Playback Options for Video

[tmcq]

I have embedded a short avi video file into a flipchart page to share with the other same-subject teachers at my school. Most of us have the following happen: The video starts, but a black screen appears. We can hear the audio, but have to right-click, then choose "zoom" and "full-screen" to see the video. One of the teachers has the video open directly, without need for the right-click, but we are unable to zoom the video to full screen on her system. Is there a setting somewhere that is governing this behavior?

[davidlloyd]

It may have something to do with your hardware acceleration settings but I'm not technical enough to help really. I'm sure there'll be something about it on these fora if you do a search. Or try the Promethean Knowledge Base. If all that fails then Tech Support should be able to help.

[tmcq]

????Me again...replying to bring this message to the top again since I didn't get any answers. Does anyone have an idea why this is happening? (When I embed avi video into a flipchart, starting the video creates a blank screen...I have to right click and change the zoom to see the video - another teacher had a different result to the same flipchart. She could see the video immediately, but in her case, we could not zoom the video to full screen.)

I would like a fix, because we have a 6 teacher collaboration - all teaching the same course and sharing planning duties. I want to include some videos in the units I plan.

[Dawson]

Me three. I would love an answer to this as I have computers at my school that will and some that won't play video clips. They all have the same VLC player they all have codec packs but the player withing ActivStudio is OLD. VERY OLD. This often means on selected machines they have to go out of the ActivStudio and play it from a file. VERY annoying and I for one would like some logical explanation and a HOW TO guide to stop it hapening.

Answers .... ANYONE?????

[Westlake]

Me four - I am trying to insert a .avi file in my flipchart page (yes, I do have the most updated version of AS3)
The Placeholder appears, and the link symbol shows when I mouse over it BUT when I click the placeholder to Play the video, it DISAPPEARS COMPLETELY gone without trace.
When I turn to the next page, then back again the Placeholder is there - same problem with the disappearing trick again.
This is all very frustrating as I have done this before. It does work fine in Inspire, but the school I am training tomorrow has AS3
???? ???? ???? ????
Thanks,
Hilary

[DavidFhu]

Hi

Like what David had recommend, I will advice you to give Promethean Knowledge a try. Likely you will not have a direct there as it could be something to do with Video Card on the PC, or Laptop.

Drop the Technical Support an message for them to get back to you. :)

????Me again...replying to bring this message to the top again since I didn't get any answers. Does anyone have an idea why this is happening? (When I embed avi video into a flipchart, starting the video creates a blank screen...I have to right click and change the zoom to see the video - another teacher had a different result to the same flipchart. She could see the video immediately, but in her case, we could not zoom the video to full screen.)

I would like a fix, because we have a 6 teacher collaboration - all teaching the same course and sharing planning duties. I want to include some videos in the units I plan.

[DavidFhu]

Hi, Dawson.

When you mention some will and some won't, what is the different in Operating software, Application software and hardware? When we group the same item together, we will have a logical explanation with what is different which cause it not to work right.

Me three. I would love an answer to this as I have computers at my school that will and some that won't play video clips. They all have the same VLC player they all have codec packs but the player withing ActivStudio is OLD. VERY OLD. This often means on selected machines they have to go out of the ActivStudio and play it from a file. VERY annoying and I for one would like some logical explanation and a HOW TO guide to stop it hapening.

Answers .... ANYONE?????

[dentje]

This may be a solution:

http://www.Prometheanplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8327

While the flipchart on this page is for Inspire, I suggest you consider my video setup for your machines (or at the least, test it on one machine), as this works for primary and studio as well.


One other possibility is related to video overlay - a technique used to display a video window on a computer display while bypassing the chain of CPU -> graphics card -> computer monitor, a technique used by many graphics accelerator cards. Not knowing what system you have, it's hard to be specific, but check the graphics cards setup for video overlay settings.

I also notice that starting 2 instances of video overlay at the same time can cause activ software video with black screen - so if I start certain kinds of video/dvd software first, then try to play a video within a flipchart, then the result is sound with black screen.

Something everyone needs to know - not all avi files are the same, so one may play ok in a placeholder, another may not. This is because avi is not strictly a video format - it's a container, which holds audio and video - both of which can be encoded in a variety of different ways. For example, I could have an xvid encoded viideo and mp3 audio in one avi, but h264 video and ogg audio in another avi. The latter will cause problems on most machines. That's why I'm an advocate of ffdshow (see my link above) as it can successfully handle most of these without causing system conflicts