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MPG Video Play Issue

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2010-03-10 11:40:19
John V.
Registered: Mar 9 2010
Posts: 4

We have been troubleshooting a video playback issue that has cropped up in around the time Acrobat 9.3 was released. I’ve been working through and searching other posts and maybe I’ve missed the answer so if anyone can point me in the right direction or have an answer to our issue it would be greatly appreciated.

The closest post I found was Problems with legacy media in Reader 9.3, which sound similar.

We develop classroom presentation in Acrobat which include audio and video files that are linked into the PDF files, we do not embed the files as the cue time is long. These presentations are distributed on CD-ROM. We have been developing these classroom presentations since 1999.

The completed classroom presentations are then mass duplicated on CD-ROMs and reordered as needed. We currently have over 80 different classroom presentations so switching formats isn't a real option.

Presentations from 1999-2004 use QuickTime files, 2005-current use MPG and MP3 files.

The issue started showing up more and more with some XP and Windows 7 users with Acrobat 9.3 based on the volume of calls. When an instructor clicks on a video or audio file the video or audio file will not play.

We have an existing procedure that requires users to go into the Multimedia (legacy) setting and choose the Windows Built-In Player. Then go to the Multimedia Trust (legacy) and first select each trusted document, a player from the window below and set the permission to Always and select the check boxes for the options below that window. Then they select each of the remaining players in the window individually and then set the permissions.

We then have them stay in the Multimedia Trust (legacy) and next select Other documents and follow the same procedure of selecting each media player, setting the permission to Always etc.

This worked up to the first versions of Acrobat 9.

We also make sure the users have the correct version of QuickTime to play the older presentations with QuickTime movies, some older versions of QuickTime have conflicts with Acrobat 9 which we have addressed.

Currently the presentations with QuickTime movies play, only the presentations with MPG and MP3 files won’t play.

The presentations are made of multiple PDF files due to their size and organized into a folder structure on a CD-ROM. We did the following test:

1. We went into the folder structure to directly open up a MPG file and it does open in Windows Media Player and plays fine.
2. Next we went one step out and opened up a PDF file that had a linked movie, when you select the movie in the PDF file it does play.
3. Next we went one more step out and selected a PDF file that was linked to another PDF file that contains a movie. When we selected the move in the PDF to play it did not play.

When you are in a PDF file with a movie and put the curser over the movie location it does recognize it and the curser changes from the arrow to the hand. You can click on the video and at that point the video fails to play.

Our links from one PDF to another open in the existing window so we don’t have multiple files open as the presentation is done.

If anyone has a fix so the videos play correctly in Acrobat 9.3 that would be great.

Thank you for any assistance.

John

My Product Information:
Reader 9.2
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2010-03-15 05:58:41
#1
Oppai2
Registered: Mar 14 2010
Posts: 6
Hi, look at my problem below. There seems to be connection (but alas, no solution...)

"Hello,

I have made an extensive PDF with some short .mov clips using Acrobat Pro 8 that I finished last August and came back to now.
Much to my surprise (and chagrin) the movies won´t play any more nor am I asked if I want to add this file to my "trusted files" as was the case before. Is this caused by some security update?
Renaming or even replacing the clips with .wmv files doesn´t work. Across several computer the result is the same. There is no indication that the boxes are even acknowledged as movies by Acrobat Pro 8 or Reader 9.3.
Any help on the matter!
Let´s say a patch blocks media replay. How do I update my PDF.file to play media clips again? Other formats, settings?

Help is really much appreciated!!!
Thank you in advance!"
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2010-03-15 07:55:40
#2
John V.
Registered: Mar 9 2010
Posts: 4
We have been working on this and right not in my view Acrobat 9.3 has some issues. We have a school that has computers installed at the same time, OS, Acrobat, QuickTime and one will play videos and one won’t.

What I can recommend with 9.3 is under Multimedia Trust check not only Trusted documents but also select Other documents and set each of the media to always play. We have found the Other documents multimedia operations can be a hang up playing videos.

If this doesn’t work, going back to Acrobat 8.2 and setting all the Multimedia Trust settings should allow you to play the video, at least from our experience.
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2010-03-17 01:33:57
#3
Oppai2
Registered: Mar 14 2010
Posts: 6
Check this out. It is an amazing (in a bad way) answer to my and possibly your problem in reply to my post.
http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?pid=64502#p64502

"Unfortunately the problems playing legacy media (audio and video that relies on loading an external player such as Quicktime or Windows Media Player) aren't going to go away, as by allowing them we can't help but open security loopholes; because we're relying on someone else's code that often has exploitable bugs in it. The 9.3 and 8.2 patches turn off legacy by default, and restrict it even when it's manually re-enabled. As with all security patches, precisely what's changed and why is not made public, but the outcome is self-evident: Adobe strongly steers people to use the internal Flash media abilities in Reader and Acrobat 9, as by running all rich media content through the specially-sandboxed Flash Player compiled into version 9, it can be kept from accessing things it shouldn't. Although Acrobat 8 can embed a Flash video, it does it as a legacy asset (opening an *external* copy of Flash Player to run it) so it's affected by the patch restrictions just the same.


If you really open up the MM Trust settings (setting them to allow everything) you can get most legacy content to play eventually, but you have to remember that by doing so for every PDF, you're also re-opening the vulnerabilities that the patch was trying to close, so *only* do it for files you absolutely know are safe, and make absolutely sure that you're not allowing the trust to apply to all files you open through the Web or emails. There are still PDFs in the wild trying to exploit the pre-Feb holes, as they know there's a huge rollout tail for Acrobat and Reader, especially in the corporate sector.

Yes, I know if you've got Acrobat 8 and don't want to pay to upgrade to 9, you're stuck - but the code for 9 is so completely different it's just not viable to add those features into 8 through a dot release."
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