Embedding and activating a video clip

[Glasgow]

I want to embed a video in a web page and activate it immediately when the page is opened. Can someone point me in the right direction please?

Is it possible to do the same with a PowerPoint presentation and set an automatic slide show running without user intervention? The only solution I've come across is one that uses a cloud PowerPoint solution, windows live account and skydrive but it seems to have some limitations.

 

[vacunita]

For Videos it depends on the source. Each video site (like youtube, blip, vimeo etc..) has its own GUI implementations, you'd have to go to the site to find out how to set that up.

If you are embedding a video of your own, the embed object has different parameters. Quicktime and Flash for instance have an autoplay parameter. WMV uses the "autostart" parameter.

http://edvista.com/claire/qt/embedtags/autoplayfalse.html

As far as Powerpoint presentations, you are limited to whether the browser has a PP plugin to open them, as in most cases the powerpoint file will simply download in almost all browsers that aren't Internet Explorer.

There's also the alternative of Google Docs that can help you open many types of files in a browser.


----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[Glasgow]

Thank you for your input and apologies for the late reply. I have tried embedding a .wmv file and using an embedded windows media player. However, this only seems to work ok in Internet Explorer. There are problems in Firefox and Chrome where the black player image appears ok but the movie will not start.

Do I have any alternatives for playing .wmv files and, if not, do you have any recommendations ast to which movie format and embedded player might be best for the purpose of multi-browser compatibility?

 

[vacunita]

An FLV or Flash Video player is the most likely to work across all browsers.

This one for instance is free, and will convert any video to a web friendly format when you set it up.

http://flowplayer.org/index.html

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[Glasgow]

Thanks again. I guess I was hoping for a different answer that involved copy/paste of some HTML !

The video will be uploaded to my customer's own site.

I am having some success cross-browser with a QuickTime <embed> and with MPG video format. It shows in all 3 browsers I am testing with, I'm just having some problems with it displaying as preferred size under IE. The "scale" parameter seems to work for Firefox and chrome but not IE.

 

[vacunita]

This works for me in both IE and FF. for reason Chrome doesn't want to autoplay it though.

OBJECT ID="MediaPlayer" WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="240" CLASSID="CLSID:22D6F312-B0F6-11D0-94AB-0080C74C7E95"
STANDBY="Loading Windows Media Player components..." TYPE="application/x-oleobject">
<PARAM NAME="FileName" VALUE="video.wmv">
<PARAM name="autostart" VALUE="true">
<PARAM name="ShowControls" VALUE="true">
<param name="ShowStatusBar" value="false">
<PARAM name="ShowDisplay" VALUE="false">
<PARAM name="Scale" VALUE="tofit">
<EMBED TYPE="application/x-mplayer2" SRC="video.wmv" NAME="MediaPlayer"
WIDTH="320" HEIGHT="240" ShowControls="1" ShowStatusBar="0" ShowDisplay="0" autostart="1" scale="tofit"> </EMBED>
</OBJECT>

----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[Glasgow]

Interesting - I couldn't get wmv files playing with media player in firefox at all. I'll take a look at this tomorrow, thanks.

 

[Glasgow]

I can't get Chrome to work at all let alone auto start! And I have sizing/scaling problems with FF.

Do you know if chrome uses the <embed> tag contents or the <param> values within the <object> tag?

It's been suggested elsewhere that I upload video to Vimeo site and include some HTML they provide.

 

[vacunita]

Yes chrome supports the <param> elements as faras I know.

Uploading to a sharing site like Vimeo or even Youtube would be a good solution, as the site would take care of the file conversion, and player html and all you would need is to paste a line of HTML into your page like you wanted. This would also guarantee that the video will play no matter what browser is used, including mobile browsers. Which would of course not have played a WMV video at all.




----------------------------------
Phil AKA Vacunita
----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

Behind the Web, Tips and Tricks for Web Development.

http://behindtheweb.blogspot.com/

 

[feherke]

Hi

It's been suggested elsewhere that I upload video to Vimeo site and include some HTML they provide.

Or install PHPMotion and host your video portal.

Feherke.

http://free.rootshell.be/~feherke/