(I posted this to the community a few days ago and received no reply. Since I believe it may require help from a source directly connected to Adobe itself I just tried to post it there but was directed here again by the only options I could find. Is this in fact the place from which it could be 'escalated'? I'm of course grateful for any and all help.)
Hello,
I am having a problem inserting audio and video files into PDFs that I need help with. Unless I am mistaken, this is particular problem that cannot be solved by remoting into my compter and trying various solutions. If I’m right, it must be addressed to a person with advanced knowledge of Rich Media applications in Acrobat (and perhaps of Adobe policies and plans as well) – an expert whose knowledge I’m willing to pay a reasonable fee for access to. To use the word I’ve learned from prior tech support interactions, in my opinion it will almost certainly need to be ‘escalated’.
It concerns a book about American (deaf) Sign Language that I have almost finished writing – three volumes accessing literally hundreds of audio and video clips lasting about one sentence each. For best results the clips should be embedded into the PDF so readers will not have to co-ordinate with external folders containing the many clips (which would be many folders, since each volume has multiple appendices showing videos with a separat folder for each appendix). This all worked perfectly in an earlier version of Volume 1, which embedded MOV files seamlessly. Then came Apple’s announcement that they would no longer perform security updates to Quicktime for the PC, leading to all kinds of restrictions placed on MOVs over the internet and in PDFs. My suggestion below will be that when we embed MP4s instead of MOVs into PDFs these restrictions should not be necessary, but they still exist, and I fervently hope they can be removed.
Below I list the methods I have tried, and their results. You can confirm this for yourselves in the Test.PDF file that I have attached. Which was built while residing in the folder that I connect to in the Dropbox link below.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/rnqagzut8fabuge/AAA0lEukYruMFffWb-NmHtZ4a?dl=0
Audio via the “Add Sound” widget: Ideally the sound should simply play instead of opening a window that users must subsequently close. This succeeded, but only once. To hear the sound again, one needs to right-click and specify that it should be opened in a floating window, which provides an ‘X’ button from which it can be closed and then re-opened. Or just open it in a floating window to start with, which should be needless. It also disrupts one’s concentration, which is fostered by being able to hear the sound (a sentence) again immediately.
Audio via linking to a local mp3: To do this one can right-click an icon already in the PDF and choose ‘Create Link’. Not surprisingly this works only if the media file can be found on one’s currrent PC in the folder specified, which I am trying to avoid having to do as I said above.
Audio via the “Add Button” widget: This works beautifully, even when moving to PCs that are ignorant of the folder containing the media file. So apparently Acrobat stores the sound itself inside the PDF. However, it WILL NOT ACCEPT THE MODERN STANDARD mp3. I WAS FORCED TO USE THE BIGGER, OUTDATED AND POSSIBLY LESS LONG-LIVED .wav. (WHY?!)
Video via the “Add Video” widget: This works even on PCs with no direct access to the video files themselves, which suggests that Acrobat stores the actual videos inside the PDF, which is WONDERFUL since I don’t want the users to need direct access to them. However, just as with the “Add Sound” widget, to view it again one must close the window and re-open it, which is less bad since the window must be already open anyway, but it is crucial that my users have controls permitting either slow motion or frame-by-frame viewing since they will be charged with analyzing the brow raises, head tilts, and so on in these sign language sentences in detail. Unfortunately, ONE CANNOT PROVIDE THE VIDEO FILE WITH CONTROLS SINCE ‘HIDE CONTROLS’ IS CHECKED=yes AND GRAYED OUT SO UNREACHABLE! (WHY?!) If only this (needless?) restriction could be removed my dreams would be fulfilled.
Video via linking to a local mp3: To do this one can right-click an icon already in the PDF and choose ‘Create Link’. Not surprisingly, this works only if the media file can be found.
Video via the “Add Button” widget: This works only if the video file can be found in the path, which IS surprising since, if Acrobat is willing to store the video inside the PDF via the “Add Video” widget, why will it not do so via the “Add Button” widget?
Back in 2008 I published on the internet an academic article in which Quicktime MOV videos were entirely embedded into the PDF, with the file names of the video files themselves quite invisible to the users, who could click icons in the PDF to view the videos with all the controls and frame-by-frame viewing that I could wish for. Last I was able to check, the floating video windows in my article on the publisher's website open just once and with no controls just like what happens with the “Add Video” widget as described above. For an article I published in 2009 I wrote a little website for the video clips containing PDFs in which their MOV videos were embedded. Now clicking on those its icons leads to no result at all.
In Test.PDF that I attach to this e-mail, if the MP4 file is available in the folder pointed to in the path, I can open the file in any player I choose with all the controls I want (I will be recommending MPC-HC to readers). Since these are MP4’s, why is it not possible both to embed the video into the document and to open it with controls at the same time? Shouldn’t the use of MP4’s instead of MOV’s make this possible?
And why on earth would audio added with the “Add Audio” widget not accept MP3’s?
As another possible solution:
Is it possible somehow to “compile” a PDF and the media files that it links to into a single file whose insides are just as opaque to readers as the PDF itself?? (Or am I just dreaming?)
As a separate but important issue, it would GREATLY improve my workflow if I could specify the default parameters of the ‘poster’ for embedded videos including the file name of the poster image and and that its icon should have no label or border. As matters now stand I must explicitly specify these again and again and again for every single video I embed.
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