How to embed movies/video in Openoffice Impress presentations under Linux

2005-03-05 M. Zingale

In Openoffice.org 2.0, multimedia is handled by the Java Media Framework (JMF). Setting up JMF is quite a pain, since neither Mozilla nor Openoffice.org seem to respect the CLASSPATH. These steps were tested on both Redhat 8.0 and Fedora Core 2. Your mileage might vary.

• Install j2re and mozilla-j2re packages. RPMs of these can be downloaded from Dag Wieers Java page.
• Make sure that java is in your path. In your .cshrc add:
  setenv PATH /usr/lib/jre/bin/:$PATH
• Get the Java Media Framework and install it:
  sh ./jmf-2_1_1e-linux-i586.bin
  chown -R username:username JMF-2.1.1e
  initialize things (even though the install script did it as well), by running $JMFHOME/bin/jmfinit
• setup the JMF environment. Add to you .cshrc
  setenv JMFHOME /home/username/JMF-2.1.1e/
  setenv CLASSPATH $JMFHOME/lib/jmf.jar:$JMFHOME/lib/mediaplayer.jar:$JMFHOME/lib/multiplayer.jar
  setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH $JMFHOME/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
  setenv PATH ${PATH}:$JMFHOME/bin
  and then make the changes stick, source .cshrc
• now try running jmstudio in $JMFHOME/bin. This will pop up a little window, go to the File menu and open an MPEG-1 movie and ensure that it plays.
• Fow what ever reason, things don't seem to respect the CLASSPATH, so copy all the contents of the JMF lib/ directory into the JRE extension directory (as root):
  cp $JMFHOME/lib/* /usr/lib/jre/lib/ext
• Now test things out in Mozilla, to ensure that the JRE sees the JMF stuff. Sun has a diagnostic page for this. Go to JMF diagnostics and make sure that is says:
  JMF Version... 2.1.1e
  
  All Java Build
  Native Libraries Found
  
  If you don't see this, then OOo will not work either. Most likely, something was not copied into the right directory in the step above.
• Get the latest Openoffice.org build, untar and install (skipping the suse-menus RPM on a Redhat system).
• Launch Openoffice.org,
  /opt/openoffice.org1.9.79/program/soffice
  Go to Tools/Options/Java/Class Path and add $JMFHOME/lib and exit OOo.
• Now things should all be set. relaunch Openoffice.org and create a presentation and try embedding movies.

updated March 5, 2005

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