using mci send string for audio and video on windows

[Trevor DeVore]

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