Linked sound and video won't run off server

[camnoreal]

Has anyone run into an issue of linked audio and video not running off
of a server? This is happening in my company and IT is clueless. Linked
media runs fine if the source is on my hard drive (or if the audio is
embedded) and it works fine off the server on my Mac and Mac PPT, but
not on my XP PPT version.

I don't know the first thing about servers or how they're set up--does
anyone have any ideas or has anyone run into this issue themselves?
- Camno

 

[Sonia]

There are a lot of questions that I could ask, but the bottom line is that the
links are breaking. This will happen if you move the presentation to another
system and the server drive is mapped differently or if the media files are
moved on the server. It is always best to follow the tips explained at:

Sounds/Movies don't play, images disappear or links break when I move or email a
presentation
http://www.rdpslides.com/pptfaq/FAQ00155.htm
--

Sonia Coleman
Microsoft PowerPoint MVP Team
Autorun Software, Templates and Tutorials
http://www.soniacoleman.com

 

[camnoreal]

Thanks, but it's not a matter of a link working and being broken. It
literally won't play to begin with. We can play movies fine from the
servers using windows media player (and if I set PPT to launch player
to play the movie, this works as well), but we'll place the movie, set
all the prefs and then click the black box and no movie and no error
message. We move the movie to the hard drive, relink and it plays just
fine. I really think it has to do with some conflict with our server
and how it is set up, but I just don't know any more than that (and IT
could care less.)

 

[Sonia]

When are you clicking on the "black box"? Is it in Slide Show view? By "black
box" do you mean the frame image that is inserted? Did you use Insert > Movies
and Sounds > Movie from File to link the video? Are you playing the
presentation on the same machine it was created on?

 

[camnoreal]

Yep, yep, yep, yep. The movie won't play in layout mode (by clicking on
the black frame box or right clicking and selecting play) and it won't
play in slideshow mode either. And agian, things play just fine if I
insert the exact same media when it resides on my hard drive. It just
has to do with the media residing on our server, it seems.

 

[Sonia]

All I can do is reiterate what I said in my first reply. It is best to link a
single folder on your hard drive (as you've learned).