Video Playlist

[Nancy]

It seems incredible to me that the only Video Playlist software available only plays back videos on the computer that created them. You can't port the playlist to another computer.
I have produced a series of training videos, on a certain subject, that I would like to distribute, but the only way I seem to be able to do this is by using Windows Explorer. I think this would be rather tacky (amateurish). Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can handle this? Thanks

[oracle128]

Are we talking about distributing a playlist to play files from a remote location (such as over a LAN or internet), or distributing the playlist along with the video files? Windows Media Player, Winamp, and most other media player playlists can be distributed to any computer, and can have local files or remote files in the list. All you need to do is set the playlist file to play the videos from the remote location using a UNC path (for playing over a LAN, you could use "\\SERVER\VIDEOS\video1.mpg" etc). Creating the playlist on a computer with the videos stored locally will only result in the playlist storing the file paths as "C:\videos\video1.mpg" etc. You can either edit the playlist file in a text editor to change the path manually, or create the playlist on a remote computer and use that (the UNC path will be the same no matter what PC it's played on). You just need to make sure the videos are in a publicly shared folder

[Nancy]

Thank you for your comprehensive reply. Unfortunately a lot of it is too techie for me, so I'll have to work things out. I used QT to make the original .avi files which have been converted to .mov. I want to save the videos to CD for distribution. I have to bear in mind that those receiving this CD will not be too computer literate, which is why the dedicated playlist software that is available, which can't be used for this purpose, would be so ideal as they are simple to use. I shall study your reply and will come be to you with, no doubt, umpteen questions.

[oracle128]

Originally Posted by Nancy

I want to save the videos to CD for distribution.

Well, that's a different kettle of fish altogether. What you're talking about is having an interactive CD load some tutorial videos. Creating a playlist for a publicly-distributed CD is difficult, because people may use different media players and some playlists files can't be read with some media players, there's no "once-size-fits-all" solution to playlists. What you might like to do is create a simple HTML web page that acts as the interface to access the videos. If you don't know how to write HTML, I can give you a basic layout, you'll need to modify it to your needs.

You'll probably also want to have Windows open the interface automatically when the disc is inserted, known as an AutoRun CD; see here to download a free utility that will open your interface. You also need a plain text file, renamed to Autorun.inf, that instructs Windows about the CD, such as what program to automatically run, what icon to use for the CD, etc. Details here.