[OS X TeX] pdflatex + multimedia + Acrobat Reader issue

[William Slough]

Hi all,

I am creating a set of Beamer slides, both for a presentation and for
distribution to the participants. These slides contain a few multimedia
inclusions (mp4 and m4v files). I have had success including these in my
slides in the past, so I have a basic acquaintance with the multimedia
package. I am using Acrobat Reader in my presentation and I don't have any
choice there since I am using a university-supplied computer.

Here's the issue. It seems Acrobat has gotten much fussier in the last year
in the attempt to protect users. Now, when it gets to those slides with the
mp4 or m4v files, a dialog box appears with a warning, indicating it is
about to launch the file. Upon providing permission to do so, Acrobat
simply gives up, claiming the file cannot be opened. This is new behavior:
it used to just give a warning and ask permission.

I have found that I can adjust Acrobat's preferences --- under "Security
(Enhanced)", turning off the "Enable Protected Mode at startup" --- and
this leads to the desired behavior of playing the multimedia file. While
this is acceptable for my personal use, this is too complicated to explain
to my audience members if they wish to replay my slides on their own.

So, here is my question: might there be some way of processing my LaTeX
file to imbue it with some kind of trust certificate that Acrobat would
sense and then just open the multimedia files without incident?

There are apparently other ways to inform Acrobat that files about to be
displayed can be trusted, by placing them in specific folders and adding
their paths to a database known to Acrobat. I haven't had success with this
approach and it is also too difficult to describe to my audience members,
most of whom would not be able to make those Acrobat configuration changes.

I am hoping for one of two solutions:
   1. A way to add something to my LaTeX source file that would provide the
trust Acrobat seeks.
   2. A way to get Acrobat to adjust my PDF file, adding some kind of trust
certificate so that the file would play the included multimedia files.

Any ideas?

Thank you.

Bill Slough
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