Videos partially cut off in Windows 7

[CBSection31]

Hi all,

I'm playing around with a few AM projects at the moment, mostly for fun, when I discovered something odd...

When I have a frame play a video sequence, the entire sequence doesn't playin the window...only a portion of it plays, with the regular backdrop showing on the rest of the screen. The portion of the video that is shown is always square. See the attached picture for an example. Note that the square moves around each time a new video is played. Sometimes, the square is positioned so that I can see a lot of the video, whereas other times it is almost hidden completely.

My current PC has Windows 7 on it, and I've never used AM on it before...so I don't know if this is a common Windows 7 problem or not.

The interesting thing is that my published game, The Filmmaker, also has this error...and hasn't, to my knowledge, on any other Win 7 system.

Does anyone have any ideas what could be causing this? Thanks!

[mercedes]

..hm..
Changing the coordinates..Did that do anything..or did you add video again..from scratch...?

That happened to me once before...I just added the video again...

Did you add the video/sound script procedure for Windows 7..in Global procedure..?

[reneuend]

This has also happened to me in the past, but I think its because my video frame size didn't match the AM Project settings....but, its been awhile and I can't remember the real issue. I was able to correct it though.

[CBSection31]

Thanks for the replies. A few follow-up notes to this:

- The video is not coordinate-based; it is set to play full-screen.

- The video's resolution matches the game window's.

- I discovered that this same problem is also happening in the games I made in Multimedia Fusion, which is a different development platform. Thus, whatever the issue is, it has to be related to something that is configured or installed on my computer and not AM itself.

[reneuend]

Ouch! so, its only on your computer? If you find it, could you document on this thread what caused it? This might help someone else should they run into a similar situation.

I hope you find it!

[CBSection31]

Yes, it's definitely only on my main computer. On my laptop and second PC, the games work fine. If I find a solution, I will post it here, though I'm not hopeful at this point. I uninstalled all video codecs and still the problem occurred.

Here's something interesting though... I tried playing some Xvid-encoded videos, and the error occurred. I uninstalled the Xvid codec from my PC, and these video files no longer played in Windows Media Player but STILL worked in Adventure Maker!

This leads me to believe that the problem may be that another program is attempting to play back the video files in AM instead of Windows Media Player. Is it possible for a different video program to be taking Media Player's place here, thus causing the issue?

[reneuend]

It sure sounds like it. Do you have a registry cleaner? That would be my suggestion. I personally use RegCure.

Thanks for the update.

[mercedes]

Just out of curiosity...Did you try converting the files... could it be the extensions..?

[Vengeance66]

I have problem with videos too... I stretch them to the resolution I want...

[CBSection31]

reneuend - I do; I use TuneUp Utilities, but it didn't help here.

mercedes - It occurs with non-AVI files, as well.

Vengeance66 - Stretching doesn't work on Windows 7. That's not the issue anyway, as the video plays in the right size...it's just that a large portion of it doesn't show up visually.

[time-killer-games]

What are the exact filenames of all the videos you are using including the extensions? I have a solution to your video issue.

[reneuend]

Hey! Be sure to post the solution here!!!!!!!!!!!

[CBSection31]

What are the exact filenames of all the videos you are using including the extensions? I have a solution to your video issue.

I have tried to play over two dozen videos (both within AM and Multimedia Fusion 2), with the following:

- .AVI files (Xvid, DivX, Mideo, Cinepack, and Indeo codecs)

- .WMV files (various compressions)

- Theora encoded videos

I can provide the exact filenames if necessary, but seeing as my games collectively feature over 100 different files, that may take some time. I don't see how that would help. Could you explain?

[time-killer-games]

I intend to compile some (rather small in size) EXEs that will play the video in fullscreen, and close after the video is finnished. But I can't do that unless I know the filenames for the video players to detect. That way you use OpernExeFileAndWait instead of the video player object.

Your welcome

[CBSection31]

Ah, I see. How will the EXEs you create play the video, though? If they use Windows Media Player in any way, then the same error will occur. The only way I can perceive for this to work would be if the EXEs have their own video decoder built-in. Theoretically, that WOULD work, granted. It would, however, lead to licensing issues, potentially making the use of the videos illegal without obtaining rights to a video decoder.

In any case, I don't think this solution will work for me, as the problem exists on my pre-existing games. I can't retroactively edit my already-published games to embed these exe files. As for new games in development, it would be cumbersome and unprofessional to include a separate executable for every playable video...not to mention the potential anti-virus heuristics issues.

Thanks for thinking out of the box, though!

I think I'm just going to have to determine the cause instead of finding a workaround.

[CBSection31]

Just posting to report to everyone that my problem mysteriously disappeared today after updating to the latest version of Catalyst, which just came out.

I had previously already tried re-installing my drivers, and they did not fix the error. They are, however, fixed in the new version.

Could all of this have been some kind of bug with AMD's Catalyst!?!

[Vengeance66]

Thanks about the information...

I had a problem like this and I just stretched the video to the resolution of the game. That solved the problem, but that was not the idea...