using mci send string for audio and video on windows

[Mark Swindell]

Given the ubiqitous status of the ipod and itunes, you'd think Apple  
would do its best to see that at least Dells, HP's, and Gateways come  
with Quicktime installed (maybe they do, but it doesn't seem like  
it).  Last year my son had to present a multimedia project for his  
8th grade science and it was a major pain to get the teacher able to  
play the project back.  Finally a student downloaded and installed  
Quicktime for her.

Mark


On Aug 13, 2007, at 6:10 AM, Trevor DeVore wrote:

> On Aug 11, 2007, at 5:00 PM, Jeff Reynolds wrote:
>
>> Question is how steady is using mci string commands on all the  
>> various windows oses? It feels like i may be asking for a lot of  
>> trouble here. I makes things soooo much easier to let quicktime do  
>> the work on both platforms (rev does well keeping things pretty  
>> much the same on both sides of the world), but we have problems  
>> with very novice users on pc not being able to figure out how to  
>> install quicktime and also a lot of school systems have software  
>> installation blocks which makes it really hard to use anything  
>> that requires any installation like quicktime on pcs...
>>
>> Has anyone had luck with doing qt on the mac and mci on the pc for  
>> playing video/audio like this? has it made your life miserable  
>> with a lot of platform specific coding/testing? feels like a world  
>> of hurt to me...
>
> We have an application that started out using QuickTime and MCI (QT  
> if available and it could open the file on Windows, MCI otherwise).  
> This worked well until some students started showing up with some  
> computers that would lock up when using MCI (any MCI, not just  
> Rev). I think it was Dell widescreen laptops but I don't remember  
> exactly. Unable to fix the issue with driver updates we ended up  
> having to create an external that used DirectShow for playback of  
> files that QT could not open on Windows.
>
> This all happened earlier this year and there may be some new video  
> drivers that address the issue on those laptops and your target  
> audience may not even use them. Just something to keep in mind and  
> test for if you go the MCI route.
>
> -- 
> Trevor DeVore
> Blue Mango Learning Systems
> www.bluemangolearning.com    -    www.screensteps.com
>
>
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