Video on windows without QT
Posted: Fri Aug 09, 2013 8:44 pm
Hi All,
This is just a note rather than a question. I have been working with one of my larger clients, Pfizer Inc/Ltd, making what was hoped to be a universal video player. Only it turns out that LiveCode in it's current state is unable to be the solution to this problem. The reason is QuickTime and RunRevs instance on it's use on every platform.
Pfizer IT and BT will not permit the installation of QuickTime on any of their Windows machines. 'That's ok', we thought, 'LiveCode allows for this with a "set the dontUseQT to true" statement'. However, we were wrong. We were under the impression that this would enable us to play any form of other media the platform could play such as WMV, MPG, MP4, AVI, etc. This is not the case. Using the 'Play' command to play a video may well allow you to physically play the video but you have virtually no control over it's playback. We needed to be able to set the playhead at various points and use timed callbacks. On a system with quicktime installed it is not a problem. Use a system without quicktime and there is no hope. The player object appears to be QuickTime only. So the object doesn't even appear in the window on a non-QT system. Only AVI's are what I've managed to get to work on a fresh WindowsXP system.
So until RunRev change their media player protocols we can't guarantee that videos will play on any system. That's quite a way off when looking at their roadmap. So for now I am forced to use RealBasic (Xojo) for desktop implementation of windows media
All the best.
Sean
This is just a note rather than a question. I have been working with one of my larger clients, Pfizer Inc/Ltd, making what was hoped to be a universal video player. Only it turns out that LiveCode in it's current state is unable to be the solution to this problem. The reason is QuickTime and RunRevs instance on it's use on every platform.
Pfizer IT and BT will not permit the installation of QuickTime on any of their Windows machines. 'That's ok', we thought, 'LiveCode allows for this with a "set the dontUseQT to true" statement'. However, we were wrong. We were under the impression that this would enable us to play any form of other media the platform could play such as WMV, MPG, MP4, AVI, etc. This is not the case. Using the 'Play' command to play a video may well allow you to physically play the video but you have virtually no control over it's playback. We needed to be able to set the playhead at various points and use timed callbacks. On a system with quicktime installed it is not a problem. Use a system without quicktime and there is no hope. The player object appears to be QuickTime only. So the object doesn't even appear in the window on a non-QT system. Only AVI's are what I've managed to get to work on a fresh WindowsXP system.
So until RunRev change their media player protocols we can't guarantee that videos will play on any system. That's quite a way off when looking at their roadmap. So for now I am forced to use RealBasic (Xojo) for desktop implementation of windows media
All the best.
Sean