Insert video clip in a lyx presentation and play it in GNU/Linux

Question

How can I insert a video clip into a presentation created in Lyx?

Have seen http://www.latex-community.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=48. It works, but there the video starts in the background in an external player.

I would prefer it to be played in the presentation itself. If an external player is used it it should at least start in the foreground. But the presentation takes the foreground. Using evince in GNU/linux as pdf viewer. Beamer is used as a presentation template.

Is it possible to play a video file in an embedded player in the presentation itself?

Created an example presentation. The code is found below.

\documentclass[english]{beamer}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin9]{inputenc}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{amssymb}

\makeatletter
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Textclass specific LaTeX commands.
 % this default might be overridden by plain title style
 \newcommand\makebeamertitle{\frame{\maketitle}}%
 \AtBeginDocument{
   \let\origtableofcontents=\tableofcontents
   \def\tableofcontents{\@ifnextchar[{\origtableofcontents}{\gobbletableofcontents}}
   \def\gobbletableofcontents#1{\origtableofcontents}
 }
 \makeatletter
 \long\def\lyxframe#1{\@lyxframe#1\@lyxframestop}%
 \def\@lyxframe{\@ifnextchar<{\@@lyxframe}{\@@lyxframe<*>}}%
 \def\@@lyxframe<#1>{\@ifnextchar[{\@@@lyxframe<#1>}{\@@@lyxframe<#1>[]}}
 \def\@@@lyxframe<#1>[{\@ifnextchar<{\@@@@@lyxframe<#1>[}{\@@@@lyxframe<#1>[<*>][}}
 \def\@@@@@lyxframe<#1>[#2]{\@ifnextchar[{\@@@@lyxframe<#1>[#2]}{\@@@@lyxframe<#1>[#2][]}}
 \long\def\@@@@lyxframe<#1>[#2][#3]#4\@lyxframestop#5\lyxframeend{%
   \frame<#1>[#2][#3]{\frametitle{#4}#5}}
 \makeatother
 \def\lyxframeend{} % In case there is a superfluous frame end

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% User specified LaTeX commands.
\usetheme{Warsaw}
\usepackage{hyperref}

\makeatother

\usepackage{babel}

\begin{document}

\title{Testing video}

\makebeamertitle

\lyxframeend{}\section{Testing video}


\lyxframeend{}\subsection{Testing video}


\lyxframeend{}\lyxframe{Testing video}

\href{run:video.wmv}{Movie}

\appendix

\lyxframeend{}
\end{document}

Answer 1

It seems that what you're asking for is (now, maybe not previously?) possible using Okular as the viewer. Be sure to include \usepackage{multimedia} in the LaTeX preamble, then you can add in ERT:

\movie[
height = 0.6 \textwidth, 
width = 1.0 \textwidth,
showcontrols
] 
{} {movie.mp4}

This (sort of) works on my system though most of the options for the \movie command don't work, like poster, autostart, etc. However showcontrols does work -- though if the movie runs to completion, then the controls disappear until the presentation is restarted. Nonetheless, I didn't know of any way to have movies embedded in Linux before so it's a start.

For the record I have Ubuntu 10.10, with Okular 0.11.2. I'm also using LyX 2.0.0 which is pretty new but I don't think the LyX version should matter.

Some helpful links:

• http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=593477
• http://mirror.ctan.org/macros/latex/contrib/beamer/doc/beameruserguide.pdf