Hi Bethany,
2 things immediately:
1. That was a *VERY* cool find! I'm going to give uTIPu a
shot, b/c I can see some usefulness of that tool.
2. Now we're getting down to brass tacks! The moment you took
the flv file and dropped it into Flash, what you effectively did is
remove the functionality of the demo you created. Why? Because the
flv was "converted" when you published the Flash document as a .swf
file. And as far as the looping problem, here's the gist: When you
have a duration of frames that extend along the timeline, Flash
won't automatically stop just because the playhead reaches the last
frame in the timeline.
Quick example: let's say that your flv file has a total
duration of :30 seconds and it extends to frame 900 in the timeline
(using 30 fps as the baseline playback speed since that's what
Presenter likes). Once the file reaches frame 900, it won't stop
there; rather, the timeline starts all over again UNLESS you add
some code in Flash to tell your movie to do something else, like
stop!
Having said that, let's talk about the implications of adding
an flv to Flash in the manner described above:
1. Synchronization: In almost every case, an embedded flv
will lose synch (the matching between video and audio components).
What this means is that if you have a "talking head" video, it's
very likely that what is said won't match what is seen as the movie
plays back.
2. Control: unless you place a stop(); action in the timeline
of the embedded flv video, IT WILL LOOP no matter what you attempt
to do in Breeze/Presenter.
3. File Size: Generally speaking, an embedded flv which is
then converted to a .swf file will almost always increase your file
size by the time you insert it in Presenter. Granted, a :30 second
piece ain't all that much...but once you start playing with 2, 5,
or 7 minute videos (and lots of 'em), you will invariably
experience playback problems. Couple that with Adobe's
recommendation for project file sizes (10 Meg limit) and you could
be on the fast track to playback performance issues
So is there a better solution? Actually, there is, but it's a
hack at best.
If you have the ability to link to an external source, like
an HTML doc for example, then what you could do is:
1. Back in Flash, use a Flash Media Component, and link that
to the flv you want to view.
2. Create a swf file of your Flash document (that contains
the Media Component)
3. Take the published .swf and place it into an html document
(using Dreamweaver for example!)
4. Make sure to save all of these files in a relative
location to your Presenter project
5. Then back in PPT, create a link to the html doc OR use the
Attachments feature to link to it as well. If you choose the manual
linking method directly in PPT, you will have to deal with the
"relative addressing" of the html page you want to launch. There
have been mixed feelings about this, and just as many comments
about the success/failure of folks to accomplish that task, and
rather than go through it here, I'll direct you to former posts
which describe the process:
Relative
Links in Breeze/Presenter
Hope that helps! And again, thanks for clarifying the screen
capture tool you were using!
Rob
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