Video Frame position

[Tim Fischer]

I'm attempting to use video with this year's show. So far, things are going pretty smoothly, but I have one question: When using full-screen video, between sequences, I'm getting the "video frame" (as if I wasn't using full-screen video) blinking on the screen briefly, before LOR/WMP switches back to full-screen video. It's not a big deal, but on the black background I'm using, the blue frame is distracting and looks a little unprofessional.

Ideally, I'd find a way to eliminate it, but barring that, I'd like to move it to a less-conspicuous location. When in non-full-screen mode, I can drag and resize this window, and the position 'sticks' for the rest of that LOR sesson. But when I quit and restart (or run the show), it reverts to the small, upper-left hand position.

Any thoughts? I'm using multiple monitors, if that makes a difference...



Thanks!

-Tim

[Tim Fischer]

Bueller? Bueller?

Anyone have a clue what I'm talking about? I'm not sure I was clear in the description of the problem...

[WayneKremer]

Tim, I know exactly what you are talking about. It's LOR telling the Media Player to play this video (before it actually opens the full screen video player). It drives me crazy too and IMHO should be changed to have the window either be hidden (completely) or allow you to choose which monitor to display it on (preferrably not the projector monitor).

[Ponddude]

Honestly Tim, I just don't know. I know what you are saying as I saw that as well, however time just got away from me and I took away video from my display this year. I haven't been able to play with it as much as I would have liked too. I honestly don't know how to get it to go away.

Bob is very good at answering PM's. Send him a message and see what he says. He always helps me with software things.

[Tim Fischer]

One final bump of this thread-- anyone found a workaround for this, or does everyone just live with it?

Thanks,

-Tim

[Charles Belcher]

Tim Fischer wrote:

One final bump of this thread-- anyone found a workaround for this, or does everyone just live with it?

Thanks,

-Tim

Tim,

I am using video for the first time this year as well. My work-a-round is to have one and only one file and for that file to be a .wmv file. My show is 30 minutes long and thus the file is 30:00.00 long. When there is video, the video plays with the audio, when there is no video only the audio plays.

Charles

[Tim Fischer]

Charles Belcher wrote:

Tim Fischer wrote:

One final bump of this thread-- anyone found a workaround for this, or does everyone just live with it?

Thanks,

-Tim

Tim,

I am using video for the first time this year as well. My work-a-round is to have one and only one file and for that file to be a .wmv file. My show is 30 minutes long and thus the file is 30:00.00 long. When there is video, the video plays with the audio, when there is no video only the audio plays.

Charles

Thanks for the tip.

I'd like to avoid doing that, as it would be hard to convert my show to one file, and it limits the flexibilty of changing the show throughout the season (e.g. running a shorter show as traffic picks up...)

[WayneKremer]

Bump!

This problem is starting to drive me crazy. It's really annoying to show the small video window to the whole world. Everytime it comes up when I'm viewing it with someone outside, they ask, "What is that?".

Is this window absolutely necessary? Can it be eliminated? If it is necessary, can it be moved to the other display (since most of us are running dual screen setups)?

I would think this would be a quick and easy fix. If it is more complex, please let us know. I've requested this fix a couple times now in the wishlist, but haven't seen it fixed yet and it's one of those things that drives me up the wall when I see it and get questioned on it. What will it take to fix? Thx!

[Tim Fischer]

Bob (from LOR) and I had an offline discussion about this. It's not as easy of a fix as it might appear, since Windows Media Player is responsible for this behavior.

[WayneKremer]

Tim, glad to hear you had that conversation. I'm not so glad to hear it is WMP causing the problem. Was Bob ever going to look into it deeper? A possible solution is for LOR to throw out a black (or user definable) screen that has the focus while WMP does it's thing.

[michael.farney]

I'd love to see a better solution too, but I just live with it for now. I think Charles has the best answer -- even though it can make the show inflexible.

[WayneKremer]

Ya, one mega show won't work for me. If your show is 40 minutes long and the last show of the night starts at 9:58PM (when the show officially ends at 10:00PM), it won't really end until 10:38PM. Also, it's inflexible for changing sequences around, adding new ones, etc. It's a fix...but an ugly one.

At one time I thought I heard of someone grabbing the window while it was pulled up and dragging it to the other monitor. From that point on, it would open on that monitor UNTIL you reboot (or restart LOR). I never tried that, but that is a temporary fix and tough for me because I can't see the projector screen from where I have the computer.

[chartrand]

Could you make the video larger (zoom out) so the frame that appears is outside the screen and thus never seen? Or can you add something like garlin to the screen where the annoing frame is to try and hide it?

-Pat

[Tim Fischer]

chartrand wrote:

Could you make the video larger (zoom out) so the frame that appears is outside the screen and thus never seen?  Or can you add something like garlin to the screen where the annoing frame is to try and hide it?

-Pat

The problem is I'm using 640x480 for my videos (standard definition video). The screen resolution is much larger- 1280x1024 I think, and when I experimented with making it 640x480, windows media player hated it and wouldn't play the videos. So the video frame is relatively small (about 1/8 the screen size) and annoying.

[chartrand]

Not resolution I mean size, so lets say you have the projector 10 Feet from the screen and you get a maximum screen size of say 6 feet. And your screen is also 6 feet in size you you have a perfect match. What I'm saying is to move the projector back yet another foot or more so the projected screen is a bit larger than your physical screen and as a result the border never appears. This is possible is you using something like the Mega Wreath, but not so if your using a side of your house or garage door for the screen. I've not done the video yet to see shat your referring to here, so maybe I'm way off base and when media player does the border around the screen, it does is smaller than the screen and this would not work anyway.

As a side note did you know there is an option to change the color of the border in the preferences?

Just finished reading a thread http://forums.creativecow.net/archivethread/3/424232, on this and while it takes some time it does try to explain what's going on. The person questioning things was going to re-export to 360X240 instead of the more traditional 320x240 in an attempt to remove the letterboxing.

-Pat

[WayneKremer]

Pat, that article refers to the black bars within the video itself (letterboxing). The problem we are having has to do with the way LOR calls out Windows Media Player to show a video. A smaller window appears...and it doesn't appear to be the normal Windows Media Player itself. After the file is loaded, the window disappears.

As a matter of fact, I accidentally forgot to edit it out in my video here:

http://www.nevadachristmas.com/FoodCloset2008Video.htm

You can see it at the very beginning. Since I'm using Flash, you can even move the video and pause it at that point. Although I could greatly increase the size of the video (for all my videos) and hope that it would move off the screen, I'm betting it still would be visible. Doing so would also greatly increase the size of the files and leave that small window up on the screen even longer.

Has anyone experimented with changing the theme or changing the Windows appearance through the advanced appearance properties? Maybe Windows borders could be changed to be black (or very dark gray).

[bob]

We've looked at this problem, and unfortunately haven't yet been able to come up with a real solution to it. A couple potential workarounds:

(1) The one that Wayne mentions above: Play around with your Windows display settings to try to minimize the obtrusiveness of the frame.

(2) If you have multiple monitors, you can tell Windows that one is stacked on top of another. If you do that, I think you should be able to be able to make it so that WMP's title bar (which I imagine is probably the most annoying part of the frame) is completely off screen (on the screen "above" your video display).

[WayneKremer]

Bob, thanks for replying! I'll have to experiment with option 1. As for option 2, my screens are extended horizontally. Are you saying to arrange it in a vertical orientation?

I'm not sure of the behavior of that WMP window. Does it always appear on the screen that you show your videos on? It is possible to move that window to the screen that LOR is not showing the videos on? If so, that would fix the problem. Thx!

[bob]

I'm not saying you have to physically arrange them vertically; just that you might want to try telling Windows that the monitor you're going to display the video on is under some other monitor.

I haven't tried it myself, so I'm not sure if it would work.

Another thing to try, though, is to do the same thing, but not put WMP into full screen mode. Instead, adjust the size of the (windowed) WMP so that its border is on other monitors.

[WayneKremer]

Thanks Bob. When I get everything up and running, I'll try experimenting here with it. If anyone else comes up with a solution, please post it here. Thx!