Cannot insert movie from network drive

J

jbwerner

I'm using Windows XP and PowerPoint XP. I'm trying to insert a movie. When
the movie file is stored on our network drive I get the following error:
Cannot display this type of sound or movie. When I copy the movie to my C
drive it works fine. I can play the movie using mplay32. I've read about
some problems with long path names, so I tried copying the file to the root
of the network drive and I still had problems. I really need to have the
movie on the network. Does anyone have any ideas?
 
E

Echo S

What happens if you put the PPT file on the network drive in the same folder
as the movie?

Or maybe try this --

Copy the ppt file and the movie to a folder on your C drive. Insert the
movie into the ppt file. Copy the entire folder to the network drive. Delete
the folder on your C drive.
 
A

Austin Myers

Playing a media file from a networked drive is "iffy" at best. Two reasons
for it.

PPT doesn't really insert the media on the slide, it inserts a placeholder
for it, and then calls the media when needed. Should it run into ANY timing
issues from the network in getting the the entire file in one gulp, it won't
play and will simply ignore it and move on with the presentation. (FYI, you
will really see this on a Novell network.)

There is a workaround, you may use the Windows Media Player control
(activex) on the slide and point the URL to the networked drive/file. Why
does this work? Because the Windows Media Player has "buffering"
specifically to overcome the timing delays/issues.

Austin Myers
MS PowerPoint MVP Team
 
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