These forums are now Read Only. If you have an Acrobat question, ask questions and get help from one of our experts.

Streaming Video to Acrobat File

JoeBob
Registered: Jul 25 2010
Posts: 1

I need to email Acrobat files to prospects, so the files have to be small. I want to have a video file run when the end user opens the Acrobat file.

I've created a test Acrobat file and linked an mp4 video file to it that is downloaded from my web server. Works good, but the file isn't truly streaming, it plays as a progressive download.

As I understand it, Acrobat can stream either FLV or h.264 compliant video from a Flash Media Server.

I've seen several streaming video hosting providers, they all explain how to embed the video in my website, which isn't the same as linking it to an Acrobat file.

Here are my questions:

1) how do I format the link/url in Acrobat to the file on the server?
2) Where do I host the media file, none of the hosting providers seem to allow me to link directly to the file the way I need to in Acrobat.

A final question, is there a sample file somewhere that I can link to so I can see how this works? Maybe a currently hosted streaming video somewhere?

Thanks for helping an obvious Acrobat newbie.

My Product Information:
Acrobat Pro 9.3.1, Macintosh
UVSAR
Expert
Registered: Oct 29 2008
Posts: 1357
The video widget in Acrobat 9 can connect to a Media Server stream with an rtmp:// prefix. The URL you enter in the Video Tool dialog in Acrobat depends on the folder structure you create on the server, but must end with the filename and extension for Acrobat to recognize it as an FLV. It may for example look like

rtmp://my.fmserver.web/movetrailers/superman.flv


If you have a Red Hat Linux or Windows Server machine, you can install a free developer edition of FMIS, limited to 10 connections but otherwise fully functioning, from

http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediainteractive/

Beyond that, of course it costs a significant amount to have your content hosted by a streaming provider or run your own server, and unless your videos have a correspondingly-high value that you need to protect from theft, or you expect hundreds of simultaneous views, I'd stick to progressive download.