MP3 without QuickTime on Windows

[Klaus Major]

Hi Ben,

> 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.

"player" objects rely on QuickTime or Windwos Media!!!

> 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?

Yes, exactly!

You need at least ONE multimedia architecture on the target pc when 
using
"player" objects!

>  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.

Controller are a QuickTime ONLY feature!
We are not using QuickTIme just for fun ;-)

> So what counts as the minimum installation to play MP3 in this way?  
> Or in
> fact any external audio file?

I won't sign this ;-, but WindowsMediaPlayer version  >= 6.5 should be 
the least requirement
to play MP3...

> (Is there another way to play external audio files without using a 
> player object?)

Only uncompressed AIF (and WAV files, but that does not look to be 
correct) and
(compressed) AU files can be played by "play ac xyz" without 
QuickTime/WindowsMedia...

QUOTE:
"(Player) ...that uses QT, which although much slower and more memory 
intensive can play
many more formats than the default play command which uses low-level 
sound routines
in Win32 and MacOS which don't support compression.

Posted 9/2/2002 by Scott Raney to the MetaCard List"

> Any enlightenment gratefully received,

Hope that helps...

This is just a rule of thumb and will not prevent you to TEST, TEST, 
TEST, TEST, TEST and TEST...

Since we're talking about WINDOWS, it will NOT "play for sure" ;-)

>   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

Regards

Klaus Major
klaus at major-k.de
http://www.major-k.de