How can the video in the first slide not display, but it does later?

[wjmccalpin]

First, using Windows XP, Powerpoint 2003, and Presenter 7.0.2 .

I have created a Powerpoint presentation in which every slide has either video/audio or just audio. When I play the results through Adobe Connect, the video/audio on the first slide doesn't display or sound. The video is actually playing - you can see the bar at the bottom moving and it says "Video playing" but you can't see the video on the screen nor hear the sound that goes with it.

After the expected amount of time, the presentation moves to slide 2 which is an audio-only slide, and the rest of the presentation plays correctly, including future slides that have video.

What is strange is that after the second slide with video plays (correctly), I can use the navigation to go back to the first slide - and then the video and audio perform perfectly! The video is obviously there; it just won't display the first time.

Even stranger - this file used to work with this exact same slide. I had to go in and re-record several other slides with video and republish, but I didn't touch the first slide...and now it doesn't work...I have updated Presenter and republished several times, and no joy...

Any ideas on what sneaky paramter someplace is causing my video to "play" but not display the first time around???

Bill

[wjmccalpin]

Update: I just cut and pasted the first slide from a previous PPT version that DID work, and republished...and it still doesn't work...which makes sense, I guess since the slide should have been identical in the two versions...so the problem doesn't seem to be with the slide itself, but with something else...

Bill

[wjmccalpin]

Second Update: I just created a Flash file instead of the zip file that I am having to use to upload the content (the "Publish to Connect" fails with a useless error message), and the Flash file plays just fine. Is there a way to upload the Flash file instead of the zip file? I guess I'll look at that next...

Bill

[Guest]

Next update: I read here someplace about how the Start after Delay (or whatever) didn't work in the first slide if you set it to zero. I tried one second delay but no joy. I then said to myself - how about if I insert a dummy slide in front of the real first slide! Yep, I duplicated the first slide with the video, deleted the video from the new first slide, then published it. The first slide started, presented for 5 seconds (the default for slides with no video or audio), then switched to the second slide...which was the same slide, but with the original video...the video started up playing just fine and I could see the video and hear the audio...

OK, guys, surely this is enough information for someone to tell me what parameter is causing this "don't show video on the first slide" problem.

P.S., to repeat - this same slide used to work in a previous version of my Powerpoint source deck, but stopped working when I updated some OTHER slides in the deck...

Bill

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community, Bill

Seems you have been having quite a conversation with yourself here.

Okay, here are my own thoughts. This is mostly theoretical and a stab in the dark.

I don't know Presenter nearly as well as I know Captivate, but if it works in a similar manner to Captivate, the video content will be stored externally and called when it is needed. What my thoughts are (or theory is) is that you are simply encountering latency or a delay. On the initial report of the file not playing at the beginning but being fine in a later slide, it sounds like it's being summoned too soon and it doesn't have time to load up. But the second call results in a better response because the video has probably then already loaded up.

Again, this is all mostly an educated guess on my part.

Cheers... Rick

[wjmccalpin]

Thanks, Rick, for your thoughts. Latency had occured to me, although I am puzzled why software would be designed such that the presentation can kick off immediately even though not all the content is yet available. One would have thought that either the software - on the first slide at least - would wait until the resources for the first slide were available before kicking off, or that the software would give some meaningful error message that the content or resource is not yet available. Instead, it "plays" the video (bar at the bottom moves and the phrase "playing video" appears) when there is no external video object to play? Does that make any sense from a product usability point of view? Not to me...and like many here, I suspect, I've done product definition for a long time.

But the real problem with the latency theory is that v9 of this slide deck worked just fine(!), and v10 had the exact same slide...I edited only other video slides in v10, not the first one, yet v9 worked fine and v10 did not...if the latency angle is correct, then the question is...why did v9 work?

Also, I noticed that when I went back to the first slide, that the video would not display until I had hit another slide with video (about slide 20)...just letting a few slides go by wouldn't do it...of course, this neither confirms or denies the latency issue as I don't know how long it takes to download the less than 2 minute video, but I am thinking that on my high speed connection, that it should have loaded in the space of several slides...yet, the video on slide one would not display until I hit slide 20 and its video (which played fine)...it's as is something about the other videos in the deck were not only OK but set something that would cause the first video to display...but, of course, lacking any error messages or diagnostic tools, I am just guessing.

In the meantime, I have a workaround...oh, which sort of disproves the latency thing...the new first dummy slide (no video or audio) is only 5 seconds in duration, but then the video on the former first slide plays fine, so any resources must have been fetchable in 5 seconds or less...so why did it not play before until the second video had been played???

Bill

[wjmccalpin]

Well, Rick, I now have to eat my words. v10 with the initial dummy slide worked fine when done from the Connect Library, but when I defined a training course and added this content and sent the email to myself, I entered the course through the normal way a student would...the dummy slide appeared for 5 seconds, then the real slide came on...and the video did not display...at the end of the first slide, I went back and tried to replay it again...still no video display. Surely by this point, the one minute video had downloaded, but, nope, it'still not displaying. As I type this (on a different PC), it's been several minutes, and the second slide (what used to be the first one) still doesn't display the video.

So I skipped down to slide 20 or so where the next video is, play it (OK), then went immediately back to the first video (on slide two)...and it played fine...something about the second video is causing the first video to display...what could that be???

Bill

[Doctor_ABA]

I am not sure of the answer but I also run into the same problem.

[Guest]

I would suggest you call into Adobe Support and log a ticket.  They will contact you and you can send them the file via FTP. Adobe Support for Presenter can diagnose the problem.

You can load any FLV or SWF Flash file directly into the Share Document pod and it will work great. That is another option.

Sometimes, I have seen very long and highly encoded video imbedded into presentations using Adobe Presenter. The issue could be related to the size of the video and/or size of the Powerpoint deck.  It could be that there is latency there depending on where you are located and where your server is located. I'd suggest letting the folks that support Presenter take a look at the file so they can analyze it and make suggestions.