Referencing AVI Files in MIRCdocuments

This article describes how to insert AVI, WMV, MPEG, or other video files into MIRCdocuments using the File Service and the Advanced Author Tool of the RSNA MIRC implementation.

1 Overview

There are two steps in referencing an AVI file in a MIRCdocument:

1. Store the file in your file cabinet.
2. Reference the file in a paragraph.

There are two basic ways to display an AVI, by displaying a link to the AVI or by embedding the AVI in the MIRCdocument itself. In both cases, video files are currently supported only in paragraphs in normal section elements, not in image-section elements.

To display a link to the AVI, use an anchor tag. This will present a link to the AVI within the paragraph. When clicked, the user's AVI viewer will launch and display the AVI in a separate window.

Here is a <a href="path">movie</a>.

To embed the AVI in the MIRCdocument, use an embed tag. This will put a viewer in the document.

<embed src="path" style="width:100%;height:auto;"/> 

In both cases, the path must be configured to cause the Advanced Author Service to copy the referenced file from a file cabinet into the folder with the MIRCdocument's other files. The format of the path depends on which MIRC implementation you are running. See the sections below for details.

2 CTP/MIRC

The instructions in this section apply only to CTP/MIRC.

To reference an AVI in a file cabinet, the path to the referenced file cabinet folder must be enclosed in square brackets, and the filename must immediately follow the right square bracket. For example, here is an anchor tag referencing a file in the user's Misc_Files folder:

Here is a <a href="[Personal/Misc_Files]video.avi">movie</a>.

Note that only the folder path is encapsulated within the square brackets, and the path must start with either Personal or Shared.

If the referenced file is in the root of the user's Personal file cabinet, no additional path information is required, for example: [Personal]video.avi.

3 Tomcat/MIRC

The instructions in this section apply only to Tomcat/MIRC T36b or later. (Note: Tomcat/MIRC is now deprecated in favor of the CTP/MIRC implementation.)

To reference an AVI in a file cabinet, the path to the file must be completely enclosed in square brackets, and the path itself must correspond to the path that is dislayed for the file by the file cabinet. For example, here is an anchor tag referencing a file in the user's Misc_Files folder:

Here is a <a href="[Personal/Files/Misc_Files/video.avi]">movie</a>.

Note that the file name is encapsulated within the square brackets, and the path must start with either Personal/Files or Shared/Files.