Adding Video in .NET framework

Printing UPCA in .NET framework Adding Video

the name and location of the video file The second new attribute is start, which defines how the browser should start the video

It s possible to use an <object> tag to display a video file In this case, you re using a special kind of program called an ActiveX control a proprietary script that works only on Windows machines The technique shown in this section works with most versions of Windows other than XP because it relies on an older version of Windows Media Player You can also use the newer version found in Windows XP when you need added capability To add an ActiveX control to your Web page, follow these steps:

After a few moments, you see a list of controls like the one shown in Figure 3-4

Here s the essential code for the <object> tag used for this example (the actual tag contains more code):

<object width= 200 height= 225 classid= CLSID:05589FA1-C356-11CE-BF01-00AA0055595A id= Control1> <param name= filename value= TimeFliesavi > </object>

The width and height attributes control the size of the window The classid is a special number that identifies an object on your machine when you run Windows This number tells Windows which object to load and determines what kind of object Windows creates When you want to use the newer version of the Windows Media Player on Windows XP machines, use the following classid value:

The <param> tag defines a special property for the Windows Media Player object the name and location of the file you want to play Windows Media Player has many other properties you can define, but this is the only required property Each property you want to define appears as part of a <param> tag After you define the initial <object> tag, look at Design view and you see the object Right-click the object and choose ActiveX Control Properties FrontPage displays the Option dialog box shown in Figure 3-5

The advantage of this technique is that you have control over every aspect of the video playback In addition, the user gains access to controls the other methods don t even support (Figure 3-5 shows some of these controls) The user can also right-click the control on-screen and make other changes depending on how you set up the video playback Using the <object> tag method is the most versatile approach when you can guarantee the user has Windows installed One other issue with this approach is that you have to use Audio Video Interleaved (AVI) files, not Windows Media Video (WMV) files Unfortunately, current versions of Microsoft s products don t produce anything but WMV files, so you need a converter such as Fx Video Converter to create the AVI file You can download this product at the following location:

You have two other options for displaying a standard video on-screen They are similar to options used to include audio: You can create a hyperlink This technique is similar to the one for audio (in the Using a hyperlink section of the chapter) Its advantage is that anyone can use the result; you don t have to worry about browser compatibility The only issue is whether the user has the player required for your particular video format In addition, the user can play the video as many times as needed and you can provide multiple links for various connection speeds You can use an interactive button The advantage of this technique is that it provides choice and a nice presentation; you can select buttons to match your current theme To use this technique, follow the steps for an audio file in the Using an interactive button section of the chapter