beamer, media9 - play multiple videos at once

Question

I need to play two videos at once on a slide - it is pretty straightforward to show a single video, however, if I want to show two videos on a single slide simultaneously, it doesn't work - only one video is running.

\frame
{
  \frametitle{Motivation}
  \begin{columns}
    \column{.5\textwidth}
       Video1
       \movie[label=show1, height=4cm, width=5cm,poster,autostart]{}{results1.avi}
    \column{.5\textwidth}
      Video2
      \movie[label=show2, height=4cm, width=5cm,poster,autostart]{}{results2.avi}
  \end{columns}
}

Any suggestions? thx...

---

alright, I have media9, however, I'm not able to play any video

\includemedia[
  addresource=results.avi,
  width=5cm, height=4cm,
  flashvars={
    source=results.avi
   &autoPlay=true
  }
]{\fbox{Play}}{VPlayer.swf}

results.avi is in the same folder as slides.tex, slides.pdf

what's wrong?

is there any simple example? I've already read the package documentation, however there are so many options, that I really don't need... Which player should I use?

---

alright, it seems that .flv does the job, however I have few more questions?

1. How can I play it in a loop (add &loop=true below autoPlay doesn't work)?
2. How can I show some menubar (play/pause, ...) - it isn't necessary to add the buttons into the pdf, show play/pause, etc. on hover is enough (e.g. similar behavior as flash player, etc.)

Answer 1

First of all you need your video files in MP4 format with H.264 compression. See section 1 of the media9 documentation on how to recode existing video files / how to recreate them from bitmaps. AVI format is not supported.

To start two or more videos at once, a media button can be inserted that controls them all. Looping the videos is enabled by adding loop=true to the Flash variables:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{media9}

\begin{document}
\includemedia[
  label=vidA,
  addresource=results1.mp4,
  activate=pageopen,
  width=5cm, height=4cm,
  flashvars={
     source=results1.mp4
    &loop=true
  }
]{}{VPlayer.swf}

\includemedia[
  label=vidB,
  addresource=results2.mp4,
  activate=pageopen,
  width=5cm, height=4cm,
  flashvars={
     source=results2.mp4
    &loop=true
  }
]{}{VPlayer.swf}

\mediabutton[
  mediacommand=vidA:playPause,
  mediacommand=vidB:playPause
]{\fbox{Play/Pause}}
\end{document}