Playing Movies On a Multimedia PC

Once you've created a Director movie, you display it on any Multimedia PC that has the Multimedia Movie Player dynamic link library (MMP.DLL) loaded on its system. If your movie uses the Media Control Interface (MCI) to control audio or an external device, then the MCIMMP.DRV device driver must also be installed. The MDK's Getting Started book describes how to include these files with your application.

There are three ways for Windows with Multimedia to play your movie:

You can use the application programming interface (API) supported by the Movie Player DLL. To use the Movie Player API, you must write a custom movie-player program. The MDK includes a sample application called MMPLAY that uses the Movie Player functions (it does not use the MCI animation commands). MMPLAY is supplied in C source-code format; if you have Microsoft C and the Microsoft Windows SDK, you can build it and use it to test your movies. It also serves as an example from which you can build your own player.

You can run animations from the Multimedia Windows Media Player applet. Windows with Multimedia includes the Media Player, an application that you can use when testing your movie. Media Player (MPLAYER.EXE) is a general-purpose MCI player that allows you to control MCI devices installed on your system. Use the MCI “animation” device to play movies. Refer to the Media Player help file for instructions.

Finally, any authoring environment that supports the use of MCI (such as Asymetrix ToolBook) can play movie files using the MCI animation device.

The Programmer's Workbook discusses the methods of playing movie files, and the Programmer's Reference describes the MCI command messages, MCI command strings, and Movie Player functions that an application can use to play movie files.

The remainder of this chapter discusses the capabilities of the Movie Player and discusses guidelines for authoring Director files for playback under Windows with Multimedia.