Add Movie to Outlook E-Mail Message via "Web Tools" toolbar--question

[MS]

Using Outlook 2003 (in fact all of Microsoft Office 2003), and have Word
selected as e-mail editor. Windows XP Pro with all updates.

Recently I discovered on the Office web site a way to insert a movie
(inline) to an e-mail message. I have one question about its implementation.

If (in an HTML-formatted e-mail, and Word selected as e-mail editor) with
the cursor in the body of the message, you click on "View", "Toolbars", you
can select a toolbar called "Web Tools". On that is an icon that says
"Movie". If you click on it you can add a movie to the e-mail.

I was very surprised though, that in Microsoft Office, Microsoft's own movie
format is not supported. It will not recognize an .WMV movie. I tried an
..AVI movie, and that worked. (Perhaps .MPG would work, but I didn't try it.)

Anyone know why one cannot select an .WMV movie to insert? Any way to change
that?

The reason why I would find it important to be able to use an .WMV movie?
Compression. One wouldn't want a large movie in an e-mail, and an .WMV can
be compressed much smaller.

Of course, one can use a codec such as DIVX to make an .AVI movie just as
small. The problem with that would be the person on the other end would have
to have the DIVX codec installed on their computer, and most people don't
have that. On the other hand, I would assume that an .WMV movie would open
on any computer running Windows. (XP at least. I think Win 95 and 98 as
well. Correct?) (I guess if the other party has a Mac QuickTime would be
better, but many more people use Windows than Macs.)

Is there a way to change an .WMV movie so it has the compression inherent in
..WMV (so that it would play on most Windows computers, unlike something like
DIVX), but to use the .AVI file extension instead?

Any other way to make a small compressed movie that would work from this
"Web Tools" toolbar in Outlook, but that would open on most computers,
without the receive having to install a special codec, etc.?

Or again-- a way to make this function recognize an .WMV movie? (Very
surprising, for a Microsoft program not to recognize a Microsoft file
format.)

 

[Papa]

I know you asked an Outlook question, but I have no trouble inserting short
video clip attachments to OE e-mail. The trouble I do have is keeping the
size down (below 1 MB) so that the recipient's ISP will accept it. I found
that using Windows XP's "Windows Movie Maker" to shorten the length of the
video clip is very helpful.

 

[Papa]

What do you mean by an "inline video"?

Sorry Papa, but that doesn't answer the question at all. I wasn't talking
about a file attachment, but an inline video.

Also, WMM creates WMV files, and I mentioned a problem opening them using
the method I was discussing (in Outlook 2003).

 

[MS]

Not a file attachment. You open an e-mail, and you immediately see a video.

Read the original post, please. It's all there.

 

[Papa]

That's exactly what I thought. It really IS an attachment, whether you think
it is or not. Read up on the way attachments are used. Google is a very good
source.

 

[MS]

Well, you do not "attach" it in the way you attach a file to an e-mail
message. You put it in the body of the e-mail, just like you can put a
picture in a word processing document. It's part of the document.

The viewer does not see it as an "attachment", there is no paper clip icon
to click and open the attached file.

So, I don't know if in some way it IS still considered to be an attachment,
but it certainly bears no resemblance either in the procedure for the
sender, or that of the receiver. And, the receiver sees the video in the
body of the e-mail, there is no attached file to open.

Once more, if you look at my original post to this thread, it is very
explicit in describing the procedure to go through, and the problems I've
had.

Is there no one reading who can help with the problems?