Digital Workshop

Using Pro4 XE, is there any point in putting a "preload resources" for Video clips?

The video formats don't come up as an option, so I'm guessing they're treated differently anyhow.... is that right?

Thanks, Linda

Linda --

Good to hear from you! Haven't seen one of your famous "Asked" and "Answered - by myself" questions in awhile. Having done this myself several times lately, I can sympathize with you. My problem is just "old age."

Back to your Video question -- I use MPEG-1 videos in all of my presentations. Because my final Publications must run from CD-ROMs rather than hard drives, I've found the best, semi-full proof way to make them work is to have a Page appear, then set any Video Object to "Initially Hidden," "Show after 1 second." I've occasionally made the opening second of a video file be just a still image/frame shot with no audio. This gives the computer a chance to load and start to play the video, rather than a "jack rabbit" start. I also do NOT use Shadows, Borders, or any Effects on the Video Object. I also do NOT have any other Animation or Transition happening while a Video is running. I even stop Slideshows to allow the computer's full resources to be focused on running the Video. I use a "Synchronize to End" Trigger to start Slideshows, or any other activities.

When you Preview a Pub from your hard drive, your development computer doesn't have to work as hard as when you run something from your CD-ROM drive. My new P4 computer has a super fast 40x CD-ROM drive, which really has improved the quality of everything I test, but it may be giving me the "best of" situations rather than "worst case" which is what your viewers may be experiencing. Always do final testing on the oldest computer with the least amount of speed/resources that you expect your viewers to be using.

Sadly I'm not quite old enough to blame old age yet, which makes it even worse... currently it's just overwork. We have a big project going on here, a multimedia with video and flash, to be played by one of the big industry leaders to Members of Parliament to make them change their minds.

But the due dates have changed, so I'm working like a headless chicken trying to create something stunning in half the time... hence the sudden rash of threads trying to make things work!

All your video advice is good, and I think I adhere to it all already. It should be in the "useful things to know" section.

Having said that, I love the ability to run small video clips with a border, or blend alpha to set them in a page... the last couple of presentations have looked particularly nice for these features, and with thousands of copies out, we've not had any adverse feedback.

But I'm still intrigued as to whether the "preload resources" has any additional benefit for video... can DW tell me?