinnell\Local Settings\Temporary
Internet Files\Content.IE5\ETO36HQ9\
Also, the PPT is 648 KB, which is smaller than the combined size of
the original (22 KB) plus the WMA (833 KB). So is it somehow getting
compressed and then filed temporarily after running?

All very confusing! Any insights as to what's going on?

In this case, not a clue. I don't use Media Monkey and don't know what mediamonkey business

 

[Terry Pinnell]

Terry,
There is a circumstance in which the file size change you are seeing can
happen: If you have Fast Saves turned on. To find out, go to
Tools-->Options, Save tab. If the first box is checked, you have Fast Saves
turned on. Un-check it, save the presentation under a new name and watch the
file size shrink.

Thanks Kathy, but with Fast Save turned off I repeated a couple of the
tests and it made no significant difference. I think it's now clear
that the OLE embedding causes the large increase in size.

And by the way, when you changed the name, you didn't delete it. You only
broke the link. All of the overhead for the original link is still there.
While that overhead wouldn't normally have caused the file to grow as much
as it did, that point is what told me you probably have Fast Saves turned
on.

But breaking the link was exactly what I wanted to achieve. That
proved that the amended PPT file wasn't playing a linked file, as that
linked file no longer existed!

 

[Kathy Jacobs]

Terry,
I posted that before I saw that you were using OLE to embed your movie. As
Steve explained - two very different beasts.

No matter what, don't turn Fast Saves back on. It is a bad thing

--
Kathryn Jacobs, Microsoft MVP PowerPoint and OneNote
Author of Kathy Jacobs on PowerPoint - Available now from Holy Macro! Books
Get PowerPoint answers at http://www.powerpointanswers.com

I believe life is meant to be lived. But:
if we live without making a difference, it makes no difference that we lived