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I got the following minimum working example from: \includemedia won't play video

I use Windows and have Adobe X. I can get the MWE to compile, but in the .pdf, I cannot get it to play unless I use the VPlayer option as below and make a few additional modifications as in the media9 manual.

In addition, I am wondering whether there is a way to include it as apart of the cover slide, and also in a way such that it is barely (ideally almost not at all) visible?

I suspect that APlayer.swf might be preferred but I cannot get that working. Also, I imagine that I'd like to not use \pagewidth, but something much smaller. 

\documentclass{beamer}
 \usetheme{Singapore}
 \usepackage{media9}

 \title{TITLE}
 \author{AUTHOR}
 \institute{INSTITUTE}
 \date{DATE}

\begin{document}

 \addtocounter{framenumber}{-1}
 \frame{\titlepage}

 \begin{frame}{Title}

 \includemedia[
 width=\paperwidth,
 height=0.7\linewidth,
  activate=pageopen,
 addresource=movie.mp4,
 flashvars={source=movie.mp4
 &loop=true
 &scaleMode=letterbox
   }
 ]{}{VPlayer.swf}

 \end{frame}
\end{document}
Community
  • 1
J G
  • 2,593

1 Answers1

4

Just remove the height and width options from \includemedia. Since there is no text-box argument (last-but-one argument), the video box will have zero size and be invisible. In order to be able to start playing the sound, you will have to specify a combination of activate=pageopen option (done already) and autoPlay=true FlashVar.

APlayer.swf can only play MP3 sound files.

If you want the sound to be played on the cover slide, then you will have to insert it there: \frame{\titlepage\includemedia...}.

Video and sound files are embedded as part of the PDF and don't need be distributed along with the PDF.

Slow down of page transitions may occur because AdobeReader has to uncompress and load the embedded media files and players while opening a page with embedded media.

If you just want to start playback of a sound file when the PDF is opened and let it play for the remaining time of the presentation, embed it on the cover page (see above) and use option deactivate=onclick. This suppresses un-loading of the media when the cover page is left during the presentation.

AlexG
  • 54,894
  • Thank you for your answer! Indeed, removing the height and width solved that problem. As for the VPlayer, APlayer, and other .swf options, what are the different types of videos and sound bytes that I can use? I thought it had to be .mp. I had an .flv that I converted to .mp (somehow came out .m4v in the conversion). In addition, you may notice that I edited my post because I added a cover slide. I realize I referred to it in my post without having code for it. My question is how can I have the music be played as part of the first slide. – J G Nov 13 '12 at 08:00
  • Two additional questions if that is ok. First, the .pdf is kind of slow in transitioning from the slide with the music to the next slide. Is that just inevitable? Second, how could I play this .pdf with the soundbite (or video) on another computer? Say I were to email this .pdf to somebody? They wouldn't automatically get the sound with it I'd imagine, right? Would I need to email the video too? I'm a little unsure of how that would work. – J G Nov 13 '12 at 08:02
  • media9 ships with 3 media players: VPlayer.swf (MP4, FLV), APlayer.swf (MP3), StrobeMediaPlayback (MP4, FLV, MP3). Which tool do you use for conversion? I recommend open-source FFmpeg for any conversion. Playing only the sound of a video file is kind of abuse. I'd convert the video into MP3 (removing the video information) and use APlayer.swf instead. – AlexG Nov 13 '12 at 08:38
  • Thanks for the open source suggestion. I had found something else online. I'd like to use the FFmpeg, although I'm having a hard time understanding from the website exactly what to download :( What do you mean it is kind of abuse? Like it is too much memory (computer space) to not need the video but to still have it? Would that be more efficient for the .pdf file? – J G Nov 13 '12 at 08:50
  • Also, just wondering whether you know about how to add the music to the title slide rather than a slide within the presentation? And also how to implement this on another computer if that would pose a problem? – J G Nov 13 '12 at 09:12
  • Mostly for file size reasons I wouldn't embed video without showing it. FFMpeg is a command-line tool. You need to download a pre-compiled, statically linked binary for your specific Windows version. – AlexG Nov 13 '12 at 09:23
  • As for embedding on the title slide see my updated answer. The ready PDF should be readable on any other computer with AR-X. – AlexG Nov 13 '12 at 09:25
  • Thank you for the updated answer! It is very clear and helpful. I don't quite understand what you mean by the FFMpeg still. That is, I still don't understand how to access it. Specifically, which format would you recommend if I am only doing sound---mp? – J G Nov 13 '12 at 10:44
  • As already said at various places, MP3 is the sound format you need. FFMpeg is a media converter and encoder. The following command line example extracts the sound track from a video file into a sound file: ffmpeg -i origVideoFile.mp4 soundFile.mp3. – AlexG Nov 13 '12 at 11:14