Digital Workshop

I have a strange problem with video playback.

I have a CBT package installed on 7 machines, for some reason 2 of the machines will not playback the video correctly.

When you playback the MPG video using the standard video screen it starts to jump, crackle and generally speed up. If i play the video outside of Opus XE using the windows player I dont have any problems.

I have tried networking from a machine that has no problems, but the playback is the same, so I guess the problem is in the machine itself.

The machines were delivered from Dell and have no other software on them apart from windows. I have even put on SP2 to see if that helps, but to no avail.

I am in the middle of a course now and really need all 6 machines to work, can anyone give me any advice.

Ta

Karl

Hi,

Thank you for your enquiry.

Please first ensure that the videos are encoded in MPEG-1 format. All versions of Windows since Windows 95 have included Microsoft's MPEG-1 decoder and should be able to view these files without problems. If the videos are encoded in MPEG-2 format, the end-user's system will need to have a software DVD decoder installed to correctly display the files and higher bandwidth is required to display the videos correctly which may not be within the capabilities of the CD-ROM drives on these machines.

You state that you have tested these files on the problem machines using Windows Media Player and the files displayed correctly. Could you please confirm whether the files were being played from the CD or if you copied the files to the hard disk before playing? If you played the files from the hard disk, try playing the video files from a CD-ROM and see if Windows Media Player displays the problem. If so, it would suggest that the bit rate of your video files is set too high for reliable playback on slower CD-ROM drives. If you have not yet done so, try resizing your video frames to match the size of the video object in your Opus publication. This should greatly reduce the amount of data which needs to be streamed from the disc to ensure smooth playback.

If the problem persists, Opus may be encountering problems communicating with Windows Media Player, the DirectX components or your currently-installed graphics drivers and I would recommend carrying out the following steps on the problem systems:

If the problem system is running Windows XP, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... nload.aspx and follow the on-screen instructions to download and install Windows Media Player 10.

If the system is running Windows 98, ME or 2000, please visit http://www.microsoft.com/windows/window ... player.asx and follow the on-screen instructions to download and install Windows Media Player 9.

Once the appropriate version of Windows Media Player is installed, please visit www.microsoft.com/windows/directx and follow the instructions given at the web site to locate, download and install the latest version of DirectX.

Once DirectX has been updated and the system restarted, please use the following procedure to update your graphics drivers:

- Click Start > Settings > Control Panel > System
- Select the Device Manager tab (if you are using Windows 2000 or XP, you will need to select the Hardware tab and then click the Device Manager button)
- You should see a list of hardware types currently installed on your machine. Click on the plus-sign next to the Display Adapters entry to display the corresponding component
- Make a note of the make, model and any other information displayed
- Now visit the manufacturer's website (in most cases, this will be either www.nvidia.com, www.ati.com or www.matrox.com) and click the Download Drivers link on the homepage
- Follow the on-screen instructions to locate the latest drivers for your model of graphics card. Once located, download and install the drivers using any advice given on the manufacturer's site.
- Once the latest drivers have been installed and the system restarted, please try running the publication and see if the issue can be reproduced

I hope this helps. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any further queries.

Kind regards,

Have done all of the above and still the video plays strange, it starts to speed up. It gets much worse if you use the forward or back keys on the video player to the extent that you cannot understand the audio

I have tested it with the Opus XE program before compiling and I have the same problem. It also appears when you use the preview function in the editor.

What is annoying is that it is only 2 machines out of 7, if I cant sort this out I will have to run the videos direct inside windows media player.

Have you tried changing the video mode to see if this has any effect on the problem?

If you are using Opus Pro XE 2.81, try opening the video properties and changing the Always on Top setting (so if it is enabled, disable it, and vice versa).

If you are using Opus Pro XE 04.50, try opening the video properties, clicking the Change button in the Video Type settings, and setting the video to Rendered. This will use Windows Media Player as a frameserver, treating each frame of the video as a separate image and may resolve the problem.

Now apply the changes, republish and test on the problem machines to see if the problem is resolved.

Please let me know the outcome.

Kind regards,

I have done all of the above and the problem is still there. If I change the file to windows media then the problems goes away, so I presume it is something to do with the MPG file.

I do not want to rencode all my video files back to WMV, as I have over 40

I am using Opus XE 4.21

Hi,

Thank you for your enquiry.

It is unlikely that Opus is publishing the file or video incorrectly, or you would notice the problem on all systems. However, we can eliminate this possibility by cleaning reinstalling and updating Opus using the following procedure:

Please first uninstall all versions of Opus from your system. To do this, click Start > Settings > Control Panel > Add/Remove Programs. Look through the list of installed programs for any references to Illuminatus Opus, Illuminatus Opus Pro, Opus Pro XE, Opus Presenter, Opus Pro 04 or Opus Presenter 04. If found, click on the entry to highlight it, then click the Remove button to uninstall the software.

Once all versions of Opus have been uninstalled, please right-click on your Start button and select Explore... Navigate to C:\Program Files and look for any folders referring to Illuminatus Opus, Illuminatus Opus Pro, Opus Pro XE or Opus Presenter. If found, simply click on the folder to highlight it, then press Delete on the keyboard.

Once all Opus program folders have been deleted, click Start > Run, type regedit and click OK. Double-click on the HKEY_CURRENT_USER folder to display its contents. Double-click on the Software folder to display its contents. Now single-click on the Digital Workshop folder to highlight it and press Delete on the keyboard. Click Yes to confirm the deletion. Now please close the Registry Editor using the X icon in the top-right of the screen.

Now reinstall Opus Pro 04 from the original CD-ROM. Once installed, please download and install the latest Service Release from:

ftp://ftp.digitalworkshop.com/pub/opusu ... 04_SR4.exe

This will update Opus Pro 04 to version 04.50. Now launch Opus Pro 04, load in your publication and publish. Burn the resulting files to a CD and test on the problem machines to see if the problem has been resolved.

Kind regards,