DivX 5 in AMS4

[JPasman]

Hi there,

After extensive searching on the forum I still haven't found the answer to my problem:
I want to build a presentation for a beamer, combining flash and avi-video's. The way to combine those two is to put them together in a AMS-project, or so I thought. Flash works fine, but the problem with the avi file is that it doesn't play @ 25fps, but more like two fps. It seems that AMS 4 can't handle avi-files in fullscreen mode very well.
The project's resolution is 1024*768. The AVI file is encoded in DivX 5 (codec will be available on the systems wich will run the presentation). The resolution of the avi-file is 576*432 (wich is an correct DivX-resolution), size is 4MB with an duration of 21 seconds.
I play the movie using a Media Player object, wich allows changing display size. On Play it sets to fullscreen.

What can I do to speed the playback up, because in the stand-alone Mediaplayer the file is played nice @ fps?
Thanks

[PeLLaRaS]

Re: DivX 5 in AMS4

Try this:

Open the AMS4 build project you are talking about and don't play the avi. While the menu is running, open the stand-alone Mediaplayer and load the avi and try to play it in full screen.
If you notice the same proplem with the avi in the project, it means it is a hardware proplem (not enought system resources). By the information you gave us about the avi file, it seems it has bitrate at about 1560 kbps, and because it is encoded in DivX 5, a lot of information has to be decompress while the AMS4 build project is running, moreover in full screen mode.

You can try this: go to the "Decoder Properties" of divx v5.02 and from the label "Quality Settings" check "smooth playback" and "Double Buffering". If those don't help, try decrease the "Quality Level" from the label "Postprocessing Settings". This will use less system resources, so AMS4 project can use them. DivX5 decoder (only version 5.02) has a hidden "Force Color Mode" control which you can use to resolve your proplem. Read more about this here:

http://www.divx.com/divx/divx_win_versions.php (for DivX5)
http://www.divx.com/divx/divxpro_win_versions.php (for DivX5 Pro)

Read the 6th bullet for both links.

[JPasman]

Re: DivX 5 in AMS4

thank you for your extensive information.
You were close to the bitrate, wich lies around the 1800 kbit/s. Odd enough, it plays excellent in windows media player, even fullscreen. But not in an AMS4 project. The difference in performance between MediaPlayer and AMS4 where so big (25FPS vs 3fps) that I don't think that it could be compensated by finetuning the DivX-file.
My actual question is: is AMS4 able to play a mediaplayer object in real fullscreen mode, instead of spreading the video over my whole screen (without using the MediaPlayer's real fullscreen mode)?

[Lorne]

Re: DivX 5 in AMS4

My actual question is: is AMS4 able to play a mediaplayer object in real fullscreen mode, instead of spreading the video over my whole screen (without using the MediaPlayer's real fullscreen mode)?

That question doesn't really make any sense. You're asking how to make it go full screen, without making it go full screen. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Can you rephrase it? Or elaborate?

Any other differences between the two? You wouldn't happen to have more than one video object trying to play at once, or something...? Where is the file located (on a hard drive, CD, etc.)?

[JPasman]

Re: DivX 5 in AMS4

ok, i'll give it a shot:
in Media Player, you can play a videofile at 50, 100 and 200% of its original size. If your screen-resolution is 1024*768, and your videofile is 512*432, than it covers your whole screen when you play it at 200%. Still, you are not playing the AVI in fullscreen mode, wich supports video-overlay (Media Player gets a significant performance-boost when it plays your video in fullscreen mode instead of playing enlarged in a windows).
Now I encountered the following phenomenon:
my divx file (576*432, 1800kbit/s) plays excellent in fullscreen-mode in Mediaplayer. However, when I insert a mediaplayer object in AMS4 and give it the attribute to play it fullscreen, it's like I'm watching a slideshow instead of 25fps video. So my guess: AMS4 enlarges the video until it matches the screen-resolution, but doing this without the fullscreen- mode used in Media Player. Real-time enlarging DivX-files outside the fullscreen-mode in Mediaplayer is very heavy stuff for your computer (at mine 1Ghz it is), but when you switch to fullscreen, your problem is solved. I'd like to know how I can approach this fullscreen-mode in AMS4, so my DivX-file plays smooth.
I hope I succeeded in making myself clear this time.
(sorry for my grammatical mistakes, I'm only a dutchman...)

[Lorne]

Re: DivX 5 in AMS4

AFAIK, there is absolutely no difference between full-screen mode in an out of AutoPlay. All of that magic, after all, is being done by the WMP ActiveX control. AutoPlay just tells the control "hey, go full screen...uh, you know how" and the control does whatever it does.

This might be an issue with trying to make an embedded control go beyond its parent window, but I dunno enough about that.

Since you just want the whole thing full screen anyway, why not just call WMP itself, and pass it the arguments to make it go full screen? Since you're going full screen anyway, it doesn't really have to be embedded, does it?

It would be interesting to see if that would work any better. It could also be that your system just doesn't have the horsepower to decode DivX while running your AutoPlay application. (I'd find that hard to believe, though.)

[JPasman]

Re: DivX 5 in AMS4

ok, now i'm getting somewhere [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/laugh.gif[/img].
Your idea of calling in WMPlayer and passing it the argument to go fullscreen sounds good, though it doesn't look very good when you see WMplayer started on a beamer in a shopping-mall (cause that's what the DivX-file is made for, after all). Is it possible to start it fullscreen without seeing it being started? and how can I do this from AMS4, because when I know that, I can combine the DivX file with Flash and PDF-material, the stuff that is filling the rest of the time of the presentation. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img].

[Lorne]

Re: DivX 5 in AMS4

Hmmm. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] You could maybe call it with a "File - Execute" action set to open it Minimized, and then use some Window actions to restore that window...

That would prevent you from being able to use "Wait for return", though, which may be an issue.

There might be some command line arguments you can pass to hide that stuff, but I'm not aware of them...