Hi all,

I am dedicating myself to eradicating my use of powerpoint and/or
impress and I am a very, very happy user of the beamer class. 
I don't do anything unusual with my presentations in terms of fancy
slide transitions and such.
I am very dependant on images, but I got that covered. As a rule I do
use two to five animations per presentation. With powerpoint/impress
this was always a point of failure, especially when not using your own
computer.

Much to my delight I read that movies can be *embedded* in a pdf. This
would make powerpoint/impress just a distant memory for me, if I can get
this to work reliably I would never look back. Ditching powerpoint is
like an itch I have never been able to scratch (much like ditching
iTunes, but ubuntu lucid has iPhone multimedia syncing out of the box
now, Hurray ! - I digress).

I have compiled my own examples and I have downloaded the examples on
the CTAN site and I must report partial failure. =(

(partial)PASS: in Windows, embedded mpg's play, embedded mp4's do not

FAIL: Acroread-linux has realplayer hardcoded as a mediaplayer, there is
no 64 bit realplayer.

PASS/FAIL: Okular follows the links to mediafiles on the internet or on
the drive, this is the same behavior I used for powerpoint/impress.(itch
itch)

So there you have it, the itch is still there, no way to scratch it..

Tips and pointers welcome !
grtz
wzzl

-- 
---------------------
no gnus is bad news

On Aug 9, 7:45=A0am, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzlet...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am dedicating myself to eradicating my use of powerpoint and/or
> impress and I am a very, very happy user of the beamer class.
> I don't do anything unusual with my presentations in terms of fancy
> slide transitions and such.
> I am very dependant on images, but I got that covered. As a rule I do
> use two to five animations per presentation. With powerpoint/impress
> this was always a point of failure, especially when not using your own
> computer.
>
> Much to my delight I read that movies can be *embedded* in a pdf. This
> would make powerpoint/impress just a distant memory for me, if I can get
> this to work reliably I would never look back. Ditching powerpoint is
> like an itch I have never been able to scratch (much like ditching
> iTunes, but ubuntu lucid has iPhone multimedia syncing out of the box
> now, Hurray ! - I digress).
>
> I have compiled my own examples and I have downloaded the examples on
> the CTAN site and I must report partial failure. =3D(
>
> (partial)PASS: in Windows, embedded mpg's play, embedded mp4's do not
>
> FAIL: Acroread-linux has realplayer hardcoded as a mediaplayer, there is
> no 64 bit realplayer.
>
> PASS/FAIL: Okular follows the links to mediafiles on the internet or on
> the drive, this is the same behavior I used for powerpoint/impress.(itch
> itch)
>
> So there you have it, the itch is still there, no way to scratch it..
>
> Tips and pointers welcome !
> grtz
> wzzl
>
> --
> ---------------------
> no gnus is bad news

Glad to hear that you are turning your back on PP - wish more people
could see the light.  Also glad to hear about Ubuntu's itunes
alternative - welcome news to me.

Just to confirm what you've found, I had a presentation with a large
movie in it.  If I remember correctly, MP4 worked fine on my Mac, not
on Linux or Windoz.  Had to revert to MPG for all of it.  Worked fine
on all platforms after that, and much easier to have it embedded in
the pdf than to go out and search for it during the presentation.
BTW, I also used the animate package for some animated data figures
and that worked fine on all platforms (though the speed had to be
adjusted based on the computer).

Sorry, not much help from me about the MP4's.  Perhaps it is just a
matter of things catching up  (re. acroread).

Good luck,

David

David Tellet <telletdl99@mac.com> writes:

> On Aug 9, 7:45�am, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzlet...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am dedicating myself to eradicating my use of powerpoint and/or
>> impress and I am a very, very happy user of the beamer class.
>> I don't do anything unusual with my presentations in terms of fancy
>> slide transitions and such.
>> I am very dependant on images, but I got that covered. As a rule I do
>> use two to five animations per presentation. With powerpoint/impress
>> this was always a point of failure, especially when not using your own
>> computer.
>>
>> Much to my delight I read that movies can be *embedded* in a pdf. This
>> would make powerpoint/impress just a distant memory for me, if I can get
>> this to work reliably I would never look back. Ditching powerpoint is
>> like an itch I have never been able to scratch (much like ditching
>> iTunes, but ubuntu lucid has iPhone multimedia syncing out of the box
>> now, Hurray ! - I digress).
>>
>> I have compiled my own examples and I have downloaded the examples on
>> the CTAN site and I must report partial failure. =(
>>
>> (partial)PASS: in Windows, embedded mpg's play, embedded mp4's do not
>>
>> FAIL: Acroread-linux has realplayer hardcoded as a mediaplayer, there is
>> no 64 bit realplayer.
>>
>> PASS/FAIL: Okular follows the links to mediafiles on the internet or on
>> the drive, this is the same behavior I used for powerpoint/impress.(itch
>> itch)
>>
>> So there you have it, the itch is still there, no way to scratch it..
>>
>> Tips and pointers welcome !
>> grtz
>> wzzl
>>
>> --
>> ---------------------
>> no gnus is bad news
>
> Glad to hear that you are turning your back on PP - wish more people
> could see the light.  Also glad to hear about Ubuntu's itunes
> alternative - welcome news to me.
>
> Just to confirm what you've found, I had a presentation with a large
> movie in it.  If I remember correctly, MP4 worked fine on my Mac, not
> on Linux or Windoz.  Had to revert to MPG for all of it.  Worked fine
> on all platforms after that, and much easier to have it embedded in
> the pdf than to go out and search for it during the presentation.
> BTW, I also used the animate package for some animated data figures
> and that worked fine on all platforms (though the speed had to be
> adjusted based on the computer).
>
> Sorry, not much help from me about the MP4's.  Perhaps it is just a
> matter of things catching up  (re. acroread).
>
> Good luck,
>
> David

Dear David,
could you tell me which acroread version would play the mpg's ? 
acroread in ubuntu lucid refuses to play them as realplayer does not
support mpg playback (...)

wzzl
-- 
---------------------
no gnus is bad news

In article <87hbj480x0.fsf@mauc.nl>, wizzleteet@hotmail.com says...
> (partial)PASS: in Windows, embedded mpg's play, embedded mp4's do not
> 
> FAIL: Acroread-linux has realplayer hardcoded as a mediaplayer, there is
> no 64 bit realplayer.
> 
> PASS/FAIL: Okular follows the links to mediafiles on the internet or on
> the drive, this is the same behavior I used for powerpoint/impress.(itch
> itch)

The pdf-viewer simply tells the operating system to play the movie, the 
operating system has to know how to do that. Under Win, you have to 
associate a program with the file-type in question. Irfan-View can do 
that for a lot of file types, mplayer or AllPlayer are also good 
choices.

Most linux distributions do not have a good multimedia support, for fear 
of violating software patents (yuck). Without that support, however, no 
luck with beamer videos. There are special linux versions for multimedia 
applications, and for some others you can de-install the multimedia 
programs that came with them and then re-install complete versions from 
the internet. I have no experience with either method.

In any case you will always have problems playing multimedia on foreign 
computers, where you can not control the software setup. Bringing a 
nettop is probably your best choice.

On 2010-08-10, Dr Engelbert Buxbaum <engelbert_buxbaum@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> Most linux distributions do not have a good multimedia support, for fear 
> of violating software patents (yuck). Without that support, however, no 
> luck with beamer videos. There are special linux versions for multimedia 
> applications, and for some others you can de-install the multimedia 
> programs that came with them and then re-install complete versions from 
> the internet. I have no experience with either method.
>


Since the OP uses ubuntu, he can add "medibuntu" repository and install 
all the codecs and such that are needed for many formats. However, if I 
remember correctly, he is absolutely right that the problem lies in the 
difficulties of changing what acroread uses to play the movies, atleast 
under ubuntu/gnome as per discussions here and other places:
http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-592859.html
http://www.uluga.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1531595

I would love to see a solution for this.

turgut

On 9 Aug., 13:45, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzlet...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I am dedicating myself to eradicating my use of powerpoint and/or
> impress and I am a very, very happy user of the beamer class.

> (partial)PASS: in Windows, embedded mpg's play, embedded mp4's do not
>
> FAIL: Acroread-linux has realplayer hardcoded as a mediaplayer, there is
> no 64 bit realplayer.

My movie15 package is now somewhat outdated in terms of embedding
video (mpeg, mp4, swf etc.) as it implements multimedia features as of
PDF-1.5/Acrobat-6. Although video files are embedded in the PDF,
playback depends on third-party plugins Acroread needs to communicate
with and which are not available on every platform. So mileage my
vary.

Since version 9 however, Acrobat and its Reader (even the Linux
version) ship with a built-in Flash-Plugin. This enables the Reader to
playback video in the MP4/FLV formats, using modern codecs such as H.
264. There is one package on CTAN, Flashmovie, which implements this
new standard. You may give it a try.

Alexander

Alexander Grahn <a.grahn@fzd.de> writes:

> On 9 Aug., 13:45, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzlet...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I am dedicating myself to eradicating my use of powerpoint and/or
>> impress and I am a very, very happy user of the beamer class.
>
>> (partial)PASS: in Windows, embedded mpg's play, embedded mp4's do not
>>
>> FAIL: Acroread-linux has realplayer hardcoded as a mediaplayer, there is
>> no 64 bit realplayer.
>
> My movie15 package is now somewhat outdated in terms of embedding
> video (mpeg, mp4, swf etc.) as it implements multimedia features as of
> PDF-1.5/Acrobat-6. Although video files are embedded in the PDF,
> playback depends on third-party plugins Acroread needs to communicate
> with and which are not available on every platform. So mileage my
> vary.
>
> Since version 9 however, Acrobat and its Reader (even the Linux
> version) ship with a built-in Flash-Plugin. This enables the Reader to
> playback video in the MP4/FLV formats, using modern codecs such as H.
> 264. There is one package on CTAN, Flashmovie, which implements this
> new standard. You may give it a try.
>
> Alexander

It's so cool that the original authors of the packages are on this
newsgroup and help a noob out.
Thanks for replying.
I can report that I can now play movies using the flashmovie package, in
Linux !

From the package info:
[begin quote]
Basically it uses the fact that the Adobe Reader 9 contains an embedded
Adobe Flash player which can be invoked with the “rich media annotation”
feature which is described in “Adobe Supplement to the ISO 32000 BaseVersion:
1.7 ExtensionLevel: 3”.
The movies in this document are rendered with the “flv-player” whose de-
veloper is neolao. This player is distributed under the MPL version 1.1. It is
included in this package and is the recommended way to use “flashmovie.sty”
besides directly embedding “.swf” files.
[end quote]

I convert my movies to flv using ffmpeg:
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% start bash script "toflv"
#!/bin/sh
ffmpeg -i $1 -ab 56 -ar 22050 -b 500 $2
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% end bash script
usage: toflv moviefile.mpg(or whatever) mymovie.flv

Or, one could use the really cool "HandBrake" package to convert
whatever to mp4.

And I can subsequently embed them into the pdf using:
\flashmovie[width=10cm,height=10cm,engine=flv-player,auto=1]{test.flv}
(I haven't read the .sty file, but keepaspectratio is not one of the
options, minor annoyance)

Thanks for helping me out Alexander, this community survived eternal
september it seems !

thanks,
wzzl



-- 
---------------------
no gnus is bad news

On 2010-08-10, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzleteet@hotmail.com> wrote:
> It's so cool that the original authors of the packages are on this
> newsgroup and help a noob out.
> Thanks for replying.
> I can report that I can now play movies using the flashmovie package, in
> Linux !
>

Were you able to that with "beamer"?

The following example works:
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
 \documentclass{article}

 \usepackage{flashmovie}
 \begin{document}
 test
 
\flashmovie[width=10cm,height=10cm,engine=flv-player,auto=1]{./figures/startrekmovies/startrekmedicaltricorderUSEME.flv}

 \end{document}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


but
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{flashmovie}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}[c]

test
\flashmovie[width=10cm,height=10cm,engine=flv-player,auto=1]{./figures/startrekmovies/startrekmedicaltricorderUSEME.flv}
\end{frame}

\end{document}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

returns the following error after adding in "\usepackage{flashmovie}" (see 
below)

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
! pdfTeX error (setup): \pdfminorversion cannot be changed after data is 
writte
n to the PDF file.
<to be read again> 
                   \edef 
l.6 \begin{document}
                    
!  ==> Fatal error occurred, no output PDF file produced!
%%%%%%%%%%%%%

even this does not work:

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\documentclass{beamer}

\usepackage{flashmovie}
\begin{document}
\begin{frame}[c]

test
%\flashmovie[width=10cm,height=10cm,engine=flv-player,auto=1]{./figures/startrekmovies/startrekmedicaltricorderUSEME.flv}
\end{frame}

\end{document}
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

Turgut Durduran <ugdc@ugdc.org> writes:

> Were you able to that with "beamer"?

I had the same error as you, but after I commented out line 152 of
flashmovie.sty:

%\ifnum\pdfminorversion<7 \pdfminorversion=7\fi

It works !

I wrote a seperate post about this, for future reference.
 
-- 
Stinky Wizzleteet thinks: 
Today is the last day of your life so far.

On 2010-08-11, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzleteet@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I had the same error as you, but after I commented out line 152 of
> flashmovie.sty:
>
> %\ifnum\pdfminorversion<7 \pdfminorversion=7\fi
>
> It works !
>
> I wrote a seperate post about this, for future reference.


Good catch! Thanks. It works for me too but I do not get any sound which I 
presume is an issue with the player (I can't control the volume inside the 
acrobat reader either).

I have edited the subject line to reflect that we have moved to 
flashmovie.sty.

turgut

Turgut Durduran <ugdc@ugdc.org> writes:

> On 2010-08-11, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzleteet@hotmail.com> wrote:
>> I had the same error as you, but after I commented out line 152 of
>> flashmovie.sty:
>>
>> %\ifnum\pdfminorversion<7 \pdfminorversion=7\fi
>>
>> It works !
>>
>> I wrote a seperate post about this, for future reference.
>
>
> Good catch! Thanks. It works for me too but I do not get any sound which I 
> presume is an issue with the player (I can't control the volume inside the 
> acrobat reader either).
>
> I have edited the subject line to reflect that we have moved to 
> flashmovie.sty.
>
> turgut

I can confirm this. 
Beamer class + flashmovie.sty = no sound
Article class + flashmovie.sty = sound 

Why on earth would that happen ??


-- 
Stinky Wizzleteet thinks: 
You are not dead yet.  But watch for further reports.

On 2010-08-12, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzleteet@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Turgut Durduran <ugdc@ugdc.org> writes:
>
>> On 2010-08-11, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzleteet@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> I had the same error as you, but after I commented out line 152 of
>>> flashmovie.sty:
>>>
>>> %\ifnum\pdfminorversion<7 \pdfminorversion=7\fi
>>>
>>> It works !
>>>
>>> I wrote a seperate post about this, for future reference.
>>
>>
>> Good catch! Thanks. It works for me too but I do not get any sound which I 
>> presume is an issue with the player (I can't control the volume inside the 
>> acrobat reader either).
>>
>> I have edited the subject line to reflect that we have moved to 
>> flashmovie.sty.
>>
>> turgut
>
> I can confirm this. 
> Beamer class + flashmovie.sty = no sound
> Article class + flashmovie.sty = sound 
>
> Why on earth would that happen ??
>

I have reported it to the package author but did not receive a reply.  
quite curious.

Turgut

On 2010-08-12, Stinky Wizzleteet <wizzleteet@hotmail.com> wrote:
> I can confirm this. 
> Beamer class + flashmovie.sty = no sound
> Article class + flashmovie.sty = sound 
>
> Why on earth would that happen ??
>

It is a hit or miss. I think it does something to ubuntu's sound system.