Importing Movies into InDesign
Susan wrote:
I am trying to import a video file into my document, but InDesign says “Cannot place the file. No filter found for requested operation.” What does this mean and what do I need to do? The file is saved as a Windows Media Audio/Video file.
The answer to your question lies in your last statement: Windows. InDesign can import movie files on both Mac OS and Windows, but as far as I know, it uses QuickTime to do the “reading.” Therefore, if QuickTime can’t read it, then InDesign can’t either. Actually, it’s even more restrictive than that — specifically, the documentation tells us:
“QuickTime 6.0 or later is required to work with movies in InDesign. You can add QuickTime, AVI, MPEG, and SWF movies, and you can add WAV, AIF, and AU sound clips. InDesign supports only 8? or 16?bit WAV files that are not compressed.”
So even though I can open WMV files in QuickTime on my machine just fine (because I have Flip4Mac WMV), InDesign still won’t accept that kind of file. Oh well. There are a number of converter utilities available on the Web.
By the way, if you are going to import movies into InDesign, note that they will only play once you export them to PDF. (Even in CS4, InDesign does not support movies in any other export format, including SWF.) And you must turn on the Interactive Elements checkbox in the PDF Options dialog box. No checkbox, no movie.
InDesign can’t even use WMV files in Windows.
If you try with an AVI file, it works fine.
But Acrobat uses Windows Media Player to play back the AVI in the exported PDF, so I really can’t understand why InDesign can’t link to a WMV file.
@Audun: Why do you think Acrobat uses WMP to play movies in Windows? I believe it uses QuickTime, not WMP.
Acrobat can’t see .wmv files when you try to add them, either.
According to Ted Padova’s Acrobat 9 Bible,
“…the playback of your [legacy, i.e., not-Flash] video [in Reader] uses an external player. The player may be the external Flash player, Windows built-in player, RealOne Player, Windows Media Player, or Apple’s QuickTime.”
I just tried embedding an .avi file in a pdf and viewing it on a Vista machine. The video window opened as usual, but was filled with diagonal lines (no video image at all) and some message about “…can’t find the vids: DX50 decompressor…”
CONVERT (export from QuickTime Pro) full size .mov file (640×480) or (720×480)
to AVI and import to InDesign. Resize to 320×240 etc. Seems to work on
Vista and Mac (need to view it with Adobe Reader, not Preview).
Thanks for this. I had this problem and it was a big help.
I tried converting my FLV to an AVI, choosing Show Playbar and Play Once. After exporting to PDF, I do get the playbar and the movie appears to play only once, but the movie is a black square, cannot see the movie itself.
Before that I tried converting my FLV to a SWF and placing it into InDesign. When exported to PDF, the movie plays, but no playbar and the movie keeps looping instead of stopping after playing once.
I can place media files in my InDesign doc, and create page transitions but when I save it as a PDF only the movie file plays and no page transitions work.
When I save it as SWF the page transitions work but the movie no longer works, it is only a static image.
What am I doing wrong?
@Rocko: ID does not export movies in SWF files. As for the page transitions: Are you in full-screen mode? Page transitions only work when Acrobat is in full-screen mode.
@David Blatner: Does that mean I can only have one or the other? i.e. either page transitions or movie. I am in full page mode an it still wont transition
Use the Adobe Media Encoder to convert your file to something InDesign or Flash will use. That way you are covered if you go PDF or Flash.
That’s what has been working for me.
I’m trying to import a movie file into an ID interactive document. I placed a .avi file and can see a ’static ‘ preview. When exported to .swf the movie doesn’t play. Then, I imported the movie file into Flash, resaved as .swf (the .swf plays in Flash ok) but when I’ve placed it into ID, I don’t see a ’static’ preview – only a ‘roll of film’ graphic – I exported the complete ID file as .swf to play the whole document but the movie file doesn’t play.
Is there a way to import and place Youtube Movies within Indesign so that when you export to Interactive PDF’s or Flash Documents they are embedded?
Thanks,
Robert
@Robert: No, I don’t think there is a way to embed a file like that. You can link to a URL, but it needs to be a specific FLA or MOV file.
@John: Check out this blog post here: http://indesignsecrets.com/should-you-use-legacy-or-flash-media-in-cs5.php
how do i place a video in indesign than export it to pdf
without losing the grafics above it?
You would need to make the graphics buttons or some kind of interactive objects — otherwise the movie will overlap them. (I’m still not even sure that the movie won’t overlap other interactive objects sometimes, but it’s worth a try.)
I allready installed the quicktime, but it still doesn’t work, I still can place video on my InDesign Cs. 3. What should I do?
I have InDesign CS2 and am trying to put a movie/video into my document. The instructions say you have to have QuickTime 6 or later. I bought QuickTime 7 Pro. But I still keep getting “Filter not found) when I try to Place. In fact, InDesign doesn’t even recognize my QT movie. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
@Ubai and Beth: I would check the kind of movie you’re trying to place. Just because QuickTime can play it doesn’t mean that InDesign can place it. For example, if it’s an .avi file or something like that, ID won’t place it. For old versions of InDesign, you should probably use .mov, and if it doesn’t work, try opening the movie in QT and doing a Save As to save it as a new .mov.
For newer versions of InDesign, be sure to read Steve Werner’s post here.
Thanks David! I messed around with my QT 7 and found that if I went under Edit/Preferences/Advanced and under Media Encoding selected Enable Encoding Using Legacy codecs, then went and resaved my QT movies that I was then able to “see” the movies in my InDesign CS2 document. Phew!!!!