Playing media clips in PowerPoint using Windows Media Player

[Guest]

I found a good article on this at
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;291879.
This works well, but I want to be able to burn the finished product to CD.
When I did this the media clip didn't play from the CD. It seems to have lost
the link, because it's looking for it in the place where it was when it was
burned to CD, so it doesn't work on someone else's machine. Is there a fix
for this? Please advise.
Thanks,
David

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

Generally, if you put the media file in the SAME folder as the PPT file
BEFORE linking, the link should be relative and continue to work. Did you
try this? If so, what were the results?
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[TAJ Simmons]

David,

why not save any hassle on go this route....
http://www.soniacoleman.com/Tutorials/PowerPoint/acdpc_instructions.htm

Cheers
TAJ Simmons
microsoft powerpoint mvp

awesome - powerpoint backgrounds,
http://www.powerpointbackgrounds.com
free powerpoint templates, tutorials, hints and tips etc

 

[Sonia]

Are you playing the presentation in PowerPoint on the target machine, or is it
playing in the Viewer? I ask because the Viewer does not support the method of
insertion that you have used.
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[Guest]

We are playing in PPt on the target machine. I have burned it to CD and made
it an autorun CD.

 

[Guest]

Yes all files are in the same folder

Generally, if you put the media file in the SAME folder as the PPT file
BEFORE linking, the link should be relative and continue to work. Did you
try this? If so, what were the results?
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Sonia]

I'm curious as to how you made an autorun CD using PowerPoint. What program
does the second line of the autorun.inf file open?

 

[Guest]

This is the way the code appears in the uatorun.inf file.
[AutoRun]
ICON=prcbk.ico
OPEN=ShellExecute.bat Hysterdemo.pps
I also have an ShellExecute.bat file that include. It works like a charm.
The Powerpoint show opens, and everything works except the media clip.
Mormally I just insert the clip from file and that works fine, but my boss
wanted the users to have more control over the video, to be able to stop it,
back it up, move it forward, etc., so I did some research and found the
article about putting the media player right into ppt. It works great on my
machine. When you set up the player, you have to specify a url in the
properties. Once you burn it to a CD and put it on another machine, the file
path is no longer valid. I know there's gotta be a fix. I'm just not smart
enough to figure it out.

 

[David M. Marcovitz]

But were all files in the same folder before you linked them? Moving them
to the same folder later does not help.
--David

--
David M. Marcovitz
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP
Director of Graduate Programs in Educational Technology
Loyola College in Maryland
Author of _Powerful PowerPoint for Educators_
http://www.loyola.edu/education/PowerfulPowerPoint/

 

[Steve Rindsberg]

This is the way the code appears in the uatorun.inf file.
[AutoRun]
ICON=prcbk.ico
OPEN=ShellExecute.bat Hysterdemo.pps
I also have an ShellExecute.bat file that include. It works like a charm.
The Powerpoint show opens, and everything works except the media clip.
Mormally I just insert the clip from file and that works fine, but my boss
wanted the users to have more control over the video, to be able to stop it,
back it up, move it forward, etc., so I did some research and found the
article about putting the media player right into ppt. It works great on my
machine. When you set up the player, you have to specify a url in the
properties. Once you burn it to a CD and put it on another machine, the file
path is no longer valid.

With normal PPT links to media files, if you link to a file in the same folder as
the PPT, the link "path" doesn't include anything but the name of the file linked
to. When PPT sees one of these "pathless" links, it generally looks in the same
folder as the PPT file itself. That's why you can use this trick to make the links
work on CDs and such.

By inserting an object (which I assume is how you put a media player in the PPT)
you've created an OLE link, which is a very different animal from a media file link.
One of the differences: you can't have a pathless link. The OLE link ALWAYS
includes the full path to wherever it came from on your system. My guess is that
that's your problem; the same path doesn't exist on the target computer so PPT
pitches a snitfit.

Here's a wild guess, though: try setting the player to link to a media file in the
root directory of your C: drive. Then burn a CD with the media file in the same
folder as the PPT.

Here's the line of thought that leads to this bit of weirdness:

- PPT will generally look for OLE linked files along the path in the link first.

- If it can't find 'em there, it may then look in the same folder as the PPT (it
does this with linked XLS files, for example)

- It may get crazy if it tries to look in C:\Some\Folder\That\Isnt\There on the
system with the CD and come up with a path not found error rather than just going
"Well, the path ain't there so the file sure as heck can't be, let's see where else
it might be"


I know there's gotta be a fix. I'm just not smart