MP3 without QuickTime on Windows

[Ben Rubinstein]

On Sep 19, 2004, at 13:18:38 ETD, Klaus Major wrote:

> mp3 can be played with or without* quicktime in a player object.
> WMA are not supported right out of the box...
>
> *on Windows

In my trivial test (set the filename of a player to the path to the mp3
file; start the player) this isn't working, with a standalone on a machine
running Windows XPembedded, without QuickTime or Windows Media Player.

Also possibly worth noting, on the XPe machine I can play wav files embedded
in the standalone as an audio clip (but not external wav files through a
player).  

I have limited opportunities to investigate on the target platform (and
we're extremely tight on space on the boot disk).

Do I need to do something special in the way I build the standalone?  Or is
it that on Windows you don't need QuickTime - but only providing you do have
Windows Media?  I have tried running the same test on a PC running a
standard installation of XP, from which I'd removed QuickTime (fully, as far
as I can tell) and indeed was able to play an MP3 file, with a gratifying
display glitch where the controller/player should have been.

So what counts as the minimum installation to play MP3 in this way?  Or in
fact any external audio file?  (Is there another way to play external audio
files without using a player object?)

Any enlightenment gratefully received,

  Ben Rubinstein               |  Email: benr_mc at cogapp.com
  Cognitive Applications Ltd   |  Phone: +44 (0)1273-821600
  http://www.cogapp.com        |  Fax  : +44 (0)1273-728866