Digital Workshop

Hi,

I sometimes get a complaint from an occasional client that a - widely distributed - pub won't run. The pub is big, but not complicated in structure. The complaints are:

1. On opening a pub, Windows sometimes hangs on the opening screen (a simple screen with an mp3-music file playing in the back) and wo'nt go further.

2. The pub does start, the embedded videos -and there are a lot of them - don't show, music files will play though.

I tested the pub before releasing it on all platforms (Win 7.0 (home and ultimate), Vista (home and ultimate), XP, XP sp3) and it worked fine on those systems. So I'm wondering what can cause this occasional problems. All video's are mpg-1 files which run on every system. The pub further is not compressed in any way. I suspect a corrupted codec-pack for the video's, though one client states the pub won't even run on a 'clean installed' windows XP sp3-machine, but I can't check if this is true.
The hanging on start-up I can't explain.

If anyone reading this came across the same problem and found a solution I would be much obliged to hear it.

Regards,

Ad van der Borght

For MPG1 the reverse is normally true - it's the installation of a codec pack that is likely to cause the problems. People install things like K-Lite to play MPG2 and this corrupts the MPG1 chain and crashes Opus.

However, as you state that one client has also tried this on a 'clean' system - then the other issue with any encoding - is the encoder. What was used to create the file? Generally, avoid anything that uses free / open source codecs for MPG1-2.

Although, you have tested on many machines, this is almost pointless, if you do not use a clean system. Ideally, use a clean XP as this is the base against which to measure. Vista / W7 are shipped with a different, wider range of codecs anyway.

Mack

Hi,
Thanks for the reply. This particular pub was made on a new Win 7.0 ultimate machine with no extra codecs installed as far as I know.
I'll install a fresh Win XP sp3 on one of my other computers this weekend an try the pub there. That should sort things out.

Regards,
Ad

Just to inform you.
The pub worked fine.

Regards,
Ad

I do have the same problems, with mpeg1 videos,

I have one pub done with Win7 and clean Xp sr3 on 2 different laptops and they work fine , but the pub on a pc with Win xp sr3 the video doesn't work.
So what's the solution to this problem?

-ask first the client to try the pub on his computer to see if it works then buy the publication?

-encode the videos in a new codec like , mpeg 4 , flas video? quickmovie?

-did you tried to make the pub without embedding the videos?

Hi,

In this case we advised the client to send back the pub or to try to restore the missing or corrupted codecs (Installing FFdshow worked for another problemcase). This publication is distributed so widely, that it is not doable to change it completely because of one or a few faulty machines.

At the moment I am experimenting with Flash-video for newer pubs, because Opus supports the format, the flv's ar quit compact and the quality is still really good.

Regards,

Ad