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Video Question


PatrickNew

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Greg Young wrote:

Update - I upgraded to S3 and a new pc running win 7 professional edition at the same time.
I now have the resizing issues folks have been talking about when running a show.
I suspect it relates to how win 7 is dealing with wmp, and is not specifically a problem with the LOR software itself, but that is pure speculation on my part.
Will spend some time playing with it when I get some time (too busy with other hobbies this time of year), and then let folks know what I find out.
Greg


Hate that you are having the resizing problems now, but at least we now have another person to help us figure out how to stop it.:P
I think it would be nice if S3 could/would keep the windows video 'in focus' during the whole show (until shutdown). Therefore avoiding any changes to the video window between sequences. Not sure if this is possible or would cause other problems though.
Certainly understand the 'too busy with other 'hobbies' this time of year'.:cool:
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Hi Paul, and group
I did take some time to file a help ticket with LOR. Here is what they told me today:

In S3 we updated the video player to the latest/greatest per Microsoft specs. Think WMP (Windows Media Player)
Pick one short video and focus on making it work right in your new computer/OS/S3 environment. Try rendering it in a different format (.AVI or .WMV) or different resolution and run your tests again to see if anything changes. You'll soon zero in on the right combination of variables to make everything work great.
We hope this has sufficiently answered your questions

I wonder if the change in wmp (when we upgraded from XP)may have affected the resizing issue we are all finding. The problem in my case is I upgraded to S3 when I got the new pc running win 7, so I did what I tell people never to do - make 2 changes at once. So it will be more challenging to see which is the culprit - wmp/win 7 or the LOR software.
Other software I run uses both displays properly, and since you all experienced this issue under win 7, before S3 if I am correct, I am thinking it's something between LOR (S2 and S3) and wmp in win 7.

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For what it's worth I've been seeing something like this, but not quite as bad (smaller frame), ever since doing video 3 seasons ago (with S2 obviously). I've been living with it, and would love to find a fix. I'll be using S3 this year as well.

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I took some time out from other activities to try a few things.
I converted a few of the wmv files to avi,and noted no difference in the issue.
When I dragged a video to the second screen (that will be replaced by the projector during the season)for any one sequence, as long as I kept the sequence editor active, all the other videos also appeared on the 2nd screen when I ran them just as they should (and used to under win XP), except they all ran minimized. I would stretch them back out to size, save the sequence, but the next time I ran that sequence it opened minimized again.
Here's the part I didn't catch before - once I closed out of the sequence editor, and then re-entered it, all the videos came back minimized as before but this time unfortunately they also appeared back on the main screen..
When I played them with wmp they played fine on either screen I selected, so I think I have ruled out a file/wmp issue.

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Yes, I had the problem with S2 and vista. Was using AL stuff before vista.

It looks to me like the LOR software (S2 or S3) actually 'releases' WMP after every sequence then 're-opens' it. This causes the flash of the desktop, or screen to minimize then maximize again.

Not 100% sure I am right, but looks like that is what is happening. I don't think any different video formats will solve this problem.

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That's what I am thinking also.
I just heard back again today. They gave me another tip to try, that might help everyone out:

"Regarding the "video opens minimized and sometimes on the wrong screen" issue: I have heard of this once (and as far as I can recall only once) before. The solution in that case was to turn down (or entirely off) the "Video Acceleration" option in Windows Media Player. Here's a web page that describes how to do so for various versions of WMP and various versions of Windows:
http://www.pixelmetrics.com/Tips/VidBlank/MediaPlayer.php"

I'll look into that, and send them a copy of my verifier, which didn't seem to show much of anything (other than a lot of channels I haven't used in some selections!), but maybe they can deduce something else. Will keep folks informed via posting here, since it appears several of us have this issue.

Greg

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In S2, my video always opened up on the correct screen, and appeared the correct size for the lion's share of the time. I'd just get a flicker (showing a small framed window of the video) between sequences, when driven by the show controller.

I had a good message-conversation with Bob of LOR at the time, and he said it was basically unavoidable, and WMP's fault (paraphrasing), but they would look for workarounds.

I did also have problems with acceleration - basically with acceleration turned all the way up, the video would "freeze", and while the audio would be correct, the video would get stuck on a frame and never change, even when the next sequence (with separate video file) would load/play. Turning down hardware acceleration (in the WMP settings - you have to launch WMP separately to get to them) fixed it for me.

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I am doing video this year for my patriotic show, and have come up with the same results as all of you.

Using Win XP, LOR 3.24 Advanced. Between sequences in the show, the small video (WMP) box shows up in the top left of the screen.

Have the desktop set to black as other have described, still can see the blue box between videos/sequences.

I would love to get rid of that pop up between videos. The video and the show work great, but that one thing is annoying.

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Here's an update.
By disabling the wmp acceleration, my shows are now playing fully again, without skipping over the video containing sequences, so we made progress.
The first video used during the show came up minimized on the wrong screen (my primary one). So I dragged it over to the second screen, and then dragged its edges to fill the screen (I tried the full screen cmd in the sequence editor, but found when I did that all subsequent videos came up full sized but on the primary (wrong) screen.
On subsequent video containing sequences in the show the video stayed on the correct screen, but it was minimzed vertically (only vertically). That could be fixed by me manually dragging the top edge of the video image to the top of the monitor's screen, at which time it filled the screen perfectly, but it needed to be done for each video containing sequence.
The good news is that there is no flash of a blue box, etc. When the video ends the screen simply goes black (my background).
So we have made a little progress. The verifier shows no errors in the video files. The show log had a couple of errors related to not finding a couple of sequences that clearly have been played in the past without issue and are still present in their original locations, so I am not sure what to make of those. Also a few were noted as having an error playing them, and were skipped over. The good news is that they were not for the most part video files...
Time to send in my verifier and show files to LOR to see if they have any insight. I will be sure to let them know a few of us are having issues.
Greg

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  • 2 weeks later...

Problem found!
I uninstalled S3 from my new win 7 pc. I then installed S2 (2.9.4), which was the first time it had been installed on this pc.
The video worked great - I told it which monitor to use, and to use full screen. It worked fine when I opened and ran sequences, but more importantly it continued to work as expected when I setup the scheduler run a show (this was last night about 1am, not too long after I got back in town from attending the Academy).
I then reinstalled S3, and it continued to work!
I deleted S2 this am to see if things would still work, and they do.
Bottom line, at least in my case, it appears S2 may have some code that sets up the dual display better than S3 does, so I would recomend if you upgrade to win 7 to install S2 first, then S3.
Who knows?? Your results may vary.
Bottom line it works the way it should!
Greg

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  • 1 month later...

I just started using videos and here is what I have found...I am running Vista with LOR 2.94...I changed my desktop to a Christmas background so that in between videos I have a nice back ground running to add to the decor outside....I ran 4 WMV files in succession and then I ran them randomly with just audio files in the show editor and then put it thru the Schedule Editor..in each case In between songs a small window appeared in the upper left corner that last for a sec or 2 then dissapeared when the next song started. I am mirroring my monitors.

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  • 3 years later...

Sorry for pulling up this ancient thread.  Did any of you find a fix to this problem?  If so, can you advise?  I am getting the same thing....little video window pops up in the upper left hand corner of the screen for a second before it vanishes and plays the video.  It's so annoying.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 11 months later...

Did anybody figure out how to force video over to the 2nd screen?  I can get over a flicker if I could just get video to play on the right screen.  It's amazing they didn't create a setting or something in the LOR software to handle this.  Nobody is going to want the video to play on their primary screen.  That's a little bit obvious. 

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Pretty simple to do   Open sequence editor  in upper tool bar click on Edit,  Click on Preferences,   click on video preferences   check display video   check use full screen  ,  select full screen monitor add select second monitor

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