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Question

Embedding Videos (links) in InDesign, Where can I host them online?

Forum|Forum|12 years ago
October 31, 2013
7 replies
20348 views

Hello all,

I'm at a real loss here. I'm teaching my students to use Adobe Indesign's interactive publishing features. That's all well and good but we are having some issues with video. I understand that when you link a video in, it doesn't imbed - it goes into a resources folder. I've accepted that there is no way to actually embed the videos on the front end. However, there is a way to embed via a link which would solve the problem of having this extra tagalong Resources folder and prevent the file itself from becoming giantic.

The problem is you cannot embed files from youtube, vimeo, flickr etc. because the file paths do not start with http:// and end with .mov/.flv etc. I've tried truncating the links but that's ineffective.

Is there a free service somewhere that the students can upload their videos which will provide the proper file path?

I understand that if they all had their own hosting none of this would be an issue - they could just host the videos themselves and make a filepath through their own domain/hosting. However, not all of the students have this option, and the Swf/PDF is useless unless they can send it without that resources folder attached. We want the final file to work no matter where it is by linking back to a hosted video.

This topic has been closed for replies.

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dfelic21Author

Participating Frequently

I would consider teaching DPS for my interactive class because I know many students would embrace it, but I'm afraid it's going to be a major hassle. Very few students at this school can afford Ipads (many don't even have personal laptops) and I'm not allowed to add any books to the cirriculum and require that they purchase them (though they can be suggested). Ultimately I think they will be disspointed to make a app and then never get to try it on an tablet device. I don't even own one so I can't really even practice the transition myself.

I'm not sure if they can sign into Apple ID yet, we are transitioning to Creative Cloud which might help next year. Currently I cannot even install basic drivers on the computer, and if the software isn't already on the computer or updated I cannot do anything about it. I learned all this when I tried to teach Fontlab and have them design a functional typeface. I hardly have access to change settings in these labs let alone install Fontlab or one of the similar free versions. I ended up having to do something much less relvent, by having them do it in Illustrator.

Unless there are lots of free learning resources (like good video tutorials, books etc) and it doesn't require any installation, updates, or money I can teach it. Kind of limiting. Corporate talked about beginning a digital publishing major - if they do they will provide Ipads and then they can start teaching some of this stuff. I know all the PDF features availble in Acrobat are still in InDesign (they very neatly divided the digital published section to show what is only swf output and what can be PDF output). I do cover the differences and teach them to make digital forms. I think they just like all the animation and fun stuff that a Swf provides. I still think it's good for them to learn motion paths, timing, and alternate layouts (I suppose thats the begginning step to DPS in a way). I appreciate all the input.

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RichardSwearinger

Known Participant

OT, but I have to say that those students are lucky to have someone teaching them who works in letterpress. I started printing with type set out using a California job case, and that experience has really helped me to learn and then teach all the Adobe products because so many of them are based on the metaphor of 19th and early 20th century photography, typesetting, production, and printing. Just as an example the QuickMask in photoshop is the exact same orange as the overlay in Amberlith masking film.

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dfelic21Author

Participating Frequently

I understand that Flash is dead, but it's not about that. It's about dipping a toe into the water regarding the ideas of intereactivity. I teach a separate course on interactivity but that's HTML/ CSS based. The students only have four weeks to work on this. It's a portfolio course where they are correcting and preparing their images for their final portfolio. Making an interactive version of their portfolios is just an exercise. Anything they create here would essentially be a sketch or a mock up for a real interactive project, not something that would be considered a finalized interactive piece. I'm well aware that none of it responsive or viewable on mobile. I really don't think these students would be capable of learning an entierly new workflow in four weeks, though I suppose some of them could surprise me. Do you know and resources for learning this? Be aware I cannot ask them to spend any money (it's policy) so they cannot purchase developer's liscences or any additional software. I also cannot install any software on the school computers. These limitations are why I stayed with this sort of project, but I'm open to other ideas.

BobLevine

Community Expert

You can do everything with DPS for free up to the actual publishing of

the app so cost is not an issue.

I get what you're trying to do but if they know InDesign they can get

DPS very quickly and instead of learning to prototype an app, they'll

learn how to create one.

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dfelic21Author

Participating Frequently

Yes, thank you all.

What I'm having them do is explore the newer "Digital Publishing" section of Indesign. I want them to work with the animation and navigation features that were added in CS5. The plan is that they will use these skills to mock up Apps or interactive magazines. They do not have the programming skills to actually create epub documents or apps (honsetly I don't either, I'm actually a letterpress printer by trade, but I teach some of the basic web classes), but they could use these projects to show conceptual development and of course they could always get in touch with a developer. The professonal agencies we have meet have all put an emphasis on mocking up these sorts of things even if they don't actually "work" as what they are. They don't have enough Flash experience to go directly to Flash, the program is a mostly print based Graphic Design program. If you have a better way, feel free to share.

BobLevine

Community Expert

Based on your description here you are doing everyone a disservice.

SWF is dead as it can be for this purpose. It won't work on any mobile

device and many desktop users don't have flash player installed. Adobe

has stopped including it with Reader and Acrobat, as well. Digital

Publishing for InDesign at this point involves DPS which has no support

for native InDesign animations or SWF and is in fact, a very unique

workflow.

If I'm misinterpreting what you're teaching please clarify it and we can

go from there.

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dfelic21Author

Participating Frequently

I'm going to make sure to throrougly test this dropbox link on some different machines. The one thing that does occur is when you go to play the video you get a warning asking for permission to access the link. If you click allow it plays just fine as of now.

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dfelic21Author

Participating Frequently

Ah genuis! Why didn't I think of Dropbox. That worked. All I had to do was upload it to the public folder, copy over the link, and delete the 's' in the https://

What I have been having them do is export the initial file as a swf. Then they re-open Indesign, place the swf and export as a PDF. That way they don't loose any of the navigation and animation which is swf exclusive and that seems to work very well. Of course the person veiwing it still needs a flash player (just as they would with the swf), but it makes the file neater because it trims it down to a page and makes it at least openable on all computers so they can add non animated pages as a backup if the swf won't launch. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but it works.