Embedding a .wmv in PPT with a click to start

Feb 16, 2011

Sean Speake
By Sean Speake

Hi there,

Working on a project where there are number of video demos of presentation skills. Demos were provided to me in .wmv format.

I know that in Powerpoint, I can add a button to the slide which will activate the video. This works swimmingly when I preview the .ppt in slideshow version.

However, when I publish as an Articulate file, the button to play is disabled. To minimize work, I'm trying to figure out if there's a setting to make sure any .ppt enabled buttons I create still work in Presenter.

As an added note, there is narration on the slide that occurs before the video (what to watch for in the demo basically) that I want to have play.

Any thoughts on how to accomplish this? I've read suggestions about embedding in an Engage interaction, but would prefer not to go that route if there's an easier solution at hand.

Thanks!

sean

21 Replies
Jeanette Brooks
13 years ago02/16/11 at 11:08 am (UTC)

Sean if you are able to convert your movies into a supported format (which you could do with Articulate Video Encoder, if you have it, or you could use a free tool such as Format Factory), then yep you could include the movie in an Engage interaction and choose not to auto-start it. That way the learner could just play the video whenever they're ready.

Another option that might work for you is to place your movie on YouTube and then insert it into Presenter with a web object. That too would give you the flexibility of not autostarting it.

Jeanette Brooks
13 years ago02/16/11 at 12:03 pm (UTC)

What kind of Engage interaction were you thinking of using? For most of them, you'll insert them by clicking the Add Media button in Engage, and then choosing your movie, and then you'll see a dialog box like the one below, where you can choose some options. That's where you can choose to auto start and/or include the playbar:

If you go with a Media Tour interaction, though, it's a little different. Once you pick your movie, there will be a couple checkboxes right below the movie thumbnail where you can pick those options:

Sean Speake
13 years ago02/16/11 at 12:13 pm (UTC)

My preference was actually to work just in Presenter, without doing an additional Engage interaction.

We've got audio that introduces the slide and needs to play before the video starts. There's also audio in the video file.

I've figured out how to automatically start of the video 2 seconds after the intro audio ends (by using the delay option), but I don't see a way to embed a control to allow the user to start the video on their own. Am I missing something?

sean

Jeanette Brooks
13 years ago02/16/11 at 1:05 pm (UTC)

Right, Presenter doesn't currently provide a turn-key way to insert a movie onto a slide with controls.

One option would be to simulate a click-to-play trigger by using two separate slides. The first would show a screengrab of the first frame of the movie, overlaid with a play button that you draw in PowerPoint. You can hyperlink the play button to an identical slide that contains the inserted movie, which would start playing immediately when that slide appears. It would be an effect similar to what Stephanie shows in this screencast.

Another approach would be to add the movie to a blank slide, since Quizmaker allows you to display a playbar. If you use a transparent player in your quiz, and you design your quiz slide background to match your PowerPoint slide background, then this can actually appear pretty seamless. This blog post from Dave Moxon contains an example (scroll down to "2: Add Player Controls to a Video).

If either of those options would work for you, let us know and we can help you noodle it.

Ron Price
13 years ago02/16/11 at 8:04 pm (UTC)

Jeannette's suggestion to use Quizmaker is a good idea.  I love using Quizmaker as a video player.  Especially, since Quizmaker allows multiple videos playing on the same slide. 

However, if you are just trying to add a player control to a video.  Converting the Video using a tool like SWISH VIDEO would allow you add a player to the video.  I personally using the Articulate Video Encoder for ease of use, but SWISH does allow you to add the player.

Sean Speake
13 years ago02/17/11 at 12:09 pm (UTC)

This works very well thanks. It solves 99% of the issues I was facing, much appreciated.

Of course, one other issue has now cropped up. =)

For some reason, when the Quizmaker slide comes up, there is a grey swoosh on the bottom which overrides the bottom of the slide master, which should be showing through. I've gone in and made everything in the Quizmaker template transparent and white, so I'm not sure how to resolve this. Image is attached. The bottom should be like the right hand side, not the lighter left.

I did have an issue with QM overwriting my top border too... quick fix was to place a similar bar at the top of the QM slide. A little finagling, and it fits like a glove.

Thanks for all the help thus far!

sean

Sean Speake
13 years ago02/22/11 at 7:17 am (UTC)

Okay... everything was working swimmingly until this morning. I republished for a final review, and this is what is happening now to the Quizmaker interaction.

Somehow the top bar that I laid into QM so that it would look like the rest of my slides has become un-aligned of it's own volition, and is also showing rounded corners. The only thing that has changed is I've added an additional text box and image in the bottom right to provide instructions.

I've tried to re-insert and re-align the image to no avail.

Anyone have any thoughts on how I can resolve this so I can send this off to my client today?

sean

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